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So the Ark developers have released a paid DLC for Ark which is still in Early Access on steam. While this new DLC looks really nice and almost more attractive than the "vanilla" game I am more than slightly disappointed that they have released a paid DLC when the game is still buggy, unoptimized and unfinished. I feel Valve should require games to actually complete the EA process before paid DLC can be available via Steam.

To me this feels almost like Star Citizen where they push out so much new "content" for players to buy when the game is barely playable and there is very little to even do. Almost none of which even is the actual game.

To be fair, ark's devs have been screwing around since day one.

They broke a non-compete clause they signed and had to settle for $40mil, they poached employees from the previous company and they were apparently actually working on assets for ark while still at the other company.

They took development time and resources away from the main game to pursue the esports market with SOTF. Even throwing cash away as prizes.
They rushed into multiplatforming.
Theyve split resources further with the various gamemodes like prim+

And now theyve used EA development money to develop paid dlc that is being labeled as a complete expansion while the main game still has dinos disappearing, stuff falling through the map, fps issues, crashes and more.
Theyre also forced everyone to download the dlc as theyve allowed the content to be taken back to the island/center maps for unfair advantages too.

On a more positive note, NMS was no longer in my newsfeed.

Isn't that game still in early access?

Looks cool, I might get it. My nephew's excited.

Hate the company's shenanigans if you must, but they've produced one of the top three survival games on the market.

I will stick with modded Ark, the game very quickly moved away from survival.

The game needs reduced player features rather than increased. More running away from dinosaurs - less packing machine guns.