quan chi appears first in defenders of the realms,and after his success he was used also in videgames by midway.
DOTR is of 1995

Oh wow... So Quan Chi wasn't created by Boon or Tobias? Hmm... Interesting...

almost none of the characters were actually made by boon, actually all the crappy lame joke ones were made by boon, tobias made all the serious characters up until he left, and now there is a group of people that make the new ones, Boon is pretty much just the face of mortal kombat

Well, I knew that Tobias made all the serious characters, some of the best characters, which is why I always thought that Quan Chi was a creation of Tobias. Wow... So that was the first ever appearance of Quan Chi... Damn...

Strange, I just thought that Boon and comp let DotR give a sneak peak into MK4 by throwing in Quan Chi. After all, the cartoon series was showing when they were actually working on the game.

That's actually a very interesting theory.

I think Quan Chi first appeared in Sub-Zero Mythologies, actually.

But that game didn't come out until 1997. In fact, if I am correct, it came out AFTER the Arcade version of MK4.

Actually, MKM and MK4 were made around the same time, so that their stories would give background to Shinnok and Quan Chi. The games both play on each other.