ARK: Survival Evolved

I think it's great, because I love the game and I love the new expansion, so I don't mind.

Also, it's not the first add-on. The Center is a new Ark map that's free and Primitive+ is a new Total Conversion that's free, too.

About The Center: http://ark.gamepedia.com/The_Center
About Primitive+: http://ark.gamepedia.com/Primitive_Plus
Scorched Earth Announcement on Official Website: https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/articles.html/ark-scorched-earth-expansion-pack-r304/
Scorched Earth Interview:http://www.polygon.com/features/2016/9/1/12719278/ark-survival-evolved-scorched-earth-dlc

It only creates a precedent if it's successful (i.e. people actually buy it). Even then, "precedent" might be a bit overreaching. "Another weird marketing gimmick" is probably more appropriate.

I think Early Access is a fairy tale that we all accept as legitimate, probably because it sounds reasonable, but then have to accept that most games these days are Early Access to some degree or another. From Steam's description of ARK: "This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further." What does that even mean? If a game is released into the wild and it doesn't change with further development, that's a finished game. It might be broken, but it's finished. The top 30 helpful comments on ARK's Steam reviews have an average of 450+ hours of played time each. That's a lot of time put into playing an "unreleased" game (on XBox One it's called a "Game Preview"! :D What is that?!).

Steam says my Ark hours = 1391. I've played single player mode, I've played on a server, and I've played alone again with mods. I don't know why this is paid DLC, while the others I mentioned are free. However, those were created by other people not affiliated with the developers, but the developers decided to add them to the game and support them. I had no idea what to expect when they announced there would be a huge news release recently. I did see people post speculation that Scorched Earth would be it and they were correct.

I bought Ark over a year ago. I'm not sure how much I paid, it was probably no more than $40. I loved it, I still love it. I'm one of those fans that can't quite get enough of it. I'm looking forward to new creatures, mechanics, etc. Yes, the game has it's issues, some of which really annoy me, but I'm hoping those get fixed soon.

Seeing as I'm a fan of this game, I have to say that I am biased, so I can only tell you how I feel from a fanboy perspective. The game does seem to be pretty popular and some very good YouTubers have been playing it and making videos for it daily for over a year now.

I know a lot of people aren't happy that this is DLC for an Early Access game and it costs $20 (about as much as the main game). Still, I'm reminded of something I read somewhere about how even if you pay for the game and this DLC, you're still paying less than you would for your typical AAA game (or even No Man's Sky).

I can tell you from personal experience that the game has been evolving. Development continues, although patches aren't released nearly as often as before. Last year it was typical to see a new update once a week, but now we get a big update once a month. After that, for maybe about a week we start getting patches for issues that come up after the release of the new update (like something not working correctly).

The game was supposed to be leaving Early Access this summer, but that date has been pushed to the end of the year. There's so much content they've thought of and have found inspiration within the community, too (like the other DLC). So, I understand and I'm still looking forward to more (even if I have to pay for it).

Somewhere along the way, gamers have accepted Early Access games as a final transaction, with a promise of things to come. The idea behind Early Access is that you pay a price to play an early version of the game, and in doing so you support the devs monetarily, provide feedback into the dev process, and aren't expected to pay full-retail as people would once/if the game is released. The ARK devs aren't simply asking for more money (which would be crazy, right, Double Fine?), but also providing extra content. Content which, I'm assuming based on it's context to the game, is entirely optional (most DLC is just that, optional).

I go back to Destiny on this one, which seems like a perfect analogy. $60 at retail. Three expansion packs (paid DLC) released within the first year, with one more soon to come. When The Taken King expansion came out (the third DLC pack), it was recognized that this content brought the game more in line with what players expected Destiny to be when it released (almost a year prior): http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-09-15-more-than-an-expansion-destiny-the-taken-king-is-a-relaunch-of-bungies-vision. The Taken King DLC was $40 (Dark Below and House of Wolves packs were $20 each prior to this release).

My point is, if gamers aren't happy with a game (or it's developers), they should not continue to support it with their money. Having expectations of a games potential months/years after the fact (finished or not) is confusing the issue. With Early Access, you accept the game as it is, not as it could be. There is no promise that the game will even reach that 1.0 status. It's the ultimate unreachable item.

