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/vr/ - Retro Games

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5231721 No.5231721 [Reply] [Original]

What was the equivalent of loot boxes and DLC during the 90's?

>> No.5231726

>>5231721
Nothing

>> No.5231734
File: 960 KB, 1559x1984, 91Sv2Kdsu5L.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5231734

Game guides?

>> No.5231745

>>5231734
Holy fuck, you reminded me how anytime a AAA game was released the cashier would always try to push this shit.

>> No.5231771

Expansion packs.

>> No.5231782

Arcades were the original pay-to-win games.

>> No.5231783

Game guides were nice because there was no internet and then when there was internet it was ascii gamefaqs guides

>> No.5231785

>>5231783
Magazine racks were my go to whenever i was dragged to the supermarket with my mom. Tore out a few pages here and there.

>> No.5231791

>>5231785
memorizing and writing down codes from tips and tricks was the best

>> No.5231814

>>5231721
CHEAT CODES
GAME GENIE
GAME SHARK

>> No.5231816

>>5231721
Street Fighter 2 Turbo Champion Hyper Edition

>> No.5231821

>>5231783
I remember IGN had a pay service with hundreds of guides with photos early 2000s, maybe as early as 1999. It was like $20 a year and was essentually the same as their gree guides now.

>> No.5231826
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5231826

Mission packs

>> No.5231832

>>5231721
Arcades.

>> No.5231841

>>5231785
>Tore out a few pages here and there.
That's part of the Macdonald triad you know.

>> No.5231853

>>5231721
Demo disks attached to the magazines

>> No.5231862

>>5231721
Shit you cut the UPC code off your box and sent in through the mail for. Capcom did a bit of that.

>> No.5231870
File: 270 KB, 2512x1700, Sonic-Knuckles-Advert.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5231870

>>5231721
Sonic & KNUCKLES BITCH

>> No.5231887
File: 48 KB, 425x597, iy34i.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5231887

>>5231870
part of the tower of fucking power, baby!

>> No.5231913

>>5231887
Doesn't that tower actually work, though?

>> No.5231932

>>5231913
No, it's using a cleaning cartridge.

>> No.5233352

Game guides.

Most 90's games are close to impossible to 100% without one.

>> No.5233371

>>5233352
LMAO fucking casual

>> No.5233405

test

>> No.5233443

>>5231771
>>5231853
>Expansions
>Demos
>Bad
The absolute state of /v/

>> No.5233462
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5233462

>>5231721
Freely avaliable community work released commercially without the nickel going to creators. Maximum Doom, this, etc.
To a lesser degree - unofficial commercial expansions and mods trying to cash on the big names. Quake was especially popular with them for some reason - Shrack, X-Men: Ravages of the apocalypse (this was especially bullshit because it was a big corp behaving like some garage studio going for quick buck), some other shitty level packs.

>> No.5233528

>>5233352
HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAJHHAAA
YOU SUKY AT GAMIE

>> No.5233534

Segachannel and Stellaview

also I guess the 32x and SegaCD

all of these things didn't really become huge so I guess 'gamers' were smarter then

>> No.5233606

>>5231821
I recall ign charging money for more content, such bullshit even then.

>> No.5233614

>>5231721
faggot doom wads

>> No.5233689

>>5233443
Expansion packs are roughly equivalent to DLC, and if you don’t think so you’re not looking at this rationally. The difference is we just didn’t look upon them with scorn, because the apparent pretense behind x-pacs was “Hey, people like our game, let’s make a shitload more content,” whereas DLC is planned often concurrently with the main game and just feels like a cash-grab.

>> No.5233773

>>5233689
Games didn't release with "Day 1 Expansion" content locked behind a credit card screen. Shareware would be the closest. Also, expansions were actual content and not retarded horse armor and dance packs.

>> No.5233804

>>5233689
On the topic of expansion packs, I feel the DLC of today doesn't even hold a candle compared to the packs we got in the 90's. Duke Nuke 3D, Quake, and more were amazing.

>> No.5233823

>>5231771
>development of expansion packs usually started after the main game was released
>usually not released earlier than a year after the main game
>comes with actual gameplay-improvements and content
yeah, totally comparable.

>> No.5233824

Expansion packs, although these were often so expansive that they'd double the content. In some cases (the older Bioware RPGs come to mind), the expansion pack content was often better than the core game.

