Howrse as a Reflection on Real Horse Breeders

So I've been playing as "edaselro" on this free (kind of) web browser game called Howrse for a little while. Despite the fact that it is a truly terrible game with little to no effort put into making it, you know, good, I keep playing it because it's such an interesting psychological study into the minds of would-be horse breeders. First, a little background on this game and how it runs. You begin with a lump of money and your very own horse or pony to train, take care of, compete with, and, eventually, breed. Of course, you can't really compete in this game unless you spend an exorbitant amount of real money to buy "passes" that in turn buy special items that give huge boosts to your horse's stats. As there are a very large number of children on this site with their parents' credit card numbers, and, inexcusably, a number of adults with nothing better to spend thousands of dollars on than a poorly-made browser game, this site makes a killing with very little effort. That so very many users are this dumb is perhaps indicative of the kind of person who is drawn to horse breeding in real life, but I digress.


The game also has certain interesting features like rare, hard to breed unicorns and a "Safe Haven" which will pay YOU to take away horses you don't want anymore. Forever. So with a functional slaughterhouse in place, I think we have all the dynamics necessary for a simulation of the real-world amateur horse breeding operations which are, sadly, so abundant.

The unicorns provide the most interesting study, I think. You have to breed two unicorn parents and exactly the right time in the game for a 1 in 6 chance of getting a unicorn baby. This is rather similar to people breeding for color in real life, although breeding a color isn't quite so difficult (although perhaps it seems that way if you don't know anything about genetics). The result? In real life, lots of horses will come out that aren't the color you're after, and because you are breeding for color without any regard to conformation, skill, soundness, or anything else that's actually important, you have a bunch of worthless horses that, far more often than not, end up in a slaughterhouse. And in the game? Its auctions are flooded with "no horn" unicorns that are basically useless, as there's no such thing as a "recessive horn" in this game. They are all labelled, "PLEASE BUY! This or Safe Haven!!! :(" and they have no skills to speak of. You would think in the confines of a video game, where you are playing with lots and lots of fake money and time is sped up dramatically, you'd eventually figure out that this wasn't working, and maybe you should at least be breeding GOOD unicorn parents together and be making a profit on the babies no matter how they came out. The problem is, just like in real life, people want a novelty and will pay for it, even if it sucks in all other regards. It turns out to be very profitable to breed trash in hopes of getting that useless horn (or color).

And then there's the Safe Haven. There are many users in this game who will flame you to kingdom come if you even suggest that the Safe Haven is a slaughterhouse. Their conscience won't allow for it, even for a horse made of ones and zeros. You would think that this would carry over into real life, when real lives were at stake, and yet thousands end up in the slaughterhouse every year. What gives? I think it's a combination of the fact that selling a horse for slaughter (like sending it to the Safe Haven) pays you (money is the ultimate motivating factor), and that sending a horse through the auctions and telling yourself that they are just going to end up in a "Safe Haven" allows a certain degree of denial. In that sense, maybe including the Safe Haven in the Howrse game isn't just a retarded way to bail out stupid, irresponsible breeders. Perhaps it's in fact a very astute observation on their part...

Nah.