@GregoPeck brings up another interesting point: YouTubers are profiting from playing ARK. So, not only are people willfully paying for, and heavily playing, unfinished games, but others are supplementing their living by doing so. That's insane! Gone (so, so far gone) are the days of isolated gaming experiences, before we had networking to guide us. There are increasingly more factors going into making and marketing a game. Why not charge for substantial, optional content being added to the game? If it's unfavorable, then stop supporting the game.

I was just reading articles on the problems with Trendy Entertainment, Jeremy Stieglitz, and the recent lawsuit regarding ARK. That kind of puts a different tone on things.

@scrypt Yeah, to me that makes it a little more understandable why they'd put out content that you have to pay for, in other words maybe they need the extra income. Granted the game is very popular and they've already made lots of money with it.

I'm glad that you pointed out the basics of Early Access. I still believe in EA though and I think one of the strongest parts of it is the community support and input. I think that perhaps games that start in EA may actually be better than if they hadn't because the community is providing input, helping the devs squash bugs and fix issues, and also perhaps even inspiring the devs to add or change the game in ways that gamers can enjoy. I think the EA model is working for Ark, but you know I'm biased because I really do love the game. I've tried some other EA games. Some are or were good, some really need some work, but so far, in my limited experience, Ark is the very best of them.

I'd also like to point out that this new expansion essentially doubles the size of Ark's map, if you think of the Scorched Earth and default maps alone. The devs have stated that the default map won't grow, because of the engine's limitations, but early on they did hint at other maps that would come along (hence we have SE). I assumed that they were just going to add a new biome to the default map and they may still, although they already have added 3 biomes to it (snow, swamp, and redwood forest).

From what I've seen they still have a lot of content to add to the game including creatures, mechanics, craftables, etc. Over time, perhaps with inspiration from the community, this content has grown. It seems as though they're waiting to add all the content they have planned so far, then they're going to optimize the game and bring it out of Early Access. They've already done some opitimzation and have made some improvements to the game to help increase performance, but it's still a very demanding game hardware-wise. While I was able to enjoy the game with a GTX 690, it wasn't until I upgraded to a 980 Ti Classified that I can actually see the game in all it's glory with good frame rates.

My PC just makes minimum spec, so I've been waiting for it to come to PS4 (which it was supposed to in July).

My first Ark friend, who invited me into her tribe on an official server has been playing a game with a laptop that, well to be honest I don't even know if it meets the minimum requirements. I don't understand how she plays the game, but she does! I know it looks like crap on her PC (I've seen her screenshots), she has to run it in low memory mode. With my GTX 690, I doubled my framerate by running it in DX10 mode, which didn't look as great as DX11, but was still playable. The problem w/ the 690 was that it is a dual-GPU card and the game does not yet support SLI (which I needed to take advantage of both GPUs on the card). Ark was a major reason why I decided to upgrade my GPU and I don't regret it.

I was unaware of when it was supposed to come to PS4, but that's cool that you've been waiting for it. I hope you enjoy it. Just a head's up, you don't have to play it on a server with others, you can play single player mode all by your lonesome. :) As I said, I've enjoyed both modes (single player and on an official server). I like aspects of both. I liked playing with others who were friendly and cool. I like that I've made some friends. I didn't enjoy the PVP aspects of it and other minor annoyances (like people always saying "lag" in global chat when everyone already knows because everyone experiences it as the server saves).

Out of curiosity, @Maxxiumus_Prime, did you purchase the DLC? By your earlier response, it sounds like you did.

Some perspective to go with that: http://imgur.com/r/playark/2RrAMJz

@Travis, I'd be interested in seeing what you're seeing. What things were supposed to be in the core game, and are now in the DLC? How is the DLC being more polished (a ton more?) than the core game a major problem?

People have paid for the developer process of the core game. They didn't pay for a final product. Huge difference. Purchase into Early Access doesn't entitle you to anything more than what the developer gives to you. It's like buying a computer "as-is" from a garage sale. There is risk involved, and as soon as you make the transaction, you accept that risk.

