Bethesda responds to Oblivion backlash

Apparently $59.99 USD is just not enough anymore. Doesnt matter to me though,I refuse to ever pay for a game that's over 53 dollars,E-V-E-R.

"Well,I was going to pickup a few games this weekend with my 360 but the bank denied my loan so."

The whole point of this situation is that this is not the direction in which gaming should be headed. Yes, the next generation is going to be expensive, we've all accepted that. But for us to be expected to shell out even more money for in-game content is rediculous. Most of us have already spent $60 for the game, and some even spent $70. I just wonder how long it is until they start charging for the last level of a game or an item you need to complete a game. This is bad, bad news for the gaming industry as a whole....

Obilvion is great. I bought the collectors addition 'cause I loved Marrowind,and Bethesda deserves all the money they can make off such a Nich game. the Final fantasy series makes profits off its Statues and toys, marrowind can't tap into that kind of market.

I hope all the broke ass punks complaining about the download cost doesnt deture them from relesesing more armour and quests.

Look at it like donating to PBS so you can watch materpiece theater. Cause you don't like Rosanne on Nick at nite

Gee. I've read two comments from Bethesda PR people that were just the most snotty, arrogant, down-talking , corporatespeak diatribes ever uttered by PR. Imagine a PR person telling mac users asking nicely about a possible oblivion port to go Y&*() themselves, and you'll get my drift. Bethesda makes amazing games, but they need to hire some PR people with actual people skills (and who at least act like they value customers).
As to downloadable content, that's an idea that's getting bandied around in the game industry a lot with much fanfare. As much as I loathe this idea, it's the current fad, so expect to see more crapola like this in the future.
BTW, it's always blown my mind that people will pay 2 bucks for a low quality 10 second soundclip ringtone when they can get just about any song in midi format and play it as their ringtone.
Mine plays the song from the 7th Guest :D

$4000 for a Ultra high-end PC: checked
$1000 for a widescreen HD LCD: checked
$60 for special edition of Oblivion: checked
$2 for download content: ARE YOU INSANE!!!

What's next? To play, they will require us to upgrade to the latest CPU / GPU or buy the next version of the OS? Oh wait...

Where were you guys when mobile phones started having less ringtones and less games?

These are optional things, not requirements, so if you don't want to get them you don't have to." (Pete Hines, Bethesda VP of PR and marketing)

In other words: Shut up, we make the rules.

And as far as Oblivion being a "diffrent game" than Morrowind...really? Is it that diffrent to justify a 250% increase in fees? Normally I'm the person on the other side of these arguments. I'm the one defending the companies, but man, this is tough.

With my friend already complaining about how oblivion "Is not a 95 out of 100... more like an 80", how it's slow, full of loading times, not so easy to control, and not as smooth as a Zelda, I'm gonna have to buy this game when it's 20 dollars, not more.

Furthermore, I agree with m3mnoch that if you people don't buy it, it will end up being free, or it will simply disappear. It's a useless item anyway. Keep complaining though, maybe they'll hear you even if they keep getting income. Or not.

This is a very buggy game. I want them to be working on a patch for this game - not horses they can nickel and dime people with.

"Are you trying to say you have never complained about the pricing or re-pricing of a product?"

nah. i have no problems with people voicing their opinions on how stupidly people price things -- take $2.50 for horse wallpaper for instance. i'm a big fan of consumer activism.

i take issue with people ascribing it to malice.

it's not malice. it's stupidity. or, even, it's just them dipping their experimental toes into a "what the market will bear" atmosphere. it has nothing to do with bethesda screwing their customers. it has nothing to do with them ascribing to a "buy power" sort of play experience.

what irritates me is people thinking a company has "turned to the dark side" if they try to make a buck.

no. they aren't trying to screw you.

no. it wasn't a "patch." (they were talking about it 9 months ago. do you really think they couldn't implement a barding texture in 9 months and needed to implement this complicated "e-commerce" transactional system just to work that precious piece of content back into the game somehow?)

no. it doesn't mean they will make you pay for everything ala carte. (the mental transaction is far higher than any micropayment would be, hence why mass adoption of micropayments in terms of 2 or 3 pennies will never catch on -- ever.)

it sits in the same useless category as cellphone faceplates or ringtones. some people like them. some don't.

so. outrage for a "for pay" horse texture? no. ridicule at the price? sure.

m3mnoch.

p.s. that's been my signature for eons and i'm not about to change it just because some tool thinks it's pretentious. just, from now on, read it in your head as having the connotation of "the awesome and powerful m3mnoch has thus spoken!" or, you can just read it as a signature no different from any other signatures in any other forum (real forums, not comments) on any other site on the web -- only without the bad anime animation attached.

