What is an Expansion Pack?
- puertorico0597
- Nov 21, 2017
- 4 min read
If you grew up in the 90's or early 2000's, you probably already know what expansion packs are. For those who are a bit older, younger, or been under a rock throughout the years, I'll give you a little lesson about them and how they could be implemented in the literary world. As seen above, that is the "Expansion Pack" or one of the few for Duke Nukem 3D. Basically an expansion pack is a game added onto a previous game, it could be a continuation of the main game, or it could be a complete spin-off of the story using the same gameplay mechanics. I know if you play video games today, expansion pack is something you no longer hear to a great extent. I know the common word is DLC or my worse enemy and why I don't play video games anymore, microtransactions.
There is a difference in my view between DLC and Expansion Packs. DLC to me is simply a get me over for game companies to suck money for small cosmetic changes while giving you the same damn gameplay. Or it could be unlocking different characters just to play the same exact game with the same bland story you played already 3 times. An expansion pack provides a much richer experience with a different story, different characters, and additional gameplay features on top of the existing gameplay features from the main game. Some of you will argue by saying game companies don't see money in expansion packs anymore and prefer to"cheat" the customer by using quick $5-$20 DLC that provide little addition to the game, but because the price is right, people will get the DLC anyway. To be honest, if you give me that arguement I would believe you and it's sad to see the ways of our founding fathers go by the wayside due to human greed.
Above is the expansion pack for Age of Empires, an awesome retro RTS game. It was priced like a full game and that's because it was. You needed Age of Empires to run the expansion, but the expansion gave you a very different experience with the new civs, new gameplay style, and new campaigns. What I'm trying to say is that with this $30 expansion pack, you got a good 72+ hours more of additional gameplay and trying out all the new/old civs with the updated Tech Tree. Some of you might call me an old fart since all I do is give examples of older games, well I'm cool with that title of old fart. After all, I prefer the retro classics over the newer games anyway.
Now, here is the question you been waiting to have answered. How do I implement this idea into books? Well, it will work best with LitRPG, LitFPS, and GameLit books. I wouldn't try it with any other just yet as this is aimed more towards the gamers. First of all, it has to be part of an existing Gamelit series. It would have to be a story that builds upon one of the main books or a be a spinoff from the main series while keeping the main premise of the series intact. Changing the premise entirely doesn't make it an expansion anymore as the story falls outside of the series. It's a very delicate balance of not repeating the main story and giving a fresh look into the existing story and not changing everything around where fans will become confused. This is still a rather new idea even for me and I have to say I'm the first author to put "Expansion Pack" on the title of my book.
Being a gamer though, I have a good idea that my book will fit the description of expansion packs as it kind of requires the reader to have read the first book to get the idea of the storyline of the series. However, it's different enough that it could be read as a standalone as well, although it's meant to attract readers to read the entire series. Also my main series reads more like a soft gamelit with mention of video game elements, but no actual stats. Readers still happen to find a way to compare the series to a video game anyway. This new book or expansion is for the crunchy LitRPG readers who love stats and this one reads more like an actual FPS game with the elements actually being explained instead of just being mentioned in the background. In essence, I just created something for the casual gamelit reader and something for the hardcore reader.
Also I believe using "Expansion Packs" will be gold is because you can use more ideal marketing tatics. As seen above, this is the Rome Total War: Gold Edition, not a box set like authors have to use. Being a GameLit series with Expansion Packs written you can bundle your books into Gold Editions where you have the main book and all of its expansions or create budget bundles where the reader only gets certain stories such as silver or bronze. Trust me Gold Edition sounds alot better than box set everytime. Will this idea take off, it's too early to tell. One thing is for certain though, the gamelit movement is getting more exciting as the months pass by!