If they turned around in the next 3 months and added the same polish to the core game as they did with the DLC, would that make a difference? Are people being forced to buy the DLC? Does the DLC have anything to do with the core game? It looks prettier and runs better? Awesome! May be a good indication of what will become of the core game before the end of the year. Saying that they should have focused efforts on the core rather than something to bring more funding in is an irrelevant argument. It's common for studios to do this, but usually they put out an entirely separate game, rather than support the existing game. Again, Double Fine did exactly this when they were working on Broken Age. Hairbrained Schemes did this with Shadowrun Returns. Wildcard is doing the same thing, their just being accused of putting the cart before the horse because they chose the Early Access route.

I still really think that a majority of players out there are fundamentally confused about what Early Access is, and what you are (and are not) entitled to when you support devs through that avenue.

*they're ;)

I'm confused about that quote, that I read, too. Both the game and expansion still have issues (I've run into and reported some). SE seems about as "polished" as the core game to me, which isn't bad really, but there's certainly some issues. Maybe they meant that SE is closer to completion because they don't intend to add more creatures and content to it, where as they still have a lot they intend to add to the core. There are probably over a dozen creatures announced and still unreleased. There's also a whole tech tier coming, which adds a lot of cool sci-fi stuff. I don't know if the core is getting any more biome changes. The map and the enitrety of the game still has a final optimization pass awaiting. There are also still some mechanics that haven't reached their final phase, like breeding. I think they're intending to give some of the already released creatures another pass, too, including mechanics, etc. What I'm saying is not speculation, it's what I've read in patch notes, particularly for what things they have listed still to come (which you can see below), on the official page, and official wiki. You can look at their website at the unreleased creatures and see that the game still is unfinished. Then there are still plenty of issues to resolve, which you can also find on the official forums. So, I think when they said that they meant that this expansion is pretty much complete, more so than the core.

Patch notes which includes some things still to come:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/346110/discussions/0/594820656447032287/

Official site:
www.survivetheark.com

Official wiki:
http://ark.gamepedia.com/ARK_Survival_Evolved_Wiki

"They're selling an add-on for a game that isn't guaranteed a release?"

Yes! That's exactly it! And you don't have to assume it for the sake of argument, it's in the disclaimer on Early Access games. There is no guarantee that a game will release. There is no entitlement. You could argue that releasing DLC for an Early Access game is unethical, but on what grounds would you be making that claim?

You say that the game is definitely coming, and people know it. How do people know this? Who are these magical people that have clairvoyance into the future of this process, and have the right to tell developers what they should or should not prioritize in the development process? If the game all of a sudden was shelved, and wasn't touched again for another year, to whom is Wildcard liable? I would agree that it would have to be the people that bought the game, except that, as ridiculous as it seems, no one has, at least not according to the terms of Early Access. http://store.steampowered.com/earlyaccessfaq/

How?

I feel like it might be unconventional, at best, but who is it actually hurting?

What people spend their money on is ultimately their business. At some point, they need to realize what is or isn't a good value. Let's pretend it's not DLC. Let's say it's microtransactions. Firefall did this when they were in Beta, or Early Access, whatever. It's all money that goes toward game development. So what? They could spend time making t-shirts and plush dolls instead of optimizing the core game, but if they see an easy way to potentially bring in some more revenue, then why not put it out there?

Is it smart business? That's an excellent question. Is it unethical? No.

"If someone has already paid into a game and then pays even more and then it tanks, that's bad."

If we were talking about standard releases, rather than Early Access, I'd probably be more inclined to agree. Within the scope of Early Access, though, I'd say it would be unfortunate, in the same way it would be unfortunate if you lost all your money investing in Yahoo!

I feel like we need to at least agree that Early Access is a risk. It really sounds like you believe it to be the same as pre-ordering a game.

LOL I just realized I named my first two tamed creatures "Tom" and "Jerry." I named my Morellatops "Tom" because the name of the creature reminded me of Tom Morello (musician). I named my Jerboa "Jerry" because I often give my tames names that go along with the creature's name.

Jerry's so cute! http://steamcommunity.com/id/gregopeck/screenshot/477767469757759540

Or maybe we don't have to agree on that :). I would like to hear more detail regarding this, though: "(and yes they have paid for it, more on that later)"

There's a thread on the official forums I briefly looked at that explained that while the release of the core game was delayed, the release of Scorched Earth was actually right on time, if not earlier than first stated.

https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/86811-scorched-was-released-on-time-suck-it-up/

So that's what I mean that it's reasonable for standard gamers, not game-crazy people like ourselves, not to understand the risks.

