Expansion vs. DLC

I don't think it's hard to understand why so many associate size with it to some degree. When the term was first coined, that's when we started seeing all these tiny DLC (like cosmetics) flood the market. Oblivion's horse armor was the first time I can remember seeing it called "DLC".

Back then, people assumed "DLC" was going to be something smallish. That's obviously no longer the case, but it's stuck with some people.
Before the first DLCs, the expansions were mainly distributed with CDs or DVDs, like the examples given by @bkrueger. And according to this reference, the DLC term was coined in 1997 in the context of Total Annihilation, which had DLC for both new scenarios and items. There might be other claimed origins, though. EDIT: Or maybe it was still only a concept and not the word; the real origin seems to be very hard to pinpoint, and it depends whether it's the term or the concept.

But either way, things have changed a lot since then. That's what I said: today, there's no reason to separate them any more.

And indeed, Phantom Liberty is called a DLC, but it contains a story line, side quests, a new type of gigs, vehicles, items, new endings, ... The pathfinder expansions are also called DLCs, so are the potential expansion of JA3 and the upcoming one for Elden Ring. Conversely, new tracks or cars for simulators are often called expansions.

Maybe that expansions are (or were) less often used for small add-ons, but I think it's rather pointless to try and argue over words that are used equally for the same things now. It's like the never-ending discussion about open-world, CRPG, or even RPG. We may find a majority here who think a word or acronym has such or such feature - and disagree on other features - only to realize it's used differently elsewhere.
 
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Before the first DLCs, the expansions were mainly distributed with CDs or DVDs, like the examples given by @bkrueger. And according to this reference, the DLC term was coined in 1997 in the context of Total Annihilation, which had DLC for both new scenarios and items. There might be other claimed origins, though. EDIT: Or maybe it was still only a concept and not the word; the real origin seems to be very hard to pinpoint, and it depends whether it's the term or the concept.
Yeah, that's just the concept not the specific term.

CDPR's web page for Phantom Liberty uses the term expansion and never uses the term DLC: https://www.cyberpunk.net/us/en/phantom-liberty
Elden Ring's expansion/DLC doesn't seem to have a web page yet.

Personally it doesn't bother me if people want to use the term DLC today to mean anything that's downloadable, but the term has a pretty well-defined history that anyone who was around 20 years ago should be familiar with, and is likely biased by. I wouldn't personally ever use it to refer to a real, proper-sized expansion - it just doesn't feel right.
 
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Yeah, that's just the concept not the specific term.

CDPR's web page for Phantom Liberty uses the term expansion and never uses the term DLC: https://www.cyberpunk.net/us/en/phantom-liberty
Elden Ring's expansion/DLC doesn't seem to have a web page yet.

Personally it doesn't bother me if people want to use the term DLC today to mean anything that's downloadable, but the term has a pretty well-defined history that anyone who was around 20 years ago should be familiar with, and is likely biased by. I wouldn't personally ever use it to refer to a real, proper-sized expansion - it just doesn't feel right.
They used the term 'downloadable content', so it's close enough. The acronym itself is very debatable.

CDPR may not use it, but Steam specifically mention it as downloadable content and DLC on the product page, and so are many people, so that illustrates my point perfectly.

As for Elden Ring, they call it a DLC on their product page news. They're making games since the 80s.

I don't think DLC has such a well-defined history, no. It's vague at best and probably mostly biased this way or the other, depending on who's using it. Even if it were historical, I see no point in clinging onto obsolete definitions - even dictionaries adapt and recognize that a definition comes from the usage, not the other way around.
 
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Before the first DLCs, the expansions were mainly distributed with CDs or DVDs, like the examples given by @bkrueger. And according to this reference, the DLC term was coined in 1997 in the context of Total Annihilation, which had DLC for both new scenarios and items. There might be other claimed origins, though. EDIT: Or maybe it was still only a concept and not the word; the real origin seems to be very hard to pinpoint, and it depends whether it's the term or the concept.

But either way, things have changed a lot since then. That's what I said: today, there's no reason to separate them any more.

And indeed, Phantom Liberty is called a DLC, but it contains a story line, side quests, a new type of gigs, vehicles, items, new endings, ... The pathfinder expansions are also called DLCs, so are the potential expansion of JA3 and the upcoming one for Elden Ring. Conversely, new tracks or cars for simulators are often called expansions.