On topic- if you want the armor buy it, if not, dont.
off topic- This game is not that buggy. I have clocked 95+ hours and i have had not even 1 percent of the problems i had in Morrowind at this point. I have not had a single crash and since i have been keeping my saves at about 4, load times have been excellent. Oblivion is the best gaming experience I have ever had!

By "a different game" don't they mean "it wasn't nearly as easy to charge people for downloadable content with Morrowind on the XBox and PC gamers aren't quite stupid enough to fall for this crap". Not to be insulting the intelligence of XBox users (not this time at least), but free downloadable content for PC games isn't exactly new. If you have enough stuff you release an expansion pack and if your expansion doesn't have enough stuff in it people just don't buy the damn thing.

it's not about the 2 dollar for this, it's about the general idea of trying to get gamers to pay for extra content / patches / ... they most likely will take this further to see how far they can go and that won't be nice.

I have absolutely no issue with being charged for extra content if I think it adds value to my gameplay experience.

What I do have an issue with is the quality and timing of this release and the response from Bethesda PR.

It really feels like this was just an item that didn't make the cut for the release date. In which case it would have been a nice gesture to all of us who waited those additional months for this game to be given one thing for free.

Economics 101 as some people have mentioned isn't all about 'make profit NOW'... there's such things as goodwill and loss leaders.

If they had thrown us the horse armour for nothing, then I'd be praising Bethesda for their generosity, instead of resenting what they have done (to a small degree) and I would be much more inclined to pay up for a future item, instead I'll think twice before putting down my money.

That's where a lot of this vitriol we are seeing stems from - not so much the fact that we're being charged for it, but the way in which Bethesda has gone about it. A decent quest, a new dungeon and a couple of pieces of armour for 400+ points may have gone down a lot better than some crummy horse armour for 200.

And those who keep reiterating... 'if you don't want it don't buy it' are missing the point. This is a fundamental shift in the way we experience games, and in this case feels like poor value for money, so people are being vocal - nothing wrong with that if it results in either lower prices for these items, or higher quality items for the same money.

Hopefully a lesson will be learnt by publishers / developers that the people buying their products don't like to be made to feel like chumps!

Hi i dont know if anyone thinks im right but this game is really good but as we all know it has a few problems now these are acceptable because we all wanted this game out, but then when they spend time trying to sell us horse armour instead of say addresing glitches or loading every 5 seconds then people are gonna be pissed

On a modified Xbox users were able to use most PC mods. I was able to throw in a bunch of amulets, the Jedi mod, some new buildings, etc. Obviously the things that were ridiculous amounts of stuff going on in one spot would eat through the Xbox's less-than-spectacular RAM, but still.
Maybe if everyone begs hard enough they'll let us do the same for 360 without modding it. I'd really like a solution for this. People can already access/read/write the 360 HDD from a computer, and clearly, since horse armor is read from the HDD other stuff could too.
Why not go the distance, Bethesda, and let 360 users use mods too? THAT I'd pay a bundle of points for.

#66.

That's an interesting point. But also a worrying one. The PC community got the tools to create mods for free... and you're saying that you'd pay for that facility on the XBox360! Don't encourage them to charge for even more stuff!! :-)

However it would be a great idea if the Xbox Live Marketplace became a real marketplace where mod makers could sell their add-ons for a price. Someone who made an alternative horse armour mod and sold it for less than Bethesdas effort would surely make a bundle and create competition.. which would drive down prices.

As all transactions would be done in MSPoints the 'money' would stay with in the XBL Marketplace economy... which would give productive and successful mod-makers a source of revenue to pay for their Gold accounts etc.

As a previous poster said, many of the Morrowind mods were better than the stuff the devs released, which in a competitive marketplace would mean the devs would have to up their game, which in turn would lead to the mod community upping their game.. increase in quality, reduction in prices.. who wins... the gamer!

Remember when they said that we the players would be able to create and sell our own content on XBL? Velocity Girl, selling shirts for THUG? Micro transactions costing between ten and twenty-five cense. Anyone remember any of that? No one is paying to see my Burnout Clips. Maybe 20 points would be acceptable for this horse download, then this purchase would actually be a micro transaction. 200 points might be acceptable if Microsoft was going to give me points every time I won a match of DOA4, NFSMW, or Burnout; but alas, it seems to be that there is no way on XBL to earn points so why should I spend them on anything other than buying XBL Arcade games. I want to f~king sell some virtual T-Shirts!

