ARK: Survival Evolved now has a $20 expansion pack while it is still in early access. As far as I know, this is the first time a game has tried to charge for DLC before leaving early access. At least for non-cosmetic DLC anyway.

My initial reaction is 'eww, they should finish their damn game before making expansion packs'. I'm not against DLC in general (though I do think it's often overpriced and inconsequential), but this seems to go against the spirit of early access. Early access is supposed to be a way for the community to be involved with a game's development, and this restricts some portion of that content to people who are now willing to pay more.

What are your thoughts on this?

What does Early Access even mean at this point, though?

Ark is a more complete game than many "finished" products (*cough* No Man's Sky *cough*).

Many "finished" games continue to evolve and change over time after release (How long has Minecraft been 'released' and how much has been done to it since then?)

I understand the initial reaction but I think it's more about the label of "early access" than anything else. I think you have to evaluate on a case by case basis, and for Ark they already have a product that their customers really enjoy, so I don't think adding an expansion is totally beyond the bounds. I think it says more about the way game development is "evolving" (pardon the pun) and the nebulousness of the label "early access" than anything else.

The expansion will either be worth the price or not on its own merit IMO.

@bigsocrates: I had thought about that, and it absolutely is the early access label that makes it weird to me. If they had slapped a 1.0 on the base game a month ago, I probably wouldn't have even noticed this DLC release. To me, as long as a game is in early access I should be able to experience whatever the developers are working on. I'm probably just being an old man about this.

I agree with you, it certainly does seem a little slimy to me. If they feel the main game is robust enough to support an additional expansion, and that in turn is robust enough to warrant a $20 price tag, then the game should already be out of early access.

It's pretty much just an issue with labeling, but it's a valid issue nonetheless.

I think the label is the important part. It's the developers saying they're in active development, and it's fair for anyone who bought it to expect that development to be the devs' focus. Whether the team did some diversionary work on the DLC when they should have been finishing the product people have already paid for, or whether the DLC was produced by a dev splinter group who also could have been working on completing the base game, they both come across as dodgy. And if what I've heard second-hand about ARK's state of completion is true, that's a failure of messaging more than a failure of product. If you feel your base game is enough of a complete work so that your production pipeline gets split, go ahead and write 1.0 on the box. The customers will tell you if that's true or not.

Early Access, to me (and it's stupid that there is no real objective definition), means "has bugs" and "game has no ending/endgame yet". From what I've seen, ARK still definitely has bugs out the wazoo. I can't speak to the endgame, though.

I think the most important part of the Early Access label is communicating that the game's code is not up to snuff yet. The rest is dependent on what kind of game it is. Is ARK still buggy? If not, they should call it 1.0 and sell DLC. If it is, they should clean up the base game's code before moving on to new shit.

Gross. Are any of these games ever coming out of Early Access? It's ridiculous.

I think it's shitty. Like mentioned above, I mean NMS basically went on being a $60 Early Access game but that's shitty too.

By the way, the DLC costs more than the base game right now.

Yeah I just found out about this and I think it's pretty nasty. Apparently the DLC has creatures in it that are more powerful than the base game so people that don't buy it can't compete. Seriously though, if you are declaring that your game is still in alpha and then you whip right around and try to charge people more money for things that actually alter gameplay I think that's pretty messed up. It makes me glad I didn't buy into this game.

That is terrible, I got Ark when it was dirt cheap but it has TERRIBLE performance issues and is buggy as fuck, that is some slimy shit.

The Steam reviews of this game are really in the tank now, and in that classic Steam review protest way where all the top reviews have hundreds of hours played and are super negative.

I don't know if they're doing because they think they can squeeze more money out of people "just because" or they're in desperate need of another revenue stream, but either way, it's a bad look.

Honestly though, my real problem, considering Steam is already kind of a shitshow in many ways, is that other developers will abuse this even more. There's a trillion and a half asset flips and "Youtube bait" polluting Steam already. What's to stop every early access dev from trying to pull a stunt like this now?

