It didn’t start with horse armor. And even then, while clearly stupid, it wasn’t egregious in the way modern mtx is. It was just a poorly priced optional cosmetic DLC. Modern mtx is a whole other beast, where companies use every psychological trick in the book to get people addicted to gambling.
Horse armor was not cosmetic. It was armor.
Otherwise, spot-on. At least people who paid for horse armor got a whole new file for something that was not already in the damn game. Nowadays you’re already looking at the thing, and you’re getting gouged for the ability to say you have it.
Not gonna dispute this but horse armor has a cache
Cachet.
Oh, it had like an inventory functionality? I love Oblivion, but I obviously didn’t get the armor and don’t remember the details. I suspect it also provided defense for the horse? In that case it’s almost approaching Assassin’s Creed’s “buy xp to skip grind” level of egregiousness, but still just a DLC.
apologies… cache as in it was a meme with gamers about paying for it haha as it was a joke but here we are :/
Could you please explain? Now I’m curious.
If the internet was a real a place i would be able to pull article from the time period but search yields jack shit.
but here something now (2020) https://screenrant.com/oblivion-horse-armor-dlc-controversy-explained/
In 2006 - a year after the Xbox 360’s launch - the term “microtransaction” wasn’t even widely known. Instead, Oblivion’s Horse Armor was just called “bad DLC.” But it ended up kick-starting of one of gaming’s most hated and most lucrative business tactics.
I didn’t find any references to “cache”. That’s the part I want to understand, what the significance of that part of the joke. Why “cache”?
cachet*
Ah, as in it provides respect? And sounds like cash? I know, I know, dissecting jokes is a lot of fun.