People Are Still Buying Horse Armor

By  |  Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 3:58 pm

To the layman, the phrase “horse armor” may not carry any special meaning, but to gamers, it’s synonymous with being snookered. It refers to a downloadable horse costume for Bethesda’s 2006 hit The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and it served no strategic purpose. Horse armor only made your steed look fancier.

The costume’s uselessness became a source of outrage for Oblivion players, but in a new interview with Official Xbox Magazine UK, Bethesda Vice President Pete Hines said that even now, horse armor is a money maker.

“I swear to you I don’t have the report in front of me, but multiple people bought horse armor yesterday!” Hines said.

There’s a bigger point to be made here. Hines was talking about the success of downloadable content for Bethesda, and said that “so long as it’s good value, people will like it and buy it.” Apparently a lot of people thought a plate of false protection for a horse was worth $2.

In a way it’s not much different from the avatar costumes for which Xbox 360 owners and Playstation Home users happily pony up. They don’t serve any purpose but to make the player look good, but that’s something people value. Bethesda figured that out a long time ago.

 
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2 Comments For This Post

  1. Ryan Patterson Says:
    March 18th, 2011 at 7:48 am

    The fact that people voluntarily waste their money on crap such as horse armor does not validate companies such as Bethesda ripping people off.

  2. Ian Beall Says:
    April 27th, 2011 at 8:26 am

    Ryan,

    I respectfully disagree to your position. Who is to decide what's ripping someone off? Just because there's no inherent value to some, doesn't mean that's the case for everyone. Ever thought something was neat in your ___ years on this planet? Probably have… And that same thing that you thought was cool – some probably thought it was frivolous, a waste of money.

    But it probably didn't matter to you… you thought it was worth having, despite the fact that others saw the same thing and viewed it as pointless. It's the same reason we all don't walk around in white jumpsuits… So why not lay off Bethesda? God Forbid they release something that makes them a little additional money, so that they can continue to make amazing games that we all love…