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Ark dev responds to Early Access paid expansion concerns

Late last week, Studio Wildcard, the team behind Early Access hit, ‘Ark: Survival Evolved', launched their first paid expansion for the game. This didn't go down too well with quite a few people, who objected to the idea of a game receiving a full expansion before the base game is finished and out of Early Access. Now, Wildcard has spoken out about the situation to try and smooth things over.

In a new blog post, the studio tried to address concerns, stating that they are “absolutely committed to driving aggressive development towards a solid, feature-robust game launch for Ark: Survival Evolved”. However, the idea of launching expansions was “always on the cards” but admittedly, the first one did come out earlier than initially anticipated.

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“Our original vision for ARK always included the creation of Expansion ARKs, along with the infrastructure and technical systems to transfer data dynamically between live ARKs. We determined that it is more sound to iterate on these systems during Early Access than after retail launch, given the significant risks involved if we didn't get it right.”

“While that meant unveiling the first Expansion early, it also means an easier time integrating further post-launch Expansions into the ARK network. We understand that this isn't everyone's cup of tea, and we appreciate the enjoyment people seem to be getting out of this initial view of how Expansion ARKs can work. Now that we have the systems in place to support them, we can ensure minimal integration issues with subsequent releases after ARK: Survival Evolved itself has launched.”

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KitGuru Says: I can completely understand why the idea of paid expansions for an unfinished base game would rub people the wrong way. That said, the studio's explanation does help put things into perspective. Do any of you guys play Ark? What do you make of the expansion launch?

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18 comments

  1. WOW someone swallowed a dictionary. I’m hoping your going to allow me one small swear word but that statement reminded me of my army days and the phrase ‘Bullshit Baffles Brains’. I can imagine the smug look on the face of the guy who came up with that crap lol.

  2. Paid expansion for beta game? lol. Pay for the fixes and missing features i guess?

  3. Did they explain this in the description of the original game while selling the base game? Something like, “Expect DLC packs as we continue working on this game”?

  4. i think they lack money/ fund to complete the game and you guys think server for playing game was free?

  5. the galling issue isn’t that they’re selling DLC, thats par for the course at this point. its that they’ve dedicated development time to extra content not included in the UNFINISHED base game.

  6. Idiots…Ark is perhaps the buggiest game I’ve ever played in my entire life. I’m rather new to PC gaming, and have never played a game where every few minutes there’s server lag, or stupid hit box lag where you die due to not really hitting an enemy.

  7. Charles Charalambous

    They have some external funding plus sales of the game. The whole point of early access is to help get feedback and funding for the game. If they somehow have not got enough money that’s their own problem. The game has a rep for running like shit and being buggy as fuck. Maybe if they fixed that first rather than focusing development time on an expansion they would have more money. No idea who will even buy that shit given the state the game is in

  8. The game had huge ratings and titanic sales. Even now, deep into the night here in the USA, it has a bad 36% positive on steam in the last 30 days, yet there is 28,000 people playing. The 4th most played game on steam right now. Must not be that bad of a game!

    Just go play your call of duty or whatever lame AAA game that cost 60 bucks, and leave ark I don’t care. Spoiled internet brats, you don’t deserve games like ARK.

  9. Greed and Stupid DLC buyers.
    ( Need I say anymore. )

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  11. And? It’s an early access title, those are being worked on for sure.

  12. “If they somehow have not got enough money that’s their own problem” … and so they’re trying to fix the issue with a paid DLC. Congratulations, during your spewing of useless dribble you managed to counter your own argument.

  13. Ah, another fantastic example of “I didn’t read anything but the headline”.

  14. The problem is releasing a full add-on. which means they weren’t even fixing bugs, or at least putting it on the back burner.

  15. I doubt it, it’s more likely that the team that works on bugs isn’t 100% involved in the production of the DLC – or at least that there are enough people that can work on the DLC that they could do so alongside bugfixing and performance improvements.
    I could be wrong though and they just have poorly placed priorities.

  16. That’s my problem…I just think it’d have been better if they focused all man-power to fixing bugs.

  17. I suppose, but you have to remember that there are members of the team than don’t do any programming at all. Graphics designers and artists, people that design models, and sound designers, to name a few, could potentially have absolutely nothing to do with the programming part of the game.

  18. Charles Charalambous

    Nono thank you for defending this bullshit and adding to the fire that will destroy gaming