Gaming History Quiz: What was the first expansion pack/free DLC/paid DLC ever released?

[Infinitron]

Definitions:

We'll define "expansion pack" as something that was sold in boxes, in a store.

We'll define "DLC" as something that was only available via download. DLC that was at first only available via download, but was released in a box later on, still counts as DLC.

Questions:

1) What was the first expansion pack that was actually a separate new campaign? Ie, a "sequel expansion", not something that altered any of the original game's content.

Best answer so far: Dunjonquest: Upper Reaches of Apshai (1981) - Infinitron​

2) What was the first expansion pack that added content to the original game? This can be anything from horse armor to new quests to new classes and mechanics.

Best answer so far: Populous: The Promised Lands (1989) - commie​

3) What was the first free DLC that was a separate new campaign?

Best answers so far:
Team Fortress Classic (1999) - Infinitron (borderline, multiplayer mod for Half-Life)
Witch's Wake for Neverwinter Nights (2002) - Infinitron​

4) What was the first free DLC that added content to the the original game?

Best answer so far: Christmas Pack 1 for Creatures (1996) - index.php​

5) What was the first paid DLC that was a separate new campaign?

Best answer so far: Kingmaker for Neverwinter Nights (2004) - Infinitron​

6) What was the first paid DLC that added content to the original game?

Best answer so far: Cuss Pack for Redneck Rampage (1997) - Unkillable Cat​

Possible issues:

Sometimes the separation between "separate adventure" and "added content" can get murky. For example, in Icewind Dale, you can access the Heart of Winter expansion pack in Kuldahar, so arguably it "adds content" to the original game. But it's also a separate adventure accessible from the main menu. Then there's Throne of Bhaal which has both a separate adventure (Throne of Bhaal proper) and added content (Watcher's Keep). I think we can handle these on a case-by-case, common sense basis.

Then there are "Gold Edition" rereleases (such as Thief Gold) which are also sort of like expansion packs, in that they just add content for you, if you've already played the original game. I don't think there are many of these, though. Feel free to mention them along with your regular response. (Of course, in many cases, the Gold Editions will include content that was also released as an expansion pack or DLC, and in that case there's no need to mention them at all.)

In games with multiplayer, I will consider a DLC or expansion pack with new multiplayer maps as additional content for the main game, not as "separate new campaigns".

 

[Dexter]

Regarding the "DLC" question, it is rather hard to answer, especially since it wasn't branded that until much later and I'm sure there were Patches on game disks that added some stuff even earlier, but a few examples I remember for instance for the free stuff would be:

Trials of the Luremaster for Icewind Dale: http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/IWD/how_exp.php

In response to some players wanting more game experience from Icewind Dale and Heart of Winter, Black Isle Studios developed a free, downloadable dungeon pack add-on for customers of Heart of Winter. The pack is sized at 72MB, and plugs directly into the game, provided Heart of Winter is installed. This expansion set includes several new monsters, quests, items, areas and portraits, as well as a brand new adventure.

Unreal Tournament Bonus Pack: http://www.gpdownloads.co.nz/dl.dyn/Files/2721.html

Thanks for acquiring the Unreal Tournament Bonus Pack. This pack is our way of saying "Thank you!" to the gamers out there who have supported Epic. This pack should be compatible with previous versions of Unreal Tournament as well as all future versions.
Feel free to distribute this pack online as well as on magazine cover disks.

It is illegal to charge users for this content.

Lots of WarCraft III Bonus Maps: http://classic.battle.net/war3/maps/war3xbonusmaps.shtml



Regarding "Paid DLC" and branding Extra Content that way (and I've argued this before), I'm pretty sure it's entirely Microsofts fault: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downloadable_content#On_personal_computers and one of the earliest games to have it was their game Mech Assault on the Xbox in 2002, after which they "experimented" somewhat more with other titles and decided to integrate it as a main component of their Xbox Live service to "offer more value" and gain more revenue.
It was around the same time they felt especially greedy and also introduced "Xbox Live Gold Membership" with monthly fees for playing Online and apparently required every piece of DLC to be priced, since they wanted a piece of the cake and not for the developers to give away what they thought of as free content since they might get used to that sort of treatment. They also tried doing the same thing on GFWL later, but it didn't work out so well for them and they're obviously also asking money for Patches.

This is an older NeoGAF thread noting that some developers were against it at first like Epic Games or Team17: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=147804

"But is there something that Microsoft isn't telling us? Could there be significant free content available in the Market place that the company is withholding?

