Ark: Survival Evolved Reviews Trending Negative On Steam After Paid Upgrade Announcement

@dillan45: I fail to see how this is a good thing, or even related to the article.

@dillan45:

I'm not sure if developers/publishers have ever done this before on console, but as we are all seeing more and more often nowadays, once one catches wind of another getting away with something (in this case, ripping off its customers) best believe the "fire" will spread eventually to other platforms.

Better to stand united as consumers, and let our voices be heard that they can't get away with this shit, than to laugh and have the "at least its not me attitude"

So many just let the million/billion dollar corporations step on them, but if we all just stood together, they would have no choice, but to listen.

Too bad most people just say "its just a few dollars more" or "yeah, inflation." and just accept it.

That's what these companies literally bank on...

The masses are larger than the few, but we would rather stuff a few extra bucks in to Netflix bank account, or spend an extra $10 bucks for a new game release, because $60 wasn't enough. How about $20 bucks in Bethesda wallet for a Santa outfit in fallout 76 a few years back, or "paying to win" in diablo immortals?!

Pretty much every micro-transaction.

May not sound like much, but every little bit, adds up.

This all has to do with, how much we all take as consumers, and how far these companies/developers/publishers/businesses ect. Keep moving up the line, to see what they can get away with.

When is enough, enough?!

I'm not even an Ark fan, I just don't like seeing people getting stepped on by a clearly greedy move.

If it was just charging for an upgrade, I'd be fine with it, but taking away an option, so you have no choice, but to pay (again) for the upgrade (if you wanna keep playing) isn't right.

Oh well.

@mrbojangles25: Well, nobody forced you to keep buying the same game over and over again. The original versions of TLOU are still available. Nobody took them away from you, so this is a completely different thing.

@afromakka: It's not like Microsoft put a gun to their head and demanded they put Ark 2 on Gamepass or else. If they didn't find the deal to be potentially profitable they wouldn't have made it. You are aware that Microsoft pays big bucks for that type of exclusitivity deal, probably 8 figures in a case like this.

I could also accept if they charged an upgrade fee of, say, $10. But to charge nearly full price and to then also charge to rebuy DLC that customers have already purchased? That is far from industry standard. Look at the recent "upgrade" to Outer Worlds. There was an upgrade fee, but players didn't have to repurchase DLC. And I know this is a much larger update than that, but notably Epic has repeatedly said that transitioning a project from Unreal 4 to Unreal 5 should be largely seamless. It's not like assets had to be rebuilt or scripting rewritten. A major selling point of UE5 is its ease of use, especially in regards to the asset pipeline. This is obviously a major upgrade, but it is not an upgrade that should cost over $100 when everything is repurchased.

@afromakka: It should be a free upgrade. Not out of entitlement or anything, but so it doesn't fracture the community into "pre-upgrade" and "post-upgrade" sections.

Clearly they are not hurting for money, as they have the finances and/or influence to pull a major Hollywood actor to star in their sequel.

Can't see this as anything other than a greedy, dick move by a shady developer.