Just wanted to say thanks to everybody who shared this. The strike is happening and ongoing, I hope you've heard about it. Please keep supporting as the strike may go longer than anticipated and as usual there is the the story falling out of people's attention.

Thanks again

What's the first time you remember encountering DLC?

The common answer is horse armor; while not the first on the 360 (Godfather, for instance, sold individual cheat codes) it was the big headlining item for "Useless shit you can spend five dollars on".

Going earlier, it gets murky. There were some titles that let you buy maps on the original Xbox but a lot of items there ended up just being free DLC. I'm sure the realm of MMO and proto-Free to Play titles had some contenders. But me? It was 1999, and I had just received a virtual aquarium.

Desktop Life

Aquazone was a Japanese Windows and Macintosh title developed by OPeNBooK 9003inc. (who you may recognize from Yoot Tower) and published in the US by Mindscape. Aquazone simulates an aquarium with a striking amount of detail. A new file gives you an aquarium full of tap water you need to condition into livable specifications for the fish you've chosen. Then you gotta feed them, make sure they don't get sick all while providing an enriching environment they can feel comfortable in. It was also a vehicle designed to sell you a lot of fish .movs. The pitch is this: You've bought your digital aquarium - now you need to go to the digital pet store. This is a concept that is both way ahead of its time and also completely insane and as such, has earned its own section. Back to that in a bit.

The version I had as a child was Aquazone Deluxe, preceeding just vanilla Aquazone and followed up by Aquazone II Deluxe: Now with Guppies!

As far as I can tell, these were all incremental upgrades on one another. Aquazone Deluxe brought the game to Windows 95 while Deluxe II (Still with Guppies) brought, well, guppies and animated detail object support.

Aquazone.com is long defunct now, but luckily Archive.org (linked) has the important bits.

Each fish species needs a specific environment to survive and thrive in. Your pH balance and chemical composition all matter here along with water temperature, though luckily the base game neon tetras and leopard catfish can coexist pretty well in the same environment. Feeding your fish requires doing some basic math, in which you need to figure out how many spoonfuls your digital pets need without starving them or leaving so much left over it rots and contaminates the tank.

Your fish also want places to hide. You can place a number of plants and decorations across a pseudo-3D plane, adding layers your fish can swim around.

Luckily, the game ships with its own reference set in a separate executable giving you all the information you need to have a successful tank. It's in-depth enough that I feel you could probably apply it to a real world aquarium and do well.

Once your fish are comfortable enough, they'll start to breed and produce offspring. There's an entire tips page dedicated to fish fornication with many helpful details. It's also very upfront in telling you that you'll need to either shell out some cash or start making your own fish at home.

Okay, but really. What is the AZ Shop?

How Much for That Fish in the Browser Window

Just look at this.

And these are cheap fish! Base game Neon Tetras you can restock from the CD if you own the Deluxe version and above. You want some cooler fish? Prices start at five dollars. We accept Visa.

Alien robot fish? We've got those, as long as you've got ten bucks.

It doesn't stop at fish. Of course it doesn't. Animated GIFs, $2.99. Indexed BMPs for backgrounds? $1.49. The letters of the alphabet? Fifty cents.

EACH.

All of these links go to the Internet Archive version of this site, and I invite you to click around. Go through the timeline - let the horror sink in as you realize they were absolutely serious about this endeavor.

I've made an Excel spreadsheet with all the prices, which can be viewed below.

Assuming you went with the smallest amount of fish but still wanted it all, you'd be spending a call $485.80 in 1999 dollars. Adjusting for inflation, that would be a brisk $868.99 2022 dollars - or three Star Citizen Constellation Andromedas with some change left over to buy a few gameplay elements that don't exist yet. The more things change.

I wanted these fish, these fun little tank doodads, so bad. A tiny animated fish tank to put inside my virtual tank? SO BAD.