Game Informer spoke with multiple contacts within the industry about the process that publishers and developers have to go through to get their content on Xbox Live Marketplace. We also found out that there is free content that companies want to offer, but Microsoft's mandating that consumers pay for it.

When a publisher has goods it wants to put up for sale, those prices must first be submitted to Microsoft. As part of an agreement with the company, publishers have signed a document that hands over final say to Microsoft regarding Market place pricing. From here, Microsoft takes a look at the market and prices items to maintain a balance among items of similiar value.

Game Informer talked to Aron Greenburg, Xbox Live/Xbox 360 group product manager who denied that Microsoft has final say over Market place pricing. "It's ultimitaly up to the publisher," he told us.

However, according to our sources, it's not up to publishers, and free content is being with held from consumers under the speculated motive of Microsoft wanting to make gamers accustomed to paying money for goods above and beyond wallpapers. Said one industry insider we talked to, "they want you in the store and they want you buying stuff that is at full price. "We've even been told that the rules of the game may vary depending on hoW much clout your company has with Microsoft.

Greenberg denied knowledge of any motive to restrict free content, but admitted that the company does indeed adjust download prices. "there may be some situation or unusual case where there's content that's significant in nature and it would make other content look out of line, but I'm not aware of any case where we've told them that they couldn't offer it for free."

Incidentally, the devs of Team 17 said as much on their official forums, though that thread has already been deleted:

Originally Posted by Spadge Team 17 Staff:
We are planning a lot of free content, but ultimately those controls are down to Microsoft because they have a lot of other companies serving downloadable content who wish to protect their 'value' (would be less so, if for example, all our stuff was free).

First pack of DLC will come soon.

Valve noted similar things when they tried providing games like Team Fortress 2 or Left4Dead with a similar service like their PC counterparts: http://www.shacknews.com/article/60365/microsoft-forces-valve-to-price

The decision to charge for the Xbox 360 version of the upcoming "Crash Course" Left 4 Dead DLC was ultimately made by Microsoft, according to Valve's Chet Faliszek.

"We own our platform, Steam. Microsoft owns their platform. They wanted to make sure there's an economy of value there," said Faliszek to Eurogamer.

The first content release for Left 4 Dead, which included a new Survival mode and extra Versus maps, was free on both platforms. Crash Course, set to include a new campaign for the game, will be free on PC and cost 560 Microsoft Points ($7) on the 360.

"[Microsoft] helped us get the first one out for free," explained Faliszek. "We had the one DLC out for free. And I think... they have to look and say, wow, we're kind of being unfair to everybody else if these guys can do that."

Added Faliszek: "It's not like we're looking at this as, 'Oh my god, we need some money, we're going to charge,' obviously, or we'd do it on the PC. So it's just kind of the way the system works right now."

Valve will also have to put a price on its upcoming Xbox 360 Team Fortress 2 DLC pack.

"On the consoles, they want us to charge money for [DLC], because that's in their model, and our model is very much more to grow the community by giving out free updates," said Valve president Gabe Newell last year. "That's harder for us."

 

[Infinitron]

I'm not trying to play the blame game for DLC in this thread. We all know how much DLC can suck. I'm just curious to see what games did these things first.

For the record, this is the oldest expansion pack I can think of off the top of my head: http://www.mobygames.com/game/wing-commander-the-secret-missions
It was a separate campaign that didn't alter the original game.

 

[Crooked Bee]

1) Wizardry II and III? Same gameplay, same looks, but new dungeons and monsters. They were marketed as sequels, but surely feel more like expansion packs. Dunno if this counts.

 

[Ulminati]

Bonus question: Which game was the first to offer Disc-Locked Content? That is -- DLC that's actually on the disc when it ships and you have to pay to have it unlocked along with a bogus file transfer to obscure the fact you paid for something you already had.

1) Wizardry II and III? Same gameplay, same looks, but new dungeons and monsters. They were marketed as sequels, but surely feel more like expansion packs. Dunno if this counts.

I'd say to qualify as an expansion pack the software should require a "base" game to be installed for the expansion to run. Otherwise it's a sequal, lazy as it may be.



Bonus trivia: The "Expansion pack" for Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight - Mysteries of the Sith - required the original JKII discs to run. But if you ran a 1.5KB crack, it turned out that you only really needed the MotS CD after all and no content from the JKII installantion or discs were necessary.

 

[Infinitron]

1) Wizardry II and III? Same gameplay, same looks, but new dungeons and monsters. They were marketed as sequels, but surely feel more like expansion packs. Dunno if this counts.

I suppose I should have clarified that an expansion pack is defined as something that requires the original game to work.