Jeez, what a ginormous bunch of cry-babies gamers have become these days. You know what I did instead of bitching and whining about the ridiculous price of the XBox 360? I DIDN'T BUY ONE! Coz that's what you do when something isn't worth the money. You don't buy it. It's freaking HORSE ARMOR for God's sake. Honestly, get a life people!!

This isn't about people whining about a stupid horse mod, this about a fundamental paradigm shift in video game entertainment. With Morrowind, we were receiving content for free.

Now it seems like a lot of companies are embracing the idea of micropayments, which scares me a lot. It's the slippery slope. How long before practically necessary mods need to be purchased? Mods that double the enjoyment of your game. Mods that fix glaring issues with the game? This isn't Oblivion exclusive here. I fear that gamers may gain edges in multiplayer games of the future because of this. The only way to solve it is to hit it now, before micropayments take off.

But I'm a pessimist. Gamers are doomed. (Please save us, Nintendo).

Wow. As a student developer I've been involved with a number of discussions about the "benefits" of downloadable additional content, and the extra revenue it can bring in.
Discussions over episodic content are also in place, you guys may want to let developers how you feel about this. I was told that people wanted episodic content and such and were willing to pay for it, but here I am left with the distinct impression that everyone wants a complete game at the time of purchase. This is important to communicate to developers the world over, otherwise we're going to see a huge influx of partial games and having to pay top dollar for bits and pieces at a time. Bare in mind that the new ideas Corporate America comes up with are not always in the best interest of the consumer. I mean digital distribution, for instance. They're saving money, you're still charged top dollar, but you get no media, nothing physical to represent your purchase. How is that fair to you as a consumer? You don't get to save any money for it, and you get nothing tangible, so why pay for it? (Please note this is not an endorsement of piracy, but rather a call for people to smack some sense into developers by letting them know we don't like this stuff.)
Granted there is the argument of "If you don't like it don't buy it" but you'd also be happy to know that many developers are quite receptive to feedback, so defiantly let them all know how you feel!

This SUCKS. By charging for such a tiny feature, they're trying to create a precedent for that "don't think it's worth it don't pay for it" logic that the rancorous m3mnoch is presenting. Nevermind that the feature is so piddling that it should have been free.

Later, when more substantial, yet still developmentally-light features are sold, when people complain they'll point back and say how people didn't complain about this.

But people are complaining now. More than a majority, judging from the people on this comments page.

I can't beleive all of the these comments. Yes I purchased the game for 60.00 dollars like everyone else, and I don't want to pay another two $ here and there for items. The thing is that even though several people took this guys comments as being ruling and doing whatever they want he made it real clear. If you want the extra items to add to the story then you have the option to pay, if you don't thats fine and you can stick to the standard game and be okay also. People has to understand that even though before free things were given out, this is changing. This is just the start of addons that will go for a long while making this game new for a long time. The thing about it is you have to make the decision how dedicated are you to this game over other games.

Stepping back from the emotive "should content be free" issue, there was a key thing that was interesting about this:

Some people that bought it didn't really understand what they're getting.

Now, this could be levelled as a criticism of Xbox Marketplace generally: often with the themes, gamerpics and so on you simply have no idea what you're going to get, and the two sentences' worth of content doesn't help you make an informed decision. Sure, it's hard to fit a lot of information onto a low-res TV screen, but this is one area in which big improvements could be made quickly (and easily?).

If this type of game add-on is going to become "normal", perhaps each game needs a template-based system to describe upgrades, eg:

Name: Horse Pyjamas
Description: Replaces horse armour with silky goodness
Effects: Adds no armour value but raises horse's self-esteem.
Picture: (pic)

...

Oh no, $1 and $2 fines for official game mods... what will we do? Not even a poor kid on the street can afford that! Oh, wait, yes they can...

The real problem here is not selling something that you dont want/need. That goes on everyday...and obviously there's a market for it (since I hear enough Beyonce/Killers ringtones in crowded theaters to know that extraneaous content sells and see enough skirts and fins on 92 Civics to know that some people need fluff to feel privileged or superior).

However, the main issue i'm seeing is that we've got a $2.50 release for a Pony dress, and yet i'm in the middle of 2 seperate quests that have bugs in them which preclude me from completing them and thus advancing to different areas in the game that I want to play.

