Home Gaming The community doesn’t seem too happy with ARK’s Scorched Earth expansion

The community doesn’t seem too happy with ARK’s Scorched Earth expansion

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ARK Scorched Earth Dragon

Last week, Studio Wildcard announced Scorched Earth – a paid-for expansion pack for their hit Early Access title, ARK: Survival Evolved. Sorry let me rephrase that: they released DLC for a game that has not yet been officially released. What a time to be alive!

Naturally, there’s been a bit of a backlash from the ARK community. How can Studio Wildcard release additional content when their core title still needs a ton of optimisation, and an actual launch? Many took to the vanilla game’s Steam page to speak their minds (via Polygon).

They’re all quite interesting to read through (for the most part), but this one from Reverberant Duck really caught my attention…

“I really like ARK. It’s got a lot going for it. Unfortunately, as of today, I can’t say that any of that matters. I can’t recommend ARK.

Today, Wildcard announced there is now a $20 paid expansion. For their early access game that still is missing huge amounts of core features. Additionally, the expansion represents what can only be described as “pay to win,” as you can tame mother-effing FIRE-BREATHING DRAGONS now, then bring them back into other servers. Anybody that doesn’t have the expansion will NEVER match that.”

Launching an expansion for an unreleased game is one thing, but skewing the playing field for those who aren’t willing to buy it is just awful. Studio Wildcard should really consider restricting the new animals and such to their respective areas in Scorched Earth to keep everything fair.

I find it odd that they made this expansion paid-for in the first place. Studio Wildcard have released a ton of content over the past year, all for free, and all of which enhanced the overall ARK experience for everybody. Now though, they’ve split the player base in two.

It’ll be interesting to see how ARK as a whole fares moving forward. Those who’ve bought the expansion are loving it (according to its review page). I wonder how long it’ll take to get everybody else to pay to make the jump?

Last Updated: September 5, 2016

28 Comments

  1. Until the core game is both optimised AND complete or I win the lottery, I’ll never pay for that expansion pack.

    Reply

    • VampyreSquirrel

      September 5, 2016 at 10:06

      Wouldn’t waste my lotto winnings on that.

      Reply

      • Pariah ???

        September 5, 2016 at 10:45

        Charity work dude. Tax returns. #everybitcounts

        Reply

    • Dungeon of JJ

      September 5, 2016 at 10:42

      Not even if they finish and optimise ARK will I buy that. They’ve already lost me as a customer.

      Reply

  2. Alien Emperor Trevor

    September 5, 2016 at 10:05

    DLC for an early access game is bullshit. And yet the expansion, followed by ARK itself, are the top selling games on Steam right now. Sigh. More money than sense.

    Reply

    • Alessandro Barbosa

      September 5, 2016 at 11:51

      And this is exactly why the backlash will fall on deaf ears. Why should the developers care when people are buying it by the bucketload?

      Reply

  3. ElNicko

    September 5, 2016 at 10:07

    Spent the weekend with the new expansion and so far love it.
    It has brought a breath of fresh air into playing it and I for one am really enjoying so far.
    The original Ark had more content than a lot of AAA games and with the expansion it’s still cheaper than such duds as BattleBorn or the Division

    Reply

    • Matthew Holliday

      September 5, 2016 at 10:17

      No ones really doubting that the expansion or the game are good, but its setting a bad precedent for early access games.
      And this DLC is the main reason there have been so many delays to updates for the core game.

      The DLC isnt what we wanted.
      it looks good, and under any other circumstance, I would be among the first to say “good job guys” but it isnt what we wanted.

      Reply

    • Dungeon of JJ

      September 5, 2016 at 10:47

      It’s about as optimised as a rusk though.

      Reply

  4. Matthew Holliday

    September 5, 2016 at 10:14

    “the expansion represents what can only be described as “pay to win,” as
    you can tame mother-effing FIRE-BREATHING DRAGONS now, then bring them
    back into other servers.”

    To be fair, the amount of servers that allow dino downloads is severely limited, Ive been looking to find a server that allows it so I can continue my argy breeding and the struggle is real.
    So thats not entirely true.