I can't tell you what the purchase or installation method of this late 90's DLC was. After all, I was 10; and upon first look at this bold new concept my father had many things to say, such as "Absolutely not" and "You're just gonna have to live with the fish that came with the game."

Crestfallen.

Of course, it would have been a massive waste of money. This game was way beyond my level (or my attention span) at that age. Within the course of two months I had managed to kill off every single pre-installed fish through either neglect or cluelessness. It was a learning experience with many subjects, such as "Fish don't like tap water" and "Fish prefer to have food every day".

At least I didn't end up killing any actual fish.

Still years away from learning that you could get things on the internet for free, I never got to experience anything more than a tank full of neon tetras. Not that this was the worst, tetras were my favorite fish after all.

I'd forget about the game for random spans of time, only to find the disc, re-install and then go through the same cycle. Eventually I lost the disc and the whole experience nestled itself deep in the recesses of my memory, a digital cryptid periodically popping up can causing me to think "Fuck, what was that thing called? Was it even real?"

Aquazone itself faded right into obscurity, failing to catch on in the US. It would receive a port to the Nintendo DS and a brand new Xbox 360 version, but these remain Japanese exclusives. The last release stateside amounted to little more than a 3D animated screensaver for Windows XP and above.

Locating it later in life proved difficult. I vividly remembered this game existing - and the impact of the "virtual pet store" would be etched in my brain forever. Finding it was another matter when I had long since forgotten the proper name. Let me tell you, searching "Aquarium Simulator Windows", even as far back as ten years ago, will bring up a tidal wave of garbage and none of it is Aquazone. The relief that rushed over me one afternoon idly watching ThorHighHeel's video on Obscure Saturn Games and out of nowhere the Fucking Fish Game From my Childhood Just Appears. Holy shit. It's actually existed!

So, why do I care?

I can confidently say there was nothing close on the market for years. Some kind of brain parasite has convinced everyone that aquarium + computer = screensaver and nothing else.

Nowadays, you can find a number of items on Steam that at first glance seem like they'll scratch that itch, with titles such as Aquarium Designer and Aquarist. Aquarium Designer is a game I actually purchased - and then refunded about an hour later. You can make some very pretty tanks, but there isn't much afterwards, just not what I'm looking for. Maybe Aquazone went too far with the pre-Animal Crossing "watch water condition in real time" feature, maybe they should have tried literally any other monetization scheme. But what remains is still a unique experience, deep enough to waste hours of your life while lightweight enough to just putter along in the background, your virtual fish friends keeping you company while the virtual water pump bubbles away - something much harder to pull off in a full screen Unreal Engine 4 experience.

If you want to try and run Aquazone today you'll need a VM in just about every case. As far as I can tell the trajectory of this game was Mac System 7.0 -> Windows 3.1 -> Windows 95. Windows XP seems to be the last version of Windows that will entertain the idea of running this game and the installer is a retro gaming favorite, 16 bit InstallShield 3.0. 32bit versions of Vista and 7 may have some limited success, but at its heart this game wants to live in a Windows 9X environment. At least the installation media can be found everywhere once you know the actual title to search for, on Abandonware sites, Archive.org and even the remaining Aquazone fan-sites. There's custom content, including usermade fish, decorations and backgrounds, all for free. In addition? Every single piece of DLC they ever produced.

That screenshot at the top of this post? Illegal fish. Those plants have broken the license agreement. These downloads also include Japanese exclusive fish and items which released in expansion packs like a normal fucking game. Not to mention backgrounds, which you can create and select in-game without any sort of external program or conversion process needed. This wasn't a secret either, they had instructions up on the website.

It took over twenty years, but a distraught young Ackart was finally vindicated when I gave my virtual fish their very own aquarium.

Residing in a virtual machine, my fish are doomed. I'll forget, one day, and then another. The cycle will repeat. But for this beautiful moment in time? I've got it all.

Neon tetras are still my favorite.

Shoutout to @katss for the collapsible DIV element I blatantly stole for the price sheet.

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