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Studio Wildcard seem to repeatedly mess up Early Access for ARK: Survival Evolved [Steam]. First with a DLC for an unfinished game that caused a bit of an uproar and now this new eye watering price.
Previously, the game set you back a reasonable ~£22.99 but it has just increased by more than double to £54.99. That's priced higher than a lot of finished AAA titles and I really am struggling to comprehend their thinking here. This is what they said about it on Twitter:
QuoteARK: Survival Evolved has increased its price on Steam to ensure retail parity for the upcoming launch.
So essentially they're using the price of their console game to push up the price of the PC version, or else people would likely go for the cheaper version on PC. It's interesting that they haven't mentioned this at all on Steam itself, likely in fear of the backlash. It wasn't even mentioned in their release date announcement, but it is mentioned in the Early Access pull-out (if anyone ever bothers to read those).
The Linux version is, to be absolutely blunt, terrible. It looks nothing like the Windows version graphically, performs very poorly for me (lots of reports of terrible performance on Windows too though) and some of it is completely broken on Linux.
I've tried reaching out to the ARK developers many times through Twitter and Emails, no reply on either. I admit Twitter isn't the best place, which is why I also emailed them multiple times over the period of a few months. I've frequented their official forum to see them seemingly ignore all Linux graphical issues. Caves on Linux are basically impossible to do due to the graphical bugs, which makes other parts of the game impossible to do as well.
Honestly, if this wasn't one our streamer's favourite games there's absolutely no way I would continue running a server for it. Our current one is quite expensive so we will be looking for a cheaper option since a few people do enjoy it still. To be clear: Unless there's a mass exodus from it, our server will continue as normal.
Due to the massive price increase along with the awful quality and support of the Linux version, I suggest this goes firmly in your nope pile. I'm sad to say that, truly I am, as I was so very excited about playing this one, but they've done nothing to earn my respect. It could be a great game, who wouldn't want to tame and ride on a massive dinosaur? There's just too many issues right now and this new price I fear will lock out a lot of potential new players.
Quoting: GuestWe all know I love this game. I have also defended it at times too, I can see past most of the annoying bugs. But the fact there is only a month until they release the game that I have no faith they will ever fix the caves.
And then to slap this price tag on it. I mean to spend £55 to get half a game... IS A JOKE. And even I wouldn't recommend Linux users buying it now.
That's the point. Ark is one of my favourite game on Linux. I can live with the "bad" performances on my GTX 970 : frankly, it's really playable and smooth (not on par with the window version, though). But the caves glitches prove that the developpers really don't care, that makes the new price ridiculous for linux users...
Quoting: 14I wish I could get rid of ARK or resell my Steam license to it.
You can. In the same section you get your refunds, there's an option to have the game removed permanently from your profile. Of course, you don't get money from it.
Also, according to liamdawe, £54.99 converts to about $70.92 when it's $59.99 here. MAYBE (and a big maybe, at that) they could justify this if all the versions worked just about as intended, but being broken on Linux doesn't warrant that. This is pretty ridiculous, but the DLC crap they pulled convinced me not to buy this game anyway.
Quoting: g000h.
Meanwhile, similar game "7 Days To Die" has just recently been at 60% discount in Steam Summer sale, it has just had a big update improving graphics, variety, and game balancing. Absolutely love 7D2D. Can't recommend it enough.
I'm terribly disappointed with quality of ARK on Linux and 7D2D looks awesome, but similar? The main appeal of ARK is not the survival part but dinosaurs, especially taming them.
The community is pretty toxic though. People in this thread are complaining as loud as all the salty windows users. So I take those complaints like a "people need to have something to complain over".
At that price tag I cannot really recommend it for linux users at this moment.
If the current graphical bugs are fixed, which is an UE thing, it is good enough to recommend at that price. There are other minor bugs that can be worked around.
But the joy I get from having tamed my first therozWhatsthatticklechickencalled...
The amount of joyful play I got from this game is so much more than the amount of money I invested in it. I think the price tag was less than 20 euro at that time... That's about 1 movie ticket, or 1/4th I paid for the Deus Ex port or 1/4th I paid for Planet Nomads, I think 1/3rd of the alien saga. 572h on record, and I play mostly since end 2016, although I have the game since 2015.
Quoting: skinnyrafQuoting: g000h.
Meanwhile, similar game "7 Days To Die" has just recently been at 60% discount in Steam Summer sale, it has just had a big update improving graphics, variety, and game balancing. Absolutely love 7D2D. Can't recommend it enough.
I'm terribly disappointed with quality of ARK on Linux and 7D2D looks awesome, but similar? The main appeal of ARK is not the survival part but dinosaurs, especially taming them.
Yes, it is quite a different experience - but there are similarities - survival, crafting, base-building, foraging, etc. Ark is set it a prehistoric-style world whereas 7 Days To Die is set in a post-apocalyptic zombie-overrun world. I wrote an interesting chapter in the forum about a chunk of my recent 7D2D gaming:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/forum/topic/2827
Last edited by g000h on 7 July 2017 at 1:15 pm UTC
Quoting: Spud13yOh, I didn't know that. Not sure I want to throw money away, but....Quoting: 14I wish I could get rid of ARK or resell my Steam license to it.
You can. In the same section you get your refunds, there's an option to have the game removed permanently from your profile. Of course, you don't get money from it.
Mohandevir Jul 7, 2017
Let's hope it as to do with this...
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/ark-survival-evolved-plans-to-use-vulkan-for-linux-this-year.8831
... And that the Linux version will get patched with this version.
I will wait for the Vulkan version review before bying it. :)
QuoteQuoteQuote
ARK: Survival Evolved has increased its price on Steam to ensure retail parity for the upcoming launch.
So essentially they're using the price of their console game to push up the price of the PC version, or else people would likely go for the cheaper version on PC
@liamdawe I'm not sure if you are saying you agree with that sentiment or not but PC games should always be cheaper as the developer doesn't have to share anywhere near as much of the sale with Steam as they do the consoles which use the money to subsidise the cost of the hardware. PC gamers pay full wack on their hardware but make that back on the savings from the cost of games. And why would it matter if someone chose the PC version over the console? Its still (more) cash to the developer.
I agree the Linux port needs some proper effort put into fixing its issues. Unfortunately the longer developers leave issues on other platforms while they continue to further develop on Windows the more the issues grow and the harder it becomes to resolve them which seems to lead developers to throw their arms in the air and decree developing for Linux is near impossible. From my own experience if you develop for multi-platform throughout it adds little overhead and the end product is always more stable as the other platforms tend to expose bugs sooner that are still there on one platform but less obvious. But I digress. Fix the game Studio Wildcard! We paid for it.
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