Bethesda Charging $2.50 For Horse Armor?

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So the interweb controversy of the day is Bethesda charging $2.50 for horse armor in the Xbox Live Marketplace. Not surprising, everyone that just ran out and plopped down $59.99 for Oblivion is not happy that the first real downloadable content for the game is horse armor for $2.50, which is half the price of some full games on Xbox Live. Does this seem odd to anyone else or is it just me?

Your thoughts?
 
It's rape... I just pray that we as a whole are more discerning than average cell phone users grabbing tons of song jingles at 2 bucks+. I think that the cell phone mania is where they got the pricing idea.

As much as I love this game and Bethesda--no friggin way...

Navy
 
2.50 for Armor???!!! I think that's absolutely ridiculous... I hope no one buys it, that's something you would think would be free as a bonus for paying 59.99 for their game.
 
For a couple bucks more, I could buy adventure packs for Neverwinter Nights...
 
It's M$ that is charging for this, not Bethesda. And it's only available for 360 users (for now). I doubt that it will be "sold" to PC users, don't you think it will be a free thing for the PC? If so, how can M$ justify charging for it? Other than the have a strangle hold on the content delivery system. Monopoly at work again.
 
ArrogantWorm said:
It's M$ that is charging for this, not Bethesda. And it's only available for 360 users (for now). I doubt that it will be "sold" to PC users, don't you think it will be a free thing for the PC? If so, how can M$ justify charging for it? Other than the have a strangle hold on the content delivery system. Monopoly at work again.
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No, you're wrong. Pretty darn sure the dev sets the pricing basically on this stuff. MS *might* be owed a cut, but they are not the driver on the pricing here.
 
NavyH16 said:
No, you're wrong. Pretty darn sure the dev sets the pricing basically on this stuff. MS *might* be owed a cut, but they are not the driver on the pricing here.
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Exactly. This isn't "M$" ( :rolleyes: ). Bethesda will be trying this shit with PC users too.
 
except with pc users it will be either in a free patch, community free mods, or part of a paid expansion pack at some point in time.
 
andypnb said:
except with pc users it will be either in a free patch, community free mods, or part of a paid expansion pack at some point in time.
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Or more specifically, there's nothing stopping a community member from designing the same thing and distributing it for free.
 
I always thought it was

Support the developers by buying their games.
Support your customers (and fans) with free updates and patches.

looks more like

Support the developers by buying their games.
Rip off your customers by selling updates and patches.
 
I agree the pricing is too much for simply Horse Armor....add some more quests and unique items as well as the Horse Armor and you might have a decent deal. As it is, I still have my 200 points from my Live subscription that I haven't been able to use on anything yet.....
 
horse armor is not that needed anyway. its not like you can fight on horseback. and while monsters do attack a horse, its not hard to draw them off.
this seems to be more of a gimmick than anything else. how about fixing for xbox some of the things that have been community mod fixed for the pc.
 
Thats just stupid... lets hope its a typo and its supposed to be $0.25. even then, for $0.25, thats just stupid =]

also, I dont think it is MS putting a price on things like that, i remember reading that it was up to the dev's to price their own stuff.

what im pissed about is, When the hell are we going to have the tools to make our own content and sell it on the marketplace? Thats all they talked about before the 360 launch, putting the marketplace into the "gamers hands".

Anyways, im sure someone thought "if they'll pay $60 for a game, they'll pay 2.50 for some horse armor." as effed up as that sounds =[
 
I think you all can probably thank the WOW people for this one. Buying and selling virtual items like gold and crap like that probably got this stuck in their collective heads. Sure this sort of thing has been happening for a long time but not on the scale that it ocurred in WOW (AFAIK). I'm sure this was originally an idea that did not originate at M$ but as always when it comes to $$$ M$ jumps on the bandwagon.

I have to admit tho that I'm confused...I keep seeing where you can spend $2.50 or 200 points for this crap. What's the difference?
 
people were buying and selling "virtual gold and crap" for many years before WOW.

even in the early UO/diablo days
 
Wolf-R1 said:
I have to admit tho that I'm confused...I keep seeing where you can spend $2.50 or 200 points for this crap. What's the difference?
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$2.50 buys you 200 points, everything in the marketplace sells for points, which you buy for $$$. (IE each point costs $0.0125)
 
NavyH16 said:
No, you're wrong. Pretty darn sure the dev sets the pricing basically on this stuff. MS *might* be owed a cut, but they are not the driver on the pricing here.
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I don't think I'm wrong. Bethesda does not operate on LIVE points, or if it does, it is a very odd form of economics.

