ARK: Survival of the Fittest is no longer free-to-play, console versions ‘on hold’

If you were looking to give ARK a test run without having to invest any money, prepare to be disappointed. Studio Wildcard announced in an official post to the ARK: Survival Evolved Steam Forum that their (now previously) spinoff game, ARK: Survival of the Fittest will now be a part of the main package, meaning that if you want to play it, you have to buy ARK: Survival Evolved.

The main reason for the change, according to Studio Wildcard, is the release of the game's development kit. They said:

"We have been pondering for a while how to release the kit without any restrictions on content and licensing, allowing SotF modders to freely take all the content from Survival Evolved as they wish. We wanted to ensure that modders would have freedom when working with the kit to create the mods that they wanted to see in SotF. This was more important to us than any other reason, and to accomplish this, we had to bring SotF back into the Survival Evolved product."

They also mention that monetization was an issue. Nobody makes a game free-to-play out of the kindness of their hearts since that's an easy way to go bankrupt for 15 minutes of internet love that'll be quickly forgotten. Games have expenses, especially ones like ARK that require constant server maintenance, not to mention the cost of the prizes for winning Survival of the Fittest's tournaments. Therefore, the developers thought it prudent to simply utilize the standard upfront payment model, rather than rely on optional skins and cosmetic items for income. They said:

"To ensure that SotF would remain a success and a sound choice, Wildcard would have had to put a lot of resources and time into learning how to become a ‘free to play’ developer. We would have had to learn how to monetize a free game, notoriously through the use of in-app purchases such as skins and other cosmetics. Ultimately, it’s clear this is not who we are, we like to make games, and to make the gameplay fun. We don’t know much about monetization, and quite frankly we aren’t interested in hiring an economics team to take over that process"

This change-over will also result in a halt for Survival of the Fittest's console version as well. Studio Wildcard says they will take some time to see how the transition goes before resuming development on the Xbox One and PS4 versions of the game.

Source: [Steam]