If you were one of the folks who were surprised that ARK: Survival Evolved’s Studio Wildcard would charge for the Scorched Earth expansion DLC when ARK isn’t out of early access yet, you’re not alone. Both Reddit and the Discord community have been grumpy since the announcement on Friday.
For example, a player who complained on Discord that much the DLC is “reskins” that should have been added to the base game as as a patch to generate goodwill said that Wildcard seemed like “a bunch of greedy assholes” who had “pissed loads of loyal fans off and gave everyone outside the fanbase a negative view of the game.” One QA dev, known as Wildcard Stark, snapped back, pointing out that the team deserves to be paid to build “essentially an entire new game to compl[e]ment the existing one,” that it’s “close[r] to release than it is alpha,” and that steam sales show most players are happy.
“Your entire post screamed of rage because you are too cheap to pony up 20 dollars for a game worth 60 which we undercharged for in the first place,” Wildcard Stark finished up in his dress-down. “If you don’t want to pay, that’s fine; we are not holding a gun to your head.” Stark did pen a contrite followup post apologizing for his outburst, but one suspects his sentiment is shared by devs and loyalists alike.