Maybe that expansions are (or were) less often used for small add-ons, but I think it's rather pointless to try and argue over words that are used equally for the same things now. It's like the never-ending discussion about open-world, CRPG, or even RPG. We may find a majority here who think a word or acronym has such or such feature - and disagree on other features - only to realize it's used differently elsewhere.
Yeah, I don't disagree with any of that, but it also doesn't really have anything to do with what I said.

Some gamers still associate DLC with size for the reasons I mentioned. I'm not saying it makes total sense or that I agree with it, but it's a fact.
 
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Yeah, I don't disagree with any of that, but it also doesn't really have anything to do with what I said.

Some gamers still associate DLC with size for the reasons I mentioned. I'm not saying it makes total sense or that I agree with it, but it's a fact.
Yeah, it was not clear because I was stuck in my initial line of thought.

I'm just not sure 'so many' thought DLCs were small or still do, but I could be wrong. Steam is calling everything a DLC and is widely used, but it doesn't mean many people use both terms interchangeably after all.

I guess my answer to @Margok, if we haven't scared him away, is: why does it matter anyway? ;)
 
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The reason DLC started out as smaller pieces of content likely has a lot more to do with available bandwidth at the time than any intentional decision to make "DLC" mean "small". As more users had the ability to download more data more quickly, the size of digital offerings broadened, soon including the games themselves.
 
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The reason DLC started out as smaller pieces of content likely has a lot more to do with available bandwidth at the time than any intentional decision to make "DLC" mean "small".
Of course this is right, but I don't believe anybody wanted to state the contrary. In the beginning, DLCs were small, because only small things could be downloaded. Today everything can be downloaded, so anything is a DLC.

There are expansions, which add something substantial to a base game, like new story and/or areas and non-expansion-DLCs, which only add cosmetic things like different outfits, or items, but don't change the story and world.

You could also give a definition by impact: A DLC is an expansion, if it gives a reason to replay the game and a non-expansion-DLC, if it doesn't.

There may be borderline cases. For example if a new character class is added by DLC , I wouldn't call this an expansion, because for me this alone would never be a reason to replay a game without new story and/or areas. For other people it might be a sufficient reason to replay a game (but probably they wouldn't call it an expansion even in this case).

Today size is only relevant insofar as probably in average an expansion will probably still be bigger than a non-expansion-DLC, but this is not necessarily so and therefore it is no defining property.
 
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Some gamers still associate DLC with size for the reasons I mentioned. I'm not saying it makes total sense or that I agree with it, but it's a fact.
Agree, and I used to totally hang on that same assumption - whereas I haven't been paying attention so when Phantom Liberty came out and was frequently called DLC I just thought "I guess everything is a DLC now." :D
 
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I'm just not sure 'so many' thought DLCs were small or still do, but I could be wrong. Steam is calling everything a DLC and is widely used, but it doesn't mean many people use both terms interchangeably after all.
I don't think many people still look at it that way, but they definitely did back then. It was common to see people say things like "I hope this gets a proper expansion and not just DLC".
 
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I don't think many people still look at it that way, but they definitely did back then. It was common to see people say things like "I hope this gets a proper expansion and not just DLC".
If you reword this to
"I hope this gets a proper expansion and not just a non-expansion-DLC"
it says essentially the same and is compatible with the interpretation, that everything is a DLC. So I don't believe that there is any relevant dissent in the whole discussion here, it is only about wording.
 
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That doesn't have anything to do with what I'm saying, but ok. :)
You are right, because you talked about how people saw it in the past. I wanted to show that there is no use in trying to find relevant differences in today's understanding of the terms.
 
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Not to pour oil on the fire, but it seems that every update is a hotfix now. At least, for some publishers. :p
That's the real change over time. Before digital distribution, the state you shipped your game in was how it was going to remain. Now we get a billion patches for every game.
 
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That is a good aspect: Today I often have the feeling that patches are sold as additional content.
 
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That's the real change over time. Before digital distribution, the state you shipped your game in was how it was going to remain. Now we get a billion patches for every game.
But they call it 'hotfix' when it's actually quite big and took some time to release. To be honest, it's mostly Larian.
 
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"Hotfix" used to be perceived as a small update back in the day. Now it could mean anything, but some people still think of it as small. In fact, it wasn't uncommon to see people say "I hope the next update is a proper patch and not just a hotfix."

;)
Today developers can have the best of both worlds: A huge download with nearly no visible effect.
 
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