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Horse armor. It's a phrase that – if you were around back in DLC's formative days – probably dredges up memories of a time when the digital space was a lawless land, and people would drop precious coin on, well, a pair of glorified horse pajamas. Seriously. The craziest part, though? It's still happening. As in, right now – in the year 2011.
For those in need of a refresher, horse armor was The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion's first piece of official DLC. It originally ran players $2.50 and nabbed them a piece of suave equine chic. The immediate reaction, of course, was an eruption of outrage that could very nearly be described as volcanic. Evidently, however, that hasn't stopped players from continuing to purchase the infamous cosmetic upgrade to this very day.
"In one respect everything we've done has done well, including the much maligned horse armour," Bethesda vice president Pete Hines told OXM. “I swear to you I don't have the report in front of me, but multiple people bought horse armour yesterday! For some inexplicable reason. It happened, I promise.”
"So that sold, and Shivering Isles sold, and everything we did for Fallout 3 sold, so it's clear to us that what matters most is value - and whether it's value at the 10 dollar or 10 pound price point, or five pounds, or whatever it is, so long as it's good value, people will like it and buy it.”
Which is absolutely true, and Bethesda's robust support for both Oblivion and Fallout 3 exemplified that. But that still doesn't explain why gamers keep on willingly allowing horse armor to leave its ugly hoof-prints all over their wallets. Do you really like dressing up your horses that much? Because if so, we're about to blow your minds: Barbie Horse Adventures. Boom. Your life is now complete.
Comments are closed on this article
Josiah Charley
March 25, 2011 at 12:59pm
You know what would be nice? That Oblivion allowed you to buy shoes that matched the horse's armor. I'm just saying, if one is to have a glamorous horse, why not go all the way? Then we can name it Barbra Streisand and make it sing for us.
Aurien
March 20, 2011 at 2:00pm
I'm not sure why this is suprising. People bought map packs for CoD that had recycled maps from the previous game for $15. MW2 was a completely unbalanced and broken multiplayer riddled with technical and gameplay issues. But instead of fixing their broken game they just fix it in the next game. And this is completely exceptable to a large portion of gamers.
don2041
March 18, 2011 at 9:29am
Every day I think that people can,t possably get more stupid. Every day I am proved horrably wrong.
Jasker
March 18, 2011 at 7:12am
Do you really like dressingup your horses that much? Because if so, we're about to blow your minds: Barbie Horse Adventures. Boom. Your life is now complete.
Nice!
Renaissance 2K
March 18, 2011 at 4:48am
He didn't mention what platform was used to make these sales, but if he's talking about Steam, the Deluxe Edition of Oblivion includes the horse armor - and a bunch of other DLC that the user might actually want - in the package. If that counts towards his total, it really doesn't mean much.
Blaze589
March 18, 2011 at 6:51am
I think it's the 360 since the horse armor for the PC is free and the PS3 version doesn't have it; it's not in the PS3 GotY or on PSN.