    But yes, not entirely happy, 20$ is more than I paid for the game, and when the patch notes say:
    – New Dino: Tapejara!
    – New Dino: Archaeopteryx!
    -ceiling doors
    -something big

    And what we get from that patch is dino doors and the paid DLC that isnt part of the core game, delaying releases to the core game, yeah, somethings wrong.

    Reply

    • HairyEwok

      September 5, 2016 at 12:01

      I believe the reason they released this DLC is mainly because of that $40 million lawsuit they have to pay.

      Reply

      • Matthew Holliday

        September 5, 2016 at 13:06

        then start a go fund me or something, tell us that developement is going to slow down due to lawsuits etc, dont take a dump on your fans.
        Communication solves everything, and recently, communication from them has been severely lacking.

        Reply

        • HairyEwok

          September 5, 2016 at 14:33

          Going quiet when shit hits the fan is the new cool thing developers do….. And yes I’m also looking at you No Man’s Sky <.<

          Reply

  5. Umar

    September 5, 2016 at 10:17

    DLC…for a game….that’s not been released yet…I…yoh. Dat milking.
    http://huzlers.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Sequence-01.Still003-610×380.jpg

    Reply

  6. Dane

    September 5, 2016 at 10:29

    “Sorry let me rephrase that: they released DLC for a game that has not yet been officially released. What a time to be alive!”

    Just this

    Reply

  7. Kromas GG

    September 5, 2016 at 10:30

    This is my updated review.

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief

      September 5, 2016 at 11:19

      All, the, upvotes

      Reply

      • Deceased

        September 5, 2016 at 11:19

        Received mine…

        Reply

    • Greylingad[He Charges!]

      September 5, 2016 at 11:37

      THIS!!!^^^ This is the main reason why I will not support them.

      Reply

  8. Dungeon of JJ

    September 5, 2016 at 10:42

    Damn right we’re not happy.

    Reply

  9. The Order of the Banana

    September 5, 2016 at 11:19

    Lol, what the hell is this?

    Reply

  10. HairyEwok

    September 5, 2016 at 11:58

    The thing that’ll happen now…. Developers see that people buy paid DLC before a game is actually done. Now they’ll release unfinished games as “Early Access” and any extra content that should be in the game in the first place will be sold as paid DLC. Good job gamers, because of this we’ve officially hit a new low.
    Note: I know there’s some of us with sense but i feel the stupidity outweighs us on that.

    Reply

  11. Viper_ZA

    September 5, 2016 at 11:58

    Ah good, glad I didn’t buy into this then.

    Reply

  12. K1FF J1MB0B (sizzle edition)

    September 5, 2016 at 12:05

    This game is almost as much of a scam as $tar Citizen.

    Reply

  13. R4ziel

    September 5, 2016 at 13:27

    I spent R150 on the original Ark and have 2000 hours in that, even though early on it was quite bad and

    glitchy, thats all gotten alot better the more they did on the game. I love ARK. Now with Scorched earth I paid R200, which is quite a lot for an expansion on an unreleased game but if I only take this weekend’s excitement into account, I’d spend another R200 to keep playing SE. It is abolutely epic and I am paying the bills of the studio for awesome games.

    I agree it could have been handled better by the devs and there are numerous bugs I also whine about constantly, but they have people working on that which also needs to get paid. ‘So although I understand the frustration, I am happy to spend more money to keep them going.

    Reply

    • Kromas GG

      September 5, 2016 at 14:41

      And this marks the day that every crappy dev shoves unoptimized “DLC” on their ea titles because of one company who had the audacity to try it and get away with it.

      Remember Horse Armour DLC?

      No matter how good SE is I will not buy it. If you complain and still keep on buying then you have absolutly no say in any matter regarding this topic in the future as you led to this happening.

      Sorry to be harsh but this is how I truly feel.It is for me the equivalent of not voting in the elections.

      Reply

  14. Eric Woodley

    September 5, 2016 at 20:49

    On the one hand, the community outrage is understandable. We have an early access expansion for a game not yet officially released, which is very evident based on how well the game currently runs. On the other hand, Studio Wildcard did have to pay $40 million to Trendy Entertainment over the summer. One cannot help but to wonder if that ended up being a motivating factor in the decision to release this now, rather than wait until the base game was released.

    Reply

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