There are plenty of Mission Pack Sequels but that's outside the scope of this quiz.

 

[DaveO]

If Bee's point about the Wizardry's counts, then it's definitely applicable to Wizard's Crown and Eternal Dagger. You can import a party from WC to ED.

Don't forget stuff like "Boulder Dash" or other game "Construction Sets" or the Adventure Construction Set from Stuart Smith(IIRC).

The only part of the original WC game to get ED to work is the party import process(which is optional).

 

[Dexter]

I'm not trying to play the blame game for DLC in this thread. We all know how much DLC can suck. I'm just curious to see what games did these things first.

That's hardly possible since paid DLC is mostly grounded in exploitation/getting more money for the same product and there's barely any examples of it being done well and the two things not being connected. As for the second part of the question, as I said it's mostly connected to Microsoft. xD

A few other questions could be:
Which game purposefully/most obviously withheld parts of the game to be sold piecemeal later?: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/12/16/assassins-creed-2-dlc-detailed-fills-in-missing-chapters-adds/
http://kotaku.com/5806885/la-noire-dlc-offers-players-new-cases-to-play-new-ways-to-pay
Which game was missing entire features that had been advertised before, just to try to sell some of them as DLC later? http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=9044384
Which game missed the point of "DLC" most obviously and thought it meant "Disc-Locked-Content": http://beefjack.com/news/street-fighter-iv-dlc-disk/
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/289501/marvel-vs-capcom-3-dlc-already-on-disc/
http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Street-Fighter-X-Tekken-DLC-Unlock-Guide-Xbox-360-40557.html
Which publisher took the most pride in announcing DLC for games still 6-12 months away from release and/or Exclusive to specific platforms?
http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Xb...-Raider-Black-Ops-2-South-Park-RPG-43197.html
http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2012/06/04/ps3-exclusive-assassins-creed-3-dlc-announced/

 

[DaveO]

Just found the answer from this page: http://www.bmigaming.com/videogamehistory.htm
Content is copied from it below

As a footnote to this era and Baer's work, in 1971, the "Brown Box" video game console prototype was refined and officially licensed to Magnavox,
and after being renamed the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video gaming console for televisions, which was released to the public in 1972.

Baer also later created the first light gun and game for home television
use, sold grouped with a game expansion pack for the Odyssey known
as the Shooting Gallery. The light gun Baer came up with was the very
first mass-produced gaming peripheral for a video game or video console.

 

[Infinitron]

...I don't think that's an expansion pack in the sense we're talking about here.

 

[Crooked Bee]

1) Wizardry II and III? Same gameplay, same looks, but new dungeons and monsters. They were marketed as sequels, but surely feel more like expansion packs. Dunno if this counts.

I suppose I should have clarified that an expansion pack is defined as something that requires the original game to work.

Well, Wizardry II requires you to import your party from Wizardry I, otherwise you can't play it, so it does require the original game to work.

 

[DaveO]

From MobyGames site...

Game: Planet Miners (a.k.a. The Planet Miners!: Expansion into the Solar System)
Apple II (1980), Atari 8-bit (1981), Commodore PET/CBM (1981), FM-7 (1982) and TRS-80 (1980)
The above may not qualify since expansion is in the title, so just in case...

Game: Exerion
MSX (1984), NES (1985), SG-1000 (1983) and Wii (2007)

 

[Infinitron]

1) Wizardry II and III? Same gameplay, same looks, but new dungeons and monsters. They were marketed as sequels, but surely feel more like expansion packs. Dunno if this counts.

I suppose I should have clarified that an expansion pack is defined as something that requires the original game to work.

Well, Wizardry II requires you to import your party from Wizardry I, otherwise you can't play it, so it does require the original game to work.

Hmm, interesting. I would call it a borderline case since you don't need the game data of Wizardry I itself.

From MobyGames site...

Game: Planet Miners (a.k.a. The Planet Miners!: Expansion into the Solar System)
Apple II (1980), Atari 8-bit (1981), Commodore PET/CBM (1981), FM-7 (1982) and TRS-80 (1980)

Please stop running text searches for the word "expansion".

 

[TigerKnee]

Sorcerian for the PC-88 is the first game I remember. There were "mission" packs that were themed and sold (e.g Gilgamesh Sorcerian, Sengoku Sorcerian). I don't think the concept of DLC was even "known" yet so they were really ahead of the time in that regards.

Most of the future rereleases of the game stripped out that feature, including the English MS DOS release by Sierra.

 

[DaveO]

Looks like the mainframes did it first. The multiple versions of mainframe games could qualify(Colossal Cave and others) if code revisions by the original authors or others are acceptable.