What's also reasonable is that people that have the capacity to type comments in a review or forum, should be able to read the comments, distinguished in a giant blue box at the top of that games page, telling them what they are getting into. If they can't understand those very simple sentences, then we have much bigger problems.

I do agree, and maybe it's something we can take some kind of action on, that Early Access games should be branded as such in the carousel, and wherever else it's needed.

Latest from the devs regarding the game and release of SE:
http://steamcommunity.com/games/346110/announcements/detail/809908386661854074

@Maxxiumus_Prime
"Studio Wildcard also confirmed today that Ark's full release is scheduled for holiday 2016 across Xbox One, PC, and PlayStation 4. Previously, the game was due out in the summer." (April 22 2016)
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/dino-game-ark-passes-new-sales-milestone-on-xbox-o/1100-6439121/

@Travis, I'm sorry, but no. This isn't some 30+ paragraph EULA written in legalese that people click through just to use some service they've signed up for. It's literally 2 sentences, written in layman's terms (13px font, not small, certainly not muted, and more detailed than what you stated), preceded by a 1 line subhead (15px font), and a 2 word header (30px font). Very simple and standard stuff. This is placed directly above the purchase button. You can not miss it. Not caring what it says doesn't make it irrelevant or duplicitous.

There is no excuse for not knowing what you're purchasing. I don't see how anyone could claim ignorance here. (My first comment in this thread was more a rhetorical challenging of the term "finished," as most games these days are constantly updated, well after a release date.)

Getting caught up in the development of the game, getting excited (as you should) about what's to come, makes it easier to lose sight of that initial disclaimer, but it changes nothing.

As far as how Early Access serves the players, I think it can be pretty amazing, as long as you keep an appropriate perspective. Think of a game that you were following, lets say back 10-15 years ago. You got word later that the game had been cancelled, due to lack of funding, creative differences, scope of the project... whatever. Even later, the developer releases (or someone leaks) footage of what the game looked like during the days before it was cancelled. How cool would it have been to just be able to spend time in those spaces, as unfinished as they were (especially the ones in Alpha or Beta)? How much would someone be willing to pay for that experience? What if those collective payments could go toward development, and make the game more likely to actually be released?

Valve should put a banner of some sort on Early Access games in the carousel (or remove them entirely). I'll support that. It makes sense to keep them separate from finished products. However, seeing that you can't buy a game from the carousel (you have to go to the games page. I believe the only way you can actually purchase a game through Steam is via it's own store page.), you're still faced with the Early Access banner as soon as you try to purchase.

"Here is a pretty neutral take that may or may not be accurate. Since all games have DLC the developers of Ark were always planning some. Since the game is in the "last 90% of development time" they have team members focused on smashing bugs and finishing the game. Since teams often don't all work on the same thing they had another team work on DLC. Since the new team is focusing on new content, that can actually go faster than fixing the hard bugs and polish(as a developer I can relate as fixing hard bugs or refactoring system to make things better can take ALONG time VS new features). The DLC was done and they wanted to get it out to people FASTER so they released it."

That sounds reasonable, and I believe I read something else to this effect on one of the comment sections I was perusing. I don't really think there was any malicious intent in Wildcard's actions. An unorthodox business decision, at best, which may or may not pay off for them, but doubtfully one made out of spite or greed. If they would have waited to release the DLC a month, two months, four months after the game was released, the backlash would have been just as prevalent.

I thought we were talking about what Early Access is, not what it should be. Sorry if I missed a step there.

