For some, Ark: Survival Evolved's recent controversial pre-full release price hike highlights the trouble with pricing Early Access games. For others, most specifically DayZ creator Dean Hall, it's "****ing OUTRAGEOUS." But wherever you stand with the issue, the open world dino hunter's Jeremy Stieglitz has explained the premature increase is tied to the game's physical launch. 

"Admittedly, my intent, our intent, was to have the price hit the full retail price when the full retail launch occurred," Stieglitz, the game's lead designer, lead programmer and co-creative director, tells me. "That would have been at the retail launch, not prior to that. The reality turned out to be, and we didn't realise this until we got to the final phase of getting the game into retail channels, was that: in order to get the game into retailers—that is not digital retailers but physical ones, both for the physical disc PC version and the console version—the retailers and distributors wouldn't take it if the digital versions was cheaper than the retail version. They found that it would undermine their sales potential."

Stieglitz goes on to say the markup in turn couldn't wait because retailers wouldn't take the game if they weren't able to run a preorder programme. He suggests these two outcomes in tandem "forced" the studio's hand, and while unhappy with having to hike the game's price prior to its proposed August 8 PC launch feels that "the value is there, for the most part, of that price point."

Stieglitz continues: "[The value] certainly will be there at the date of retail launch—that means you buy it now for $60, for example, in three weeks it's going to be $60. It would've been $60 in three weeks anyway and we wouldn't release a game that we didn't feel was worth that. We're really confident that there's a hell of a lot of value in that package—content, features and fun gameplay.

"It is unfortunate and was absolutely not our original intent and not something I wanted personally, to have that price hike occur prior to the retail launch. I can certainly understand why that ruffled feathers and pissed people off, to be blunt, and I can only say that sometimes we as a developer can't control the variables. You might say, well, we didn't have to do it and that's true but then we wouldn't be able to have a physical retail launch.

"I think, ultimately, that's important to me personally—not from a money standpoint but from a vanity standpoint. But also it's important for Ark to be able to reach players in the non-digital community, in the physical gaming community. There really is half the market, these people who buy games in stores worldwide and we do feel that from a playerbase standpoint, those new players are going to add a lot of fun to existing Ark players as well.

"Given it was close to launch we decided to bite the bullet on it. Was it the right decision? I can't say but it was motivated by the need to get the game on store shelves and our hand was ultimately forced from that standpoint."

Ark: Survival Evolved will launch in full on PC on August 8, 2017. 

Game pricing is a thorny question that we’ve taken a crack at before, but this week we’re dealing with two considerably thornier questions: how much should an Early Access game cost, and should that cost increase when it officially launches?

Last week, Ark: Survival Evolved developer Studio Wildcard announced that its dinosaur survival game was getting a price increase on Steam from $30 to $60 (or £23 to £50) “to ensure retail parity” (match the price of the console versions) ahead of the game’s August launch. Many are less than pleased with the price hike. 

Some Ark fans suggest that, given ongoing bugs and server issues, the game isn’t worth $60. Some who’ve held off on purchasing the game are unwilling to pay double the Early Access price. DayZ creator and Ark fan Dean Hall called the increase “greed—pure and simple” in a series of scathing tweets, and a troubling sign that Wildcard is disconnected from its community in a follow-up interview.  

There’s a lot to unpack here, so we reached out to several prominent Early Access developers to hear their take on how Early Access games should be priced. 

What price is right?

Many Early Access games see a small price increase when they officially launch. Red Hook Studios’ Darkest Dungeon, for example, was bumped from $20 to $25 upon exiting Early Access. So it’s no surprise that Tyler Sigman, co-founder and design director at Red Hook, supports the general idea. 

“A price increase coming out of Early Access makes a lot of sense to me,” Sigman said via email. “As far as I’m concerned, as the developer you want to reward early adopters the best that you can. After all, early adopters who took an early risk got a discount and were able to take part in influencing the game. That’s real value for people to buy into Early Access.”

In this sense, a launch price increase serves as an incentive to buy early, and a reward for those who do. You could also argue it acts as a testament to a game’s completion, a concrete way for developers to tell would-be buyers that they’ve fixed all the problems from Early Access and the game is now worth more. 

Mark Morris, managing director at Introversion Software, which released Prison Architect via Early Access, offered another perspective. “I think that when you first price a game, even in Early Access, you anchor it to a particular price point,” Morris said via email. “Significant increases are always going to be perceived as a problem … if I’m being honest, I think that a doubling of the price is a pretty bitter pill to swallow—I’m not sure it’s something I would be comfortable doing!” 

