Downloadable Dollars

Community manager Bethany Massimilla is an exciting addition to your inbox. You can email bethany@gamespot.com for only $2! (Just kidding. It's $2.50.)

A sort of Oblivion madness has gripped the GameSpot offices, and like most everyone else, I too am currently exploring the wide realm of Tamriel (though I'm probably getting killed off by those sneaky wolves a lot more than the others). Coming along after I've spent some heavy time World of Warcrafting and EverQuesting recently, Oblivion is a refreshing change to wander about, hunting and questing without constant spam scrolling on my screen with people asking for groups, or asking "where did you get that staff?"

I went with the PC version, since I don't actually own a 360 and I don't have the unfortunate achievement-point addiction problem that's sweeping the nation. I've only just started playing, so at first I sort of glossed over the announcement of some new downloadable content for the game--but you can now have a pretty pony for a pretty penny. Now, that horse armor looks snazzy and all, but instances like these illustrate some of the issues with micro-transactions and how important consumer input is going to be as they evolve.

The downloadable content schtick isn't new for PC game players who have been downloading maps, demos, skins, and mods of all types while frolicking happily in their online Eden since time immemorial. Now that consoles are finally taking the whole online business seriously, console connectivity is at last going beyond "owning" people and barking over voice chat to venturing into the realm of meatier offerings.

The Xbox Live Marketplace is one example of where the industry is going, and it seems to be getting off to a good start, serving up a variety of games, demos, themes, and content additions to existing games. Depending on what sort of content that is, the download may or may not cost you. As someone who pays monthly for MMORPGs anyway, I'm certainly not opposed to handing over funds for new content, and micro-transactions of a paltry few dollars at a time seem a reasonable price to pay for small but substantive game additions.

That brings us back to the first downloadable offering for the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion--attractive new armor for your equine friends that lets you pimp your ride a bit. Said armor is generating a buzz because players are being charged for this download--it's $2.50 in Marketplace points, and the PC version is $2. The market's definitely getting tested, here, and how these types of downloads are received are going to help shape both the Marketplace in particular as well as the industry at large. Digital distribution of games and small content packs (like EverQuest II's $20 adventure packs) are some of the routes companies are exploring to deliver content to customers and revenue into their pockets, but the mold is far from set yet, and the popularity of these formative offerings will go a long way to set the tone.

My issue is this: While I definitely don't mind paying monthly for constantly evolving content, purchasing and downloading games online, or even paying a smidge for new additions to an otherwise static game, there are limits. Oblivion's just come out, for example, so obviously Bethesda's been holding on to the spiffy horse armor to offer up as a small boon. But why not just include it in the game itself? The thing that really gets me about that armor is that this is a single-player RPG. It's one thing if you're spending thousands of in-game gold, or platinum, or whatever, to get a unique-looking mount that you can cherish while showing off in front of other players.

But paying real-life coin for a couple of new skins and some more armor value just so you can back out your first-person camera and admire it offline seems a little pointless, though maybe this is just because I've spent too much time with online games. The first thing I thought when I saw that armor is that I'd love to be able to show that off in an online game. If I saw someone ride past in a horse richly caparisoned in feathery gold armor, I'd chase after them and demand to know where they got it. But in a single-player game, I expect items to have attractive skins for free. There are already plenty of items like this in Oblivion--detailed armor and imposing weapons you can strive to buy, quest for, or steal. I would have less of an issue if new quests or in-game mechanisms to obtain the new armor (thereby adding actual gameplay content) had been added, but I'm not paying $2 so I can zap on a new skin and say, "pretty horsey!"

So yeah, even though it's less than $3 and the game itself is incredible, my line at paying for add-ons is capped at paying for items that easily could've been thrown into the retail version of the game. It'll be interesting to see whether or not items for single-player games are the kind of thing that people are willing to regularly shell out cash for, and how the market for downloadable content--on consoles and elsewhere--will continue to evolve. Micropayments are still payments, after all, and how discerning we as consumers are with our dollar, even in $1 increments, will dictate the sort of content we can expect to receive.

Next Up: Freeplay by Ryan Davis