Bethesda may have charged M$ for the content, but it is M$ that is charging the users. The sell consoles at a loss, but charge for pixels? What is the world coming to?
 
Wolf-R1 said:
I'm sure this was originally an idea that did not originate at M$ but as always when it comes to $$$ M$ jumps on the bandwagon.
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For the last time, Microsoft is not charging you $2.50. Bethesda is. This has nothing to do with Microsoft other than it is being done on the Xbox 360's marketplace.
 
I think it's pure crap. First off we have to pay $10 more for the game compared to PC, then they do this crap? No thanks. Spend some time on fixing the bugs in the game instead of this crap which hopefully only a few stupid (IMO) people will pay for.

Oh, and BTW, it is also pay for the PC version as well. $1.99
 
MS made it clear that they wanted to test this idea. It is just like all the "custom" skins for you 360 that have to be paid for. Just another attempt to make money. Hopefully people will not buy it. If they do then it justifies it to MS and game developers.

Vote with your pocket book.
 
jebo_4jc said:
For the last time, Microsoft is not charging you $2.50. Bethesda is. This has nothing to do with Microsoft other than it is being done on the Xbox 360's marketplace.
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Prove it.


AS an aside, I just noticed in my last post I used the term pixels. So it could be said it is a points-for-pixels economy.;)
 
ArrogantWorm said:
Prove it.


AS an aside, I just noticed in my last post I used the term pixels. So it could be said it is a points-for-pixels economy.;)
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Ok, simple. Why would an independent developer make additional content to give to MS for THEM to sell for a profit?

Um, duh?

Navy
 
I was happy as hell to buy an Xbox 360, but the fact that Microsoft is selling crap like this on Xbox Live is totally gay. I will never buy anything off of Xbox Live because of it.

This is just as bad in my opinion as /pizza command in EQII
 
I wouldn't blame this on World of Warcraft, seeing how buying gold/items there is against the EULA. But didn't Sony start selling EQ2 items through their own version of a marketplace? Sounds a lot more like what is going on here, and the item/gold buying was definetly something that was in MMORPGs first.

Horse armor IS stupid. The most damage my horse ever took was falling off of cliffs. It's too fast for anything to hit it (Black Horse FTW!), and even then, I'd rather spend 5000 gold in Oblivion than $2.50 IRL. Just get a new damn horse!

Then again, I rarely use my horse anyways. I own four, and I laugh every time I walk by one and say, "Oh, so that's where I left him!"
 
Its disgusting that you have to pay for horse armour. Especially when they said that there was going to be armour in the game from the get go. They even put up screenshots showing it off.

I wonder what else they removed before release that they are going to charge for.

Next they'll be charging for Object Shadows or an HDR+AA option.

I just want to know how much it will cost for the patch to fix the random CTD's and BSOD's on the pc version.
 
ArrogantWorm said:
Prove it.


AS an aside, I just noticed in my last post I used the term pixels. So it could be said it is a points-for-pixels economy.;)
Click to expand...


It has EVERYTHING to do with Microsoft. Xbox Live is owned by Microsoft and the fact that they are 'letting' other companies charge, is completely up to them. Microsoft is the company in control. Just like when they told all the companies that all games must be in HDTV format....

It's all Microsoft bro, and they are selling out. It takes away from the whole feel of a game. Personally, I am losing respect for them. The only reason why I even own a 360 is because of the Media Center capabilities.... If PS3 is close to the same, I will switch to that. (though I doubt it will offer what the 360 does).
 
carlbme said:
Oh, and BTW, it is also pay for the PC version as well. $1.99
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That link goes directly to the Oblivion homepage, which would suggest it is the dev selling the product all around. You will also note there are other buyable items as well.

Yes the armor looks cool, but does my horsey need it? Nah.
 
Mickelonis said:
It has EVERYTHING to do with Microsoft. Xbox Live is owned by Microsoft and the fact that they are 'letting' other companies charge, is completely up to them. Microsoft is the company in control. Just like when they told all the companies that all games must be in HDTV format....

It's all Microsoft bro, and they are selling out. It takes away from the whole feel of a game. Personally, I am losing respect for them. The only reason why I even own a 360 is because of the Media Center capabilities.... If PS3 is close to the same, I will switch to that. (though I doubt it will offer what the 360 does).
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Amen Brother!