>> No.5234386
File: 23 KB, 403x302, no one saves you.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5234386

>>5233462
>International directory for DOOM/HERETIC players
This reminds me of those web directories published as dead-tree books.
*SIIIIPPPP*
Those libraries I saw the books in had more information in them then the internet did back then.

>> No.5234405

>>5231721
Strategy guides. Although that mostly stays true for today as the same thing.

>> No.5234448

>>5231816
Those were the 90s equivalent of balance patches. If they were released nowadays, they'd probably just be called "Street Fighter II v1.06: M Bison Update"".

>> No.5235959

>>5233689
GTA IV DLC episodes are expansion packs. They're full games on their own. GTA IV + each episode are essentially three games, a trilogy.

That is rare nowadays. Expansion packs still exists, but they're less common now and are shorter (but comparatively cheaper).

Now compared to what most DLC is nowadays, then no, expansion packs are entirely different. They were always cheaper than the base game, and as such featured less content, but they were still almost as lengthy as the base game.

And then there are standalone expansion packs. So an expansion packs are a game by themselves.WarCraft II + Dark Portal are 2 games. Diablo 2 + LoD are 2 games.Half Life + blue shift + opposing force are 3 games, etc.

>> No.5235974

>>5234405
No. Guides were rarely needed for any reason, outside of a few memed examples where you can't win without Nintendo Power. Guides are like posters or figures or similar, an extra merch to buy.

>> No.5235976

>>5235959
There are tons of games with lengthy "DLC" as you would claim them to be. Autistically defining words or terms means anything can be anything.

>> No.5235979

>>5231726
First post, best post

>> No.5236012

>>5235976
Autistically what you piece of shit.

DLC means "downloadable content". Expansion packs can be distributed as DLC.

>> No.5236018

>>5233534
I don't know about Sega Channel, but Satellaview DID have DLC for a couple titles.

>> No.5236056

>>5231721
Buying two pokemon carts to get all the pokemon?

SMB All Stars costing greater than a regular SNES game because they wanted to retain the perceived value of including 4 games?

>> No.5236059

>>5231734
>Ariga: Another thing I’ve wondered about for awhile: why can you kill Metal Man in two hits with the Metal Blade?! Was that actually in your planning docs? I remember being momentarily stunned when I discovered this… then I burst out laughing! There’s never been another boss like that before or since. It was really memorable.

>Kitamura: That was written into the planning docs, yes. It’s a “hidden trick.” In the old days, if your game didn’t have any secrets, it was difficult to get it featured in the various gaming magazines. Also, there’s the secret in Mega Man 2 where you can change the stars to birds in the boss select screen—that was added for the same reason.

>> No.5236080

Don't forget that the majority of expansion packs were made by third parties.
It wasn't like the game devs themselves planning the DLC before the game is even released.

>> No.5236104
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5236104

>>5231870

>> No.5236114

>>5236080
this lead to gearbox existing which lead to Randy Pitchford being CEO which lead to shit games.

Not sure what to think now.

>> No.5236125

>>5233462
That's a cool box.

>> No.5236127

>>5235974
Well they're really not needed today. At least back then you had the excuse of not having Internet access.

>> No.5236128

>>5236104
Probably laughed a bit too hard at this.

>> No.5236159

>>5236127
Back then game guides could ruin your experience just like any other spoilers. A lot of gamers don't actually like playing abd learning games though, they just want to "beat" them and "get everything" so they use a guide to do the work for them

>> No.5236305

>>5236159
I do find it odd that my first playthrough with FF7 was with a guide. I didn't buy it. It was a gift.... but it was weird being obsessed with making sure I was finding all the summon materia.

>> No.5236840

>>5231721
Street fighter 2/Fatal Fury editions.And of course double dragon 3

>> No.5236843
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5236843

Expansions.

>> No.5236846

>>5236104
>I AM SILLY

>> No.5237374

>>5236128
If you laughed a bit you laughed too hard

>> No.5237553

>>5236305
I feel bad for you. Even if you still liked it, which you likely did I feel the true experience of discovering it for yourself was robbed.

>> No.5237936

>>5233352
>90's games
>having % completion indicators

>> No.5237985

>>5231721
Arcades, except they were much worse.

>> No.5238090

>>5237936
Pretty sure the Donkey Kong Country games had that. I can't really think of any other examples, though.

>> No.5238115

>>5231721
Intentionally designing games to have things in them you need to buy a strategy guide for because they are so abstract and out of the way or random there’s no way anyone would figure it out without a guide. PS1 era Final Fantasy games are guilty of this.