Downloadable Content

Delivery rather than scope is the defining trait. Because distribution costs almost nothing, the unit of sale can be one texture or an entire region, and it arrives with no manufacturing, no retail and no box. Storefronts handle payment and entitlement, and the content either unlocks data already installed or downloads a patch. Bundles, seasons and staggered release schedules all follow from that flexibility.

Bethesda Game Studios sold a horse armour cosmetic for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in 2006 for a small sum, and the reaction taught the industry exactly how little could be packaged and sold. Consoles had experimented with downloadable additions earlier over dial-up and broadband services, so the technology was not new. New was the combination: a mainstream storefront, a connected installed base, and a public demonstration of the floor.

Revenue after launch became normal, which funds longer support for games and, in the same motion, makes it rational to plan a release around what will be withheld from it. Players learned to read a launch as provisional until the schedule appeared. Preservation suffers most, because content tied to a storefront disappears when that storefront does, and a delisted add-on can leave a game impossible to experience as sold.