Oh, and I guess I am at least partially wrong on the who's gouging front, as Bethesda is charging for the PC version, but less then the 360 version. It still doesn't make it right.
 
lol... selling horse armor...

*spoiler* for some
(just get the black-mare from the brotherhood quest... never died yet...just unconsciences...then gets back up...hehe)
 
Forgive me, but I have never played this game nor WOW.... What is the point of purchasing the armor? Can you not complete the game without it? And if you CAN complete the game without it, what's the big deal? If it's not a requirement to play/finish the game, then I see no problem with paying more for more content...
 
carlbme said:
I think it's pure crap. First off we have to pay $10 more for the game compared to PC, then they do this crap? No thanks.
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I used to think that way too, until I realized that a console only costs $400, while a decent gaming PC can easily cost $2,000 or more. At $10 more per game for console titles, you'd need to buy 160 games before you even broke even with the cost of a gaming PC with *no* games. Or another way to look at it, you could buy a console and 26 $60 games and still not spend as much as you would on a gaming PC alone.

Yeah, I know a gaming PC has far more functionality than a console, but the same would also be true for a far less expensive non-gaming machine. If games are your focus, then even at $10 more per title, consoles are still a better deal.

Not to mention that when I popped COD2 into my Xbox360, it simply worked and I was playing within a minute or two. When I did the same on my PC, I first checked to ensure all my drivers were up-to-date, then I had to wait for the install, feeding 6 different CDs into my machine in the process, then when it did start, I spent about 30 minutes tweaking things like screen resolution, AA, and other graphics features so that I was getting the right balance between eye-candy and performance on my particular machine.

Owning and playing the same game on both platfoms was really an epiphany for me. It was at that moment that "I got it". If you'd rather spend your time and money on playing great games, consoles are the way to go. If you love benchmarking, tweaking, and calculating heat dissipation from your dual overclocked and water-cooled GeForce10000 video cards, then gaming PCs are the way to go.

oh, and BTW, thanks for pointing out that Microsoft is simply acting as a conduit for Bethesda to sell their content. Some people just seem to have a knee-jerk "conspiracy theory" reaction to anything Microsoft does, so I'm glad to see folks here with enough common sense to realize that Microsoft couldn't simply sell another company's content on their own. The decision to sell it, and the price that it sells for, are decisions that Bethesda made. Microsoft is simply making it possible through the Xbox Live Marketplace.
 
I wont be buying any of these little mods they are trying to sell. If i'm going to spend money i want content that means something.

Even looking at the coming soon section of that page my guess is nothing they sell for 2 bucks will keep me occupied for more than an hour or will be what i consider worthless like the horse armor.

I'm all for paying for an expansion but i will not support these little things they are trying to sell.
 
JethroXP said:
oh, and BTW, thanks for pointing out that Microsoft is simply acting as a conduit for Bethesda to sell their content. Some people just seem to have a knee-jerk "conspiracy theory" reaction to anything Microsoft does, so I'm glad to see folks here with enough common sense to realize that Microsoft couldn't simply sell another company's content on their own. The decision to sell it, and the price that it sells for, are decisions that Bethesda made. Microsoft is simply making it possible through the Xbox Live Marketplace.
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umm yeah.. nice and everything but Xbox Live content for Oblivion costs $2.50 and PC content for Oblivion is $1.99 so now tell me where who gets the 51 extra cents from Xbox Live?
 
xappie said:
Forgive me, but I have never played this game nor WOW.... What is the point of purchasing the armor? Can you not complete the game without it? And if you CAN complete the game without it, what's the big deal? If it's not a requirement to play/finish the game, then I see no problem with paying more for more content...
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I guess you will understand when a developer will want to charge you extra money for content from the game that you play.
This will not stop on only RPG games, it will spread to sports games, racers, etc. This sucks.
 
bazylik said:
umm yeah.. nice and everything but Xbox Live content for Oblivion costs $2.50 and PC content for Oblivion is $1.99 so now tell me where who gets the 51 extra cents from Xbox Live?
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Microsoft is probably making a very small profit margin by charging bandwidth fees. Who knows they might not even charge for bandwidth fees since they want Xbox Live to be a success. Do you really expect Bethesda to set the price for the Horse Armor at 159 points ($1.99)? Most everything on XBL has been 200,400, or 800 points, with some picture packs going for 50-100.
 
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