Honestly that horse armor implementation would be fine now. Purely cosmetic, wasn’t rammed in our face every time we opened the game, etc.
It gave your horse extra health actually, so not purely cosmetic. But I think in a single player game that also has extremely good modding tools, it doesn’t really matter. If you want to pay to win your single player game, you do you.
Horse armour was mostly a landmark for showing companies that consumers were willing to pay for micro stuff like that. The potential return vs effort invested was crazy. Todd himself said that they try doing nice DLC that gives you good value for your money, but it’s hard to justify business-wise when the horse armour is so cheap to make and sells so well.
slippery slope… and here we are today
Honestly, I’m all for horse armor. Oblivion didn’t do anything stupid like requiring an internet connection, and I could easily ignore the horse armor as horrendous value for my dollar. It’s way worse when they’re prioritizing “engagement” via battle passes or legalized gambling for children via loot boxes.
Slippery slopes hold no water
Tell that to literally every lake ever… When several slopes join together, you can, in fact, drown down slope.
🤓