Gaming Signal: Oblivion micro-content

Oblivion micro-content

Bethesda opened their site that allows downloading of micro-content for The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion today. Over at obliviondownloads.com you can buy horse armor for $1.99. Future content will include the ability to rebuild the orrery and a mage tower you can claim as you in-game home - each with the same $1.99 price.

Uh, WTF? $2 for horse armor or an in-game house? I can see paying $2 for a new themed dungeon to go through, but for these little things it just feels wrong.

I felt the same way Scott. I do understand the desire to recoup the development costs of "official" modifications, but lets have an armor pack for $2 versus just two bardings for your horse. If you want folks to pay money for addons, then at least you should put forth the effort that Bioware has done and give folks some value for thier dollar. The response from Bethseda was pretty cruddy too in that they feel justified and stated that the mod is not required to play the game. I just think that this is a bad precedent for a game company to take - what's next? $5 to update to the latest patch??

Message to game folks - if you don't give people something of percieved value, they will stop buying your stuff and then you will have no income...

Posted by Tim on Wednesday April 05, 2006 at 11:02 AM

The Orrery thing sounds kinda interesting. Apparently its a quest to rebuild it and, once repaired, you get access to special lunar powers, like lycanthropy.

Being a Werewolf in Oblivion: $2.

Almost worth it.

Posted by JP on Wednesday April 05, 2006 at 1:58 PM

Shacknews states in an interview with Bethedsa that the $2 price point is a "shot in the dark" and depending on how well/not well it sells we could expect the price to rise/lower accordingly.

Posted by Trent on Wednesday April 05, 2006 at 2:43 PM

OK I get what is going on here - they are experimenting to see what the market will take. I believe they have already looked to lower prices - we'll see how far down it goes.

I'm all for micro-content and micropayments - just make sure there is real content to go along with the real payment.

If the Orrery is really a quest line resulting in an interesting benefit (some have suggested that not only is lycanthropy involved but that you can use the Orrery to improve your character) then it may well be worth $2.

If the wizard tower has interesting things it it (such as a garden for growing herbs, as again has been suggested) then it too may well be worth the money.

You can read more about Bethesda's plans on Joystiq.

Posted by Scott on Sunday April 09, 2006 at 10:28 AM

I saw something today that indicated the Orrery will cost somewhere around $1 or about 150 Marketplace Points. This is much more in line where I would pay for some of these micro updates.

Posted by Tim on Thursday April 13, 2006 at 3:20 PM