Should Bethesda package up unfinished content into a purchase? It's a slippery slope for sure, but as long as the game i'm buying is a game with some sort of beginning, middle and end (that's uniform for everyone with their initial purchase), and i don't have to pay 59.99 for a game, and then discover 30 hrs into play I need to purchase an add-on just to complete it, who cares if they sell additional content (and by the way...this would never happen...see M3mnoch's diatribe on economics 101)

The real issue is, why is bethesda releasing horse mods when the original gameplay is still rife with issue? Money is the key, but...i for one will not buy ANYTHING Bethesda unless I get a free patch very soon for my original purchase that fixes my quests. I love their game, and they can sell any additional content to whomever they like (and there are plenty of people who will buy), but if they sell cr@p first, and provide patches to my original purchase second...thats a terrible business model to succumb to, and will lead to lots of gamers like me never trusting content from Bethesda again. If enough people like me subscribe to that frame of mind...you'll see less pony skins, and more enjoyable content that actually works!

I find this whole thing histrical. Yes everyone has a right to say that they beleve that its too much money for very little... Ok I get it, its too much.
Here's what I find funny, how many of the people complaining have or did buy a Colectors/special edition of a game for the extras. look at Oblivion's Colectors edition, $10 usd for a dvd with maybe 45 minutes of stuff, a cheep coin (wich looks cool) and a book (that you can read in game for free, or at least get the same information). None of these things give's you an advantage, but you bought them, yet another item comes out thats the same idea, and you bitch about them charging for it, at all...
All it is, is a hey look at me I'm cool I got this armor for my horse and it looks cool, and I look cool... item to show your friends. Yes the priceing is off, yes people should not buy it if they think its too much. But don't say it should be free if your going to be paying or accepting the idea of collecters/specal editions. It's an intresting idea that needs to be worked out, thats all.
Oh and if your going to want to suport a game that gives away free content on the 360, you should go out and get Ridge Race 6, and then look at what there giving you for free. Its not just the fact that your boycoting one game because of charging for content, show them that giving away content gets you to buy games by buying the games that do give away stuff, like Ridge Racer.

There are two sides to every story, and I don't mind paying,even too much, for a neeto factor.

This is typical of the way things are going these days. They cant be bothered to finish the game on time, so they decide "I know why dont we release the game 97.5% done, and sell each of the remaining 0.01% for £1.30 a time." On MMORPGS they have to advertise on the box the complete price of the game (payments etc) I think the same should apply to this.

At present ES4: Oblivion price £50.

What EA...er sorry force of habit...Bethesda should have been required to put on the box was ES4: Oblivion Price £50, plus £1.30 a week for the next 3 years.

People say, "oh if you dont like it dont buy it" , but the point is we werent told before release that wed have to pay for what are in essence patches.

And I say yes it IS a patch because all the things theyre trying to sell (with a depressing level of success) are clearly things which were supposed to be in the release version.

You may say no big deal. And frankly youd be right. For the moment. Next year every game will go this way. Every game you buy will be unfinished. The next Need for speed will have you paying for every car you want. The next C&C will have you buying new units.

And it wont stop there. In 2 years well be paying a service charge to get games patched. And EA...Did it again. sorry. And games companies in general will be making even bigger profits.

In an mmorpg you pay your monthly fee (barring guild wars, now theres VALUE), and for that money you get regular content updates, as well as the servers being maintained and thats fair enough. BUT Oblivion isnt an MMORPG. The same rules dont apply to every game. For "new methods of content delivery" read "Accountants taking over game development from the creative people, and desperately trying to fleece customers for every penny they can."

If if known about this I wouldnt have bought the game. Well thats a lie. I would have waited a month, and bought it second hand, denying Beth a hefty lump of profit, and saving £20.

I just feel sorry for the 360 people. they cant even get mods.

$2 USD is barely anything to whine about...

Since when, I wonder, did a game getting purchased mean that you get every mod for free? If you dont want shiny horsie armor, then dont buy it.

As for 'dumb 360 owners', its usually the people who cant afford the next generation consoles (or sony fanboys) that come up with lame name calling. At least the xbox 360 can play games like this and dont require a 3,000+ computer play it. My computer is fairly decent but considering i could play on A) a 17 inch monitor, or B) a 65" widescreen HDTV the choice was fairly obvious.

#3 can bite me

Most xbox 360 owner will agree that we dont need mods that change the game so that its easier to finish the game. Of the mods ive seen i have not wanted a single one of them. The mods produced by bethesda were designed to enhance the game and add no additional value besides having 'horsie armor' or the mage tower.