The original article posed a number of subtopics, but there is a common line that runs through. You can't talk about the legitimacy of DLC for Early Access without talking about Early Access. Some of the arguments presented in this thread are based on the misconception that the monetary transaction giving you access into this process is the same as buying any other game, and thus grants certain rights or privileges (or expectations even) to the purchaser, which is absolutely not the case. That's at the heart of why people are upset about this. We buy DLC all the time. It's almost totally accepted, at this point, that any game could present some form of paid DLC at some time in it's life. What makes this different is the nature of the core transaction: The Early Access process. The common argument against paid DLC for Early Access seems to be that it's unethical, or bad for players, but no one is defending that argument, other than by repeating it. The only thing that comes close is when Travis says that it's because people are confused by Early Access (apparently), or because Early Access is a risk, and therefore shouldn't add more risk to the process (Potentially bad for the devs, I suppose time will tell, but not a charge against ethics). Maxxiumus_Prime indicated suspicion of impropriety on behalf of the devs, but that's speculation. Which isn't to say that the situation might be frustrating, but how do you go from "this really sucks" to "this practice is unethical" (development plans produced during development which have not yet been fulfilled, or have changed, is not exactly proof of an ethics violation, as every developer forever has done this)?

We've been going on about whether Steam's merchandising of Early Access games is deceptive to consumers (or potentially so). On that, we can agree to disagree. Before this article, I thought that people (especially gamers, hardcore or no) could figure out the difference between a retail sale and a work-in-progress without going through a JRPG-style tutorial. The idea of people as creatures who can't comprehend simple statements (or worse, refuse to be held accountable once accepting them) and obsessively push "Buy" buttons is a scary thought, but maybe that's where we're going (anyone watch Idiocracy?), or by what you're describing are already at.

We don't have to keep talking about this. I thought it was interesting, and a good avenue for talking about Early Access, DLC, and gamer expectations in general. My intent wasn't to beat a dead horse. There's just a lot of layers to this one.

I get that. For the most part, I can take or leave DLC. In some cases, I couldn't imagine the game without it, like in the instance of Bioshock Infinite. They could have released Burial at Sea on Day-1, and I would have paid for it (technically, I did, by purchasing the Season Pass, well before any content was released. Talk about risk...). Sometimes, though, DLC sucks. Same with microtransactions. Some companies will put microtransactions in an unfinished game (as I mentioned in an earlier post), and that's totally, totally weird! You are presented with an opportunity to pay more for this item, which is only available to this game, which may or may not leave Beta. This kind of thing has been happening for years. Do a quick search for "founder's pack" and look at all the games that offer extra bells and whistles for games still in Beta. Maybe Ark is different because it's so popular and the DLC is a whole new area to the game, or people feel like it should have been free (what else is new?), or they feel misled in some way, or is it just the timing of the DLC? Apparently all of the above! What makes it so bad/wrong? Is it breaking the game, or is it just frustrating your expectations?

"I believe it's immoral to some because they don't like it. It's a violation of some covenant they thought they had with a Developer that is something like "I bought your early access game and that means I get a full game that turns out the way I think it shoulkd and I shouldn't pay for DLC until it's a released product."

This, and...

"So I think there is a sort of "Community Contract"..."

This.

I'm really interested in where this thought process comes from.

Clearly, no matter what a developer does someone isn't going to be happy with any given decision they make about a game. Yeah, Ark is taking some heat because it's currently in Early Access and they just released a paid DLC. However, other games are also taking heat, games which were never in the EA model. I am specifically thinking of No Man's Sky.

Since microtransactions in a "beta" game have been mentioned at least twice, I thought I'd point out Faeria. That game recently switched to Free-to-Play, but it does contain microtransactions, such as buying more booster decks. That game is still in Early Access as you can see on their Store Page and also within the game.

I understand Early Access gaming is risky, I mean I can read. Still, I've paid for a few Early Access games and feel somewhat mixed about it, but mostly positive, depending on the game. Again, my experience with Ark has been great. I've been playing it and following its development closely for over a year now. I feel strongly confident that it will leave Early Access eventually. I'm glad that I found out about this game. I'm enjoying the new DLC and I look forward to whatever else the developers have in store for the game and I'm not alone in that regard.

Both of the games that I've backed because of dinosaurs (The Stomping Land, and Orion: Dino Beatdown), ended up flopping, so I'm wary. ARK does look interesting, though, and I might give it a chance at some point. That Unreal Engine is awful pretty :). Good review!

Well, yeah, Stomping Land was pulled from Steam eventually, but it was playable before the dev went silent. Orion: Dino Beatdown was playable for quite some time, but has since been re-established as Orion: Prelude, which is apparently doing relatively better (at $.99, the expectation/risk isn't that high). ARK looks like it has much more polish than both, and the price seems reasonable.