So, why did Ark cause such a stink? The first factor is the amount of its price increase. Darkest Dungeon raised its price by $5 upon exiting Early Access. Kerbal Space Program went up $10. Invisible, Inc. went up $4. Viscera Cleanup Detail went up $3. Ark has jumped a full $30. That’s a huge difference, enough that it can seem like Ark isn’t just rewarding early adopters, but severely punishing people who, for one reason or another, chose to wait to buy an unfinished game. 

Another factor is timing. Ark will remain in Early Access for several more weeks, so it’s strange for Wildcard to raise the price now. It’s also telling given the studio’s explanation.To ensure “retail parity,” Wildcard may have felt compelled to raise the price of Ark's PC version to avoid undercutting the $60 console versions.

There’s also visibility to consider. One Wildcard community manager said the studio has been planning the increase “for a while,” but many players obviously feel blindsided, which suggests a failure to communicate.

Ark’s Steam page only says “the game will be lower priced through Early Access, relative to its final full-version retail price.” Wildcard wasn’t clear about how much it was going to increase the price, and gave no specific forewarning in the weeks before the new price took effect.

Matching the market

Hugh Jeremy of Subnautica developer Unknown Worlds raises another point: games like Ark usually don’t cost $60. “Many great games on Steam are setting very low prices for huge amounts of fun,” he writes via email. “For example, PUBG at $30, Rocket League and Rust at $20. You might ‘feel like’ your game is worth $60. You might like throwing silly terms like [triple-A] around in reference to your work. Whatever, your feelings don’t matter. Suck it up. What matters is how the market feels.

“If you are at $60 delivering the same amount of fun as the next guy, who is at $20, you are going to get owned. People are going to feel like they put more value in than you gave them back. So be humble, read the market. At every stage of development, position your price both in proportion to the enjoyment your game creates, and with respect to the enjoyment provided by other games.” Sigman echoed Jeremy’s stance in a follow-up reply, adding that “$60 is a big ask unless you are [triple-A].” 

Ark is now tied for the most expensive game in Steam’s top 50 best-selling survival games, matched only by Dying Light: Enhanced Edition. Subnautica, by comparison, is $20. DayZ is $35. Rust, which is also still in Early Access, is $20. Ark is a clear outlier in the survival genre.

Ark also received a $20 DLC, the Scorched Earth expansion pack, while it was still in Early Access. That DLC is still $20, and as Dean Hall pointed out, proved highly divisive among the Ark community. It’s easy to imagine that this price hike was the final straw for players who opposed Scorched Earth. 

Unknown Worlds’ Charlie Cleveland points out that it’s Wildcard’s right to raise the price, and that it’s not too surprising given the studio’s “unorthodox” history of releasing additional content before finishing their base game. More than a sign of greed, he sees it as a function of the largely undefined standards of Early Access.

“The ‘rules’ are always changing, as Studio Wildcard is showing,” he said via email. “I think they’re smart for questioning the norm and trying something new, even if it looks a bit greedy from the outside. We will likely raise our price on release, but not this much.” 

Former DayZ developer Dean Hall published a series of tweets about the price increase of Ark: Survival evolved, which jumped from $30 to $60 a month before its planned departure from Early Access in August. In his tweets, Hall called Ark's price change "****ing OUTRAGEOUS" (asterisks his) and attributed it to "greed - pure and simple."

Hall counts himself a "huge fan" of Studio Wildcard's game. "I absolutely think the game would be worth it when it reaches a stable state," he said in another tweet. "Emphasis on the last few words!" In other replies on Twitter, Hall said that Ark is "nowhere near close" to being finished, calling the dinosaur survival game "very buggy."

DayZ, which Hall began developing in 2012, entered Steam Early Access in December of 2013, and four years later it is now preparing to enter beta. Hall left Bohemia Interactive in 2014 to found a new game studio, RocketWerkz. 

We asked Hall via email what Ark needs to do to justify its $60 price, what effect Studio Wildcard's decision to release paid DLC had, and how developers determine the appropriate price when they're transitioning from Early Access to a full release.

PC Gamer: As a fan of the game, what does Ark need to do to justify that $60 price point?

Dean Hall: I put a pretty high expectation on a "AAA" price. Many focus obsessively on how long a game is in early access  but I would far rather a game take as long as it needs in Early Access to be bug free rather than a rushed development and then a rushed price increase. I believe Ark, like DayZ or any other Early Access game, should remain in Early Access until it achieves the expected performance and bug standards of it's price.

I play the game exclusively on permadeath so the bugs killing you are just so much harsher for me!