ARK Survival Evolved is a game in Early Access on steam. It is currently still in Early Access – ie unfinished.

When you participate in an early access scheme, in effect, you’re becoming an investor in that product. You give money to the developer with the understanding that the money will be used to pay the wages for programmers, artists etc who are creating something the investors saw potential in.

For the developer to then take some of those funds and use them to develop other projects, which they subsequently release as paid content seems, at best, wrong, and at worst, fraud.

Since ARK Survival Evolved is still in early access, they can't possibly have any funds from 'retail release' to pay for the development of DLC, so it seems very likely that money people gave them for their early access game was used to develop this DLC.

The fan boys on the steam forums are already out in full force, defending the developer, but it really feels like a slap in the face to early access purchasers, knowing that the money given to the developer to create a game they were spruiking, was instead used to develop something else they now want us to pay (again) for.

It's a shame Steam lets this kind of crap happen, and they really need to put a stop to it before it gets out of hand. As of the last few days, there are hundreds of negative reviews. Guess the developers will pay the price for being greedy.

Other devs take note on 'how not to treat your customers', I guess.

I believe that Don't Starve is the only crafting-survival game to ever successfully come out of Early Access.

I don't believe this is the case; my brother plays a lot of these types of games and last week he was telling me about some other game that he stopped playing a while back specifically because they were charging for a new DLC/Expansion Pack while still being in early access after not having updated the 'base' early access game in a while.

Unfortunately I don't remember what game it was, but hopefully someone will come along at some point and inform the rest of us.

Valve needs to end this trend right now before it gets any worse.

I don't really think it's that big of an issue. As others have said, ARK is currently more 'finished' than plenty of games are at their 1.0 releases, and most games of this style (online/connected/community-driven) already see continued development and updates post-release anyway. There's a right and a wrong way to handle it, just like anything else, and ultimately the market and consumers will decided whether or not they, and any other developers, are justified in charging what they decide to charge.

It's just a matter of semantics and labeling since the base game has easily over 30 hours of content and that's just going with one of its two maps (not counting this new expansion). My only problem would be that they should've been working on fixing the framerate rather than new content, but the game has far less bugs than a finished Bethesda game and more content than most full games like a vanilla Destiny, Division, Evolve, etc, so I don't feel cheated at all. I would like to know their overall plan though when it comes to updates and new contents.

Judging by the reaction of their community I think most everyone agrees that this practice is not acceptable, Early Access is a great idea but this kind of abuse of that system is not something that should be accepted, and luckily it isn't.

Hey buy my game early so we have the money to live while we make it, oh we need more money now here is overpowered DLC to try and fleece our community. Nothing about that is OK.

They should have released it from early access awhile ago. I played it for a good 200 hours about a year ago and it was basically a complete game at the time. Early access is a trap for games like this, they just never come out of it.

Still shitty to release DLC while in early access though.

That is really gross

Well, add another thing to list of shady stuff on steam. Seriously though, how does any sensible person think that this is an acceptable thing to do.

9 times out of 10 early access is just a smoke screen devs hide behind to shelter from the backlash of bad bugs. If a game charges money, it is out and should be viewed and reviewed as a full retail product.

Provided that they don't spend a lot of future development time working on new features for the DLC, then it should be a win for people who bought the base game early. It just means the devs will have more funds to keep developing new features, right?

Early access is meaningless, they should get rid of it. If you are charging for your game, it is "out". You want to say "hey this game will be better later!" go ahead, and people can believe you or not, based on your development track record. But Steam shouldn't lend credence to to that with this Early Access label.

Then they shouldn't be Early Access? They have the power to control it. Don't let them off the hook.

Things like DayZ, Ark, and numerous other steam "early access survival games" never ever launched with the intent to "finish" their product. And why would they? People love that buggy shit for reasons I'll never understand. So the devs are gonna milk those people and make more money, while doing the bare minimal work on the product as it is.

It a fucking gross practice but it doesn't matter because so many people play those games. It won't change.