 

[Infinitron]

Sorcerian for the PC-88 is the first game I remember. There were "mission" packs that were themed and sold (e.g Gilgamesh Sorcerian, Sengoku Sorcerian). I don't think the concept of DLC was even "known" yet so they were really ahead of the time in that regards.

Most of the future rereleases of the game stripped out that feature, including the English MS DOS release by Sierra.

Awesome. I assume these belonged to category 1.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I vaguely remember some kind of Data Disk expansion (Island pack?) for Carrier Command (1988), but can't find any information on it.

Bloodwych (1989) had an expansion, Bloodwych Data Disk: Vol 1, also known as Bloodwych: The Extended levels. This added a new dungeon and new spells, but otherwise gameplay was unchanged. I can't find a release date for it, but it's either 1989 or 1990.

Lazer Squad (1988) is an oddity:

The original Target Games 8-bit release came with the first three missions with an expansion pack offered via mail order for the next two. The subsequent Blade Software 8-bit release included these as standard; the mail order expansion pack now offered was for missions six and seven instead. Both offers covered cassette and floppy disk versions.

The Blade release was in 1989. I should know as I still own my Amstrad CPC copy of it. This means that the original version didn't have the "expansion pack", while subsequent re-releases included it, and offered ANOTHER expansion pack, which AFAIK was never available in a commercial release.

This should go a way towards answering questions 1 and 2.

EDIT: Just saw Sorcerian mentioned. The release date is at the end of 1987, so any expansion packs released would have to be in 1988 at the earliest, yet there are no release dates available, and no method describing their distribution. Considering that Japan had some very interesting methods of distributing data (floppy drive vending machines, for example), this will have to be looked into further to get a clear answer.

 

[Infinitron]

Excellent. Sorcerian seems to precede those, though.

 

[Johannes]

Would releasing a new version of, for example, NetHack, count as free DLC that adds content? It doesn't require the earlier versions files to work, and saves are usually incompatible, but other than that you get about the same effect.

 

[Infinitron]

Would releasing a new version of, for example, NetHack, count as free DLC that adds content? It doesn't require the earlier versions files to work, and saves are usually incompatible, but other than that you get about the same effect.

Enhanced rereleases of games weren't what I had in mind with this thread, but like I said in OP, feel free to mention those too, if you think they're interesting.

 

[Average Manatee]

You old coots are talking about games from when I was but a wee lad who played healthy activities, so I can't help much. Interesting topic though.

Bonus question: Which game was the first to offer Disc-Locked Content? That is -- DLC that's actually on the disc when it ships and you have to pay to have it unlocked along with a bogus file transfer to obscure the fact you paid for something you already had.

Any shareware game ever? Though there is no bogus file transfer.

 

[Desktop Commander]

The earliest Expansion I can think of is the mission disk for the first Mercenary (Mercenary: Escape from Targ - The Second City). It needed the original game to run and was sold in a box at retail. It was released in 1986.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/mercenary-escape-from-targ-the-second-city

 

[sser]

Expansion packs have been around since the early 80s, dunno what would be first, though.

Not sure about DLC; I do think it's a way trickier thing to tackle, because its use in modern vernacular is kinda new. DLC really took off in the public's eye when there was some expensive horse armor in Oblivion and when developers started putting "locked" content on the CDs. I think the "Microsoft did it" thinking is probably the most accurate. Companies used to put out mission/expansion packs, either for free or for pay, but rarely just little bits of content here and there like we see with DLC. Did the concept of DLC exist before we called it DLC... I dunno. Again, it's difficult, because the idea of it just didn't really exist -- and it's sorta anachronistic to look back in time scouring for "DLC" when there was no concept of it. The rampant incentivization of DLC sure as hell didn't exist until recently, and that's really what DLC is all about in the first place, IMO. Even if not literally the beginning, Oblivion's shenanigans were at the very least the start of companies realizing they could get away with serious buillshit. (aka, DLC)

 

[Infinitron]

The earliest Expansion I can think of is the mission disk for the first Mercenary (Mercenary: Escape from Targ - The Second City). It needed the original game to run and was sold in a box at retail. It was released in 1986.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/mercenary-escape-from-targ-the-second-city

Did the concept of DLC exist before we called it DLC... I dunno.

Free DLC: Trials of the Luremaster

Paid DLC: NWN Premium Modules

 

[DaveO]

Secret Operations for Wing Commander Prophecy was downloadable content before the internet could handle it. It was released in 1998, although wikipedia classifies it as an expansion pack.