The inability (or unwillingness) of some game developers to fully implement compatibility with Windows Vista is driving me crazy. The latest fiasco? Bethesda Softworks and their game Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Yes, I know I wrote a lovely review of the game a little while back, and let it be known that I still love the game. Amazingly, it works perfectly fine on Vista. I’ve had no problems…until now.
It all started when I discovered some downloadable content for Oblivion. There were a few interesting things there, most of them for fairly cheap, so I decided to buy a few of the content packs. I paid and downloaded the install files only to find out that they all produced an error message and quit. Confused, I looked around the Bethesda Softworks support forum for an answer. It wasn’t a good one. Apparently, none of the downloadable content packs from OblivionDownloads.com will install on Windows Vista. There was a note on the page before I confirmed my payment, but it appeared to mention only 64-bit versions of Windows XP and Vista. Too late did I realize it meant 64-bit Windows XP and any version of Vista. So I’m out $6.76 and there are four useless installers sitting on my computer, waiting for the day that Bethesda pulls its head out of the ground and fully supports both Oblivion and its addons on Vista.
I mean, why on Earth would those installers not work? It’s maddening. Not the loss of seven bucks, but rather that some game developers still aren’t catering to the Vista portion of their consumer base. Sure, there are a lot of Vista-ready games, but those are generally developed by companies close to Microsoft (Halo 2 and Shadowrun, anyone?) or on the bleeding edge. I know Oblivion is a fairly old game. I know that patching it won’t magically make things better. But considering that Oblivion works on Vista (at least in my case) why shouldn’t the addon packs?
The site says something about the “secure downloader” for the content packs not working with Vista, but that doesn’t make any sense. The forums are no help, either. They just resort to telling people that Bethesda doesn’t support Oblivion on Vista and that downloadable content won’t work. No work arounds, no hints as to when a fix might be in order, no help at all. I guess this means I won’t be putting shiny armor on my horse any time soon…
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