How does Wildcard's decision to release a paid expansion in 2016 change this price increase?

I think that DLC split the community which is the main reason I wasn't a fan of it. I had many friends who would play Ark with us, but not into it enough to buy the DLC. It's always a risk with DLC in a multiplayer title. As I say below, I think that decision is symptomatic of how successful they are and that those making the pricing decisions don't care about the state of the game.

How does a developer determine what's the appropriate price increase when they're transitioning from Early Access to a full release?

As Garry Newman pointed out in a tweet to me: they're doing something right! Ark has been incredibly successful and this decision will not undermine that in the least. So you could argue they can set whatever price they want. But as a consumer myself, I think it's symptomatic that those making the price decisions don't care about the state of the game and just want to get into boxed retail as quickly as possible.

So, it's not so much the price that worries me. But those making the pricing decisions seem so disconnected from the development. It seems to me, that the release of Early Access is fairly arbitrary and being driven around the desire to have boxed sets on shelves—rather than actually having a relatively bug-free and balanced game.

Anything else you'd like to add?

There is a general obsession with gamers about how long a game is in Early Access. We should be encouraging games to stay in Early Access until they are finished, not accepting games leaving Early Access because the developer wants to put retail boxes on shelves. The standard that I hold a game up to is not how long it took to get to the finish line, but where the finish line was drawn and how much it charged to get there.

If you've been on the fence as to whether or not to purchase Studio Wildcard's dinosaur survival game, you've officially missed your window to get in on Early Access pricing. Ark: Survival Evolved is now $59.99 in the Steam store, "to ensure retail parity" for the game's full launch in August, according to Ark's official twitter account.

Ark, in Early Access since 2015, has been priced at $29.99 on Steam, and has featured a number of sales that have dropped it as low as $10 at times. However, as its Steam page warned: "... the game will be lower priced through Early Access, relative to its final full-version retail price." That full-version price arrived for consoles a few weeks ago, and while we haven't quite at reached the August 8 release date, Ark is now full price on PC as well.

If you bought Ark prior to today, naturally, you don't need to sweat the price increase: you'll own the full game when it leaves Early Access.

Amidst the hustle, bustle, and blinding chaos of E3, Studio Wildcard has very quietly announced a big bit of Ark: Survival Evolved news: A release date of August 8, worldwide and across all platforms. 

"During the past two years, millions of Ark players have built gigantic bases, captured and trained armies of dinosaurs, crafted armories full of weapons and eaten billions of pounds of Jurassic creature-kabobs. With their help, we’re about to reach the completion of core content for Ark: Survival Evolved and release the full game to the world," studio co-founder and co-creative director Jeremy Stieglitz said. 

"For those players who were excited with every update during Early Access, Ark’s going to become even more fun with surprise new content at launch & beyond, as we will continue to have a staggering amount of additional gameplay, creatures, and story elements in the works." 

Studio Wildcard also announced that the modder-made map Ragnarok is being released today on Steam as the game's first official expansion, and also the first mod to be integrated into Ark through the sponsored mod program. The new map will feature: 

• A 144 sq kilometer map designed to be explored by land, sea or air
• Tons of harvest-able or gatherable resources
• Caves of all shapes and sizes, each designed to be built in
• Distinct variations on former ARK creatures, as well a special brand-new creature unique to Ragnarok
• Build tree platforms on unique trees/rocks
• Expansive biomes that were built to reward hardy explorers
• Some of the most challenging dungeons in ARK will await players
• An active volcano that while erupting yields a high amount of resources in the form of lava crystal
• Beautiful vistas and base locations as far as the eye can see
• Hot springs that while dormant yield a relaxing buff, but when active, become dangerous
• Ruins to not only explore but that can also be incorporated into base builds
• A vast ocean with its own ecosystem
• Upcoming future desert biome to find and tame creatures
• Upcoming Explorer Notes that hold the key to Ragnarok's secrets and history

The Ragnarok expansion is free on Steam, although Studio Wildcard warned that it "is still in primary development, and so it will continue to expand with updates over time." 

It's great to have finally a release date, although to a large extent (for those of us on PC, anyway) it's symbolic: You can just nip over to Steam and buy the thing right now—still in Early Access, mind—for $30/£23/€28.   

You're going to see a lot of my poop in this story, but if it's any comfort to you, the amount of poop you're going to see is far, far less than I saw while creating it. Ark: Survival Evolved is probably the poopinest game ever made, with dinos and humans constantly dropping turds all over the map. It's not just for laughs: dung is used in the creation of fertilizer for farming, but having to pick up all that poop with your bare hands and carry it around in your pants is a little gross. Especially human poop.