The end of the 'everything is free because i demand it' is pretty much over. Right now you can download additional cars for Burnout on 360 and they are free. Why are they free? Because the makers of the game decided to release them for free.

Bethesda put a lot of work into the mods and have decided to be re-imbursed for the work. You people keep bitching and moaning about it and im sure most of you have gotten the mods in a nefarious way (bittorrent *cough*). Also PC games are being pirated left and right, which im sure some of you have pirated it instead of buying it.

The bottom line is that if you dont want to pony up (pun intended) the cash for horse armor, or the mages tower, or the other mod, then dont. Bethesda doesnt care what you think.

Keep in mind that several games have 'mods', or by another name 'expansions' which require you to buy both the origional game, and the expansion, coming up to 70-100 dollars. I dont see any of you bitching about that. 2 bucks for a expanded quest, ill pay.

I dont want 'naked chicks' and i certainly dont want 'super armor' so you wanna be developers can have it on pc. Show me 1 mod that enhances the game and doesnt give a grossly unfair advantage and then ill buy the pc version.

Ugh, politics on the game forums again. m3m is saying, in effect, quitcher liberal whining and let the free-market economy fix everything.

Well guess what: in a democracy, which is what we have despite the best efforts of people like m3m, it's smarter to whine than to sit back and hope some middle-level manager motices there is a problem.

I assure you that someone at Bethesda does read this junk. Soon that person will walk into Mr. Pay-Per-Mod's office and say, "well Chad, looks like our trial balloon got shot down. Gamers hate the microfee by a ratio of 50 to 1. Should I cancel the fee schedule for the next 20 mods in the pipeline?" Pay-Per-Mod will argue about it for half an hour, say "what the hell," and then go back to planning his vacation in the Hamptons.

Which is much more efficient than waiting for the accountants to observe that sales of horse armor were down in Q3 '06.

Whining makes the free market sing. Have you heard that Wal-Mart is adding better health coverage for its sla- --er, associates--and will offer cash payouts to the mom-and-pops it drives out of business whenever it opens up a new store? Whining created those changes, not a drop in sales.

Unquestionably, the world champions of whining had to have been 18th-century American revolutionaries. "No taxation without representation!" they cried, a minor point at best. Into the drink went the property of respected free-market theorists in Britain. What do you think, m3m? Would it have been better to just not buy tea?

Scream to the high heavens, my fellow game enthusiasts. Let us teach Bethesda a lesson about having respect for the customer. Let us close shut the gates of Oblivion.

And let's tell m3m to take his libertarian free-market theology and stick it... in a more appropriate forum.

The only attractive point I can see about purchasing such mods is that you can be certain the best people for the job have programmed it.

Personally I wouldnt buy these mods, having experienced for years the superb work by the modding community its only a matter of time before an un-official variant appears, if not already done. Yes they have occasional bugs but the shear weight and experience of the community soon irons out any conflicts.

My concern is are they patented?. Does a horse armour mod stop anyone else from doing similar mods, and where does that end - just the idea of adding armour of any kind to any in game characters/animals is that also affected. If so then the wizards tower which I believe is a blatant rip-off from a previous morrowind mod can the original modder sue bethesda?.

What annoys me about this, is not only what everyone has just been saying but is the total you'll be paying, for example if you are paying from a euro credit card you have to pay conversion fees, never mind the usual fees so you're not paying $1.99 you paying like €5 which is what $7, so it's nowhere near as cheap as it seems...

no more buying bethesda things from now on for me,
banned from my pocket !

I can't believe I read someone asking the question "can the original modder sue bethesda?" Can a fan-fic author sue the creator of the story? No, they can't. And if they could, fiction would not exist. I find the question of modders suing developers over mods to be horrifying. Did you know that you do not own Oblivion? Yes, even if you're holding the game in your hand right now, it is NOT your property. It is being LEASED to you. Being able to make mods is NOT A RIGHT. In fact, Bethesda could and should sue the socks off of anyone who makes even a penny from an Oblivion mod. Let's say you make a mod - do you know who that mod belongs to? Not you, you don't even own 0.0000001% of it. Bethesda owns ALL of it, 100%. If you make a penny off of someone else's creation, you are a thief and should be sued. Thinking that a modder should be able to sue developers for "copying" is like saying Gamefaq writers should be able to sue developers for using their strategy guides. Quess who the guide belongs to - yes, the developers, not the crybabies who wrote a lame faq. This is like saying fan-fic writers should be able to sue the creators for "copying their work" when they themselves are too lazy and sorry to make something themselves and are guilty of copying someone else themselves...