A little bit of civilization arrived in Ark in the last update: namely, functioning toilets. Naturally, I wanted to build myself a bathroom: there's something nice about the idea of being able to use a proper toilet instead of just having a doot fall out of me while in the midst of a conversation or task.

I have a little house (it's more of a box) on an island I share with my friend and tribemate, Katie, and I've decided to add a restroom to it. I begin by building a couple of interior walls and a door to serve as a tiny bathroom, and then get to work crafting the toilet. Naturally, this being Ark, the crafting ingredients are ludicrous, requiring 40 units of crystal. For what? I don't really know, but considering a jousting lance requires 260 metal ingots and 100 units of obsidian (and no wood, mind you!), I suppose I'm getting off easy.

After a quick jaunt to a nearby cave to collect crystal, some rock mining to gather metal, some tree chopping (my favorite) for wood, I build the toilet, place it in the new restroom, sit on it, and try to take a dump. I can't. I wait a while, but there's still no deployment. Finally, I decide to start chowing down on the dozen or so lambchops I'm carrying. I know it's not exactly classy to eat on the can, especially when there's a grubby monkey on my shoulder, but I'm eager to try out my new throne.

After eating a dozen chops and periodically pressing the defecate button, I finally take a shit. However, it appears to fall out of my ear and land on the toilet seat next to me. That's the thing about plumbing: you've got to hook it up to something. Though it's technically a chair with a hole in it, and the poop should just fall in regardless, it won't: I need a water supply to make my toilet go.

My house is some distance from the beach, and I really don't feel like running pipes all the way across the island, so I figure I'll just add a water tank behind my house, connect it with a pipe, and either manually fill it or wait for it to rain. I build and place the tank, craft some water skins, fill them in the lagoon, and drop them into the tank. The tank still shows itself as empty, though, and the toilet looks empty as well. Again, I can sit on the toilet, it but it won't work, and my dumps just land on the seat next to me.

Luckily, it begins to rain, and soon my tank is filled. Peering into the toilet, I can see water inside. Perfect! I sit down, but I'm not ready. I mean, I'm ready, but my body isn't. I kill a few sheep, cook up more chops on the grill, and eat roughly 40 of them in a row. Then I squeeze out another deposit.

Basically, the same thing happens. It won't go into the toilet, it just lands right there next to me. I can't tell what's wrong: there's water in the tank, there's water in the pipes, and there's water in the toidy. But my doots aren't splashing down. Am I missing something? Is there an attribute or skill I need to level? Do I need to unlock a 'Knows How To Take A Dump' Engram?

I take all the shit out of my inventory—I've collected five of them by now, the ones that dropped out of me while I've been working and running around—and start lobbing them at the toilet. After several throws I eventually get one in, but there's no option to flush. I'm perplexed. Maybe the toilet doesn't work with the tank, which would be odd since toilets are traditionally, you know, tanks.

Fine. I'll just spend the entire night crafting water pipes and run a mess of plumbing from the lagoon, up the beach, over to the house, and through the back wall. This isn't difficult, just time consuming, and the line of pipes are pretty ugly along the landscape (thankfully, they can be made invisible).

Eventually, I've got pipes leading from the water all the way to my house. I demolish the tank, but discover a new problem: the pipes leading from the beach are at a different angle than the pipe protruding from the house, because I've unfortunately placed the toilet itself at a slight angle. I have to demolish the existing toilet, run the new pipe in, and build a second toilet. I need a bit more crystal for the second toilet, which means another trip to the cave.

It's been, like, two in-game days now spent gathering resources, crafting, placing pipes, killing sheep, eating lambchops on the toilet, and throwing shit around the bathroom, but I've got the pipes running into the house now. Problem? Yes, of course. The new toilet won't sit against the wall on top of the pipe. It will only let me place it in the middle of the bathroom, which is displeasing to the eye.

In frustration I demolish one section of stone foundation, hoping I'll be able to attach the toilet and then place the new foundation under it, but doing so collapses the entire back wall of the bathroom (which is also the back wall of my house). No wonder contractors charge so much: plumbing is a pain in the ass.

At last, after sitting in my partially destroyed bathroom, now monkeyless (I have long since thrown my pet away in frustration), and consuming at least forty more lambchops (many sheep died to bring us this bowel movement), the moment finally arrives. I hit the shit button, my character grunts and waves his arms as if in pain (perhaps I should add some vegetables to my diet), and low and behold, I have successfully dropped the kids off at the pool.

One last test: will it flush?

It will. It does. And it's beautiful.