$60 for Ark? Will it be worth it?

[Jtmorris]

How many hours until it's worth $60?

How many hours of fun gameplay would you say you would need before you admit that a game is worth $60?

I think of it this way I would easily spend $30 taking my wife to the movies. If we bought popcorn and pop it would be another $15 on top of that. For two hours of entertainment people say that's worth it. For $60 I could watch four to six hours of movies.

I purchased Ark at a fraction of retail cost (as I'm sure most here did). We bought it in an unfinished state and I've put in hundreds of hours. It's been so much fun. On release, if someone pays $60, they will play for hundreds of hours too, have a ton of fun, be super frustrated with bugs, but keep on playing. I'm sure that most will get their money's worth.

But what do you think? Lots of you have said it's not worth $60. How many hours of fun do you need from a game until you would say it passes for you? 

[OXStrident]

Well this is a forum where the vast majority own and play Ark, so I think you know what most people would say. I myself would say definitely. I've put over 700 hrs into the game and don't intend on slowing down anytime soon. A day at an amusement park could easily cost more and would entertain you for a day. I don't mind that the game's poorly optimized and extremely buggy; it's tons of fun.

[maze]

With over 3000hrs I'd have to say it's worth 60$, but that's me. I knew what the game is about and I knew that it's unfinished (for now). 

Though I bought Black Ops III for 60$ +Season Pass but only played it for 150hrs and I still had fun for the time spent. After that it went into the shelf never be seen again. 

Main reason is, I don't have to look for my money as much as others. 

Sure, there will be people upset by the price (change), but it will be a finished product at release. (We don't live in the 90s anymore, games will still be worked on after release.)

tl;dr - That's totally anyone's own perception about worth. 

[X111]

if you're looking for a comparison then it depends,

I paid £30 on sale for SE and Ark for Xbox and probably have already surpassed the £40-£50 retail price value for content and ability. however, if I were to compare, I paid £30 for BF4 and £15 for the premium I got with BF:BC2 and I still play those games, BF4 came out in 2009ish? still get enjoyment from the game so Ark needs to "Survive" and "Evolve" (see what I did there) for the next 8-9 years before I personally can apply a proper value for money next to BF4

[maze]

The problem is that you can't explain worth to anyone, other than by its definition. 

There is no answer to the question 'Will it be worth?'. No one will know if anything will be worth in the future.

You could try and convince someone about the 'thing' or they will go ahead and read reviews from third parties. But to their own, they can assume it will be worth. 

Other than that, you have to pay or experience whatever it is for yourself, to know if it was worth the price or the effort. 

[MarkTheArkadian]

Truely people will say oh 30$ but think about anyother game for 60$ ark is my alltime favorite would be happy to pay such an amount for it if it works properly!

And as of right now that is not the case so no, its not worth 60$ at this time imo.

[X111]

29 minutes ago, MarkTheArkadian said:

Truely people will say oh 30$ but think about anyother game for 60$ ark is my alltime favorite would be happy to pay such an amount for it if it works properly!

And as of right now that is not the case so no, its not worth 60$ at this time imo.

again, current worth, with expected worth. all relevant and irrelevant until actual release so the question is more of a personal soul search as apposed to fact at this stage. would you agree?

[Kapow]

I think personally the game is definately worth the price tag, with the 1000+ hours ive had nn this game on PC and now with hundreds of hours on xbox ive had bad times on the game and good times, more than worth it in my opinion! But I think people have had different experiences in the game and even different opinions on what they are willing to spend on a game in general so its all personal preference

[wallaby]

just checked on psn ark is  100 au$ i nearly shat! no way in hell will i recommend this game to friends for that price holy cow id say maybe 50to60 aussie dollaroonis max! (100$au is 79$us) 

[maze]

46 minutes ago, Kapow said:

I think personally the game is definately worth the price tag, with the 1000+ hours ive had nn this game on PC and now with hundreds of hours on xbox ive had bad times on the game and good times, more than worth it in my opinion! But I think people have had different experiences in the game and even different opinions on what they are willing to spend on a game in general so its all personal preference

Exactly. Personal opinion is what makes this a hard decision. 

There's one distinct problem on top. You can, if you read a review of a big newspaper, assume that this will sum up the general consent of the majority (that put in thousands of hours) or by a single person and a mere hundred hours.

That will help the consumer, but won't make him like the product once he bought it on their reviewing opinion. 

Now I have to be honest. I don't read the good reviews if I want to buy something, I want to know what's wrong with the product. And if I'm ok with the problems, I'll buy it anyways. 

I know that we go off topic here, but this is one part of the OPs questions.  

[Lewiatan]

If I look at the game I don't care about hours I've spent on it. I always ask if I had fun during those hours. In ARK case I did not.

In my opinion it will not be worth 60 dollars/euros. This is not a game that has quality of triple-a game. No exsisting optimisation, a lot of bugs, lackluster mid to end gameplay mechanics, repetitive gameplay and extreme grind, pathetic customer support. This game would worth 40 dollars/euros at most if all 2 years old issues were fixed and the game was optimsed. This game is not ready for premiere. 

[lammaer555]

Personally I think it does worth the price of an AAA title, and even a bit more - even while im VERY upset with the devs and their attitude

(not about the price, because I already own my copy, but their way of communication, constant nerfing (event the stealth ones) of everything and the blatant attempts to make he game more grindy and timesinky. The concept is so good that their recent mistakes still possible to swallow and I can keep playing (but every patchnote makes me furious).

The reason is - the content is huge, in my book basically this is an MMO with world shard system (these are the maps and servers) with tons of hours potential, but on the top of it it is also working in single player AND we get the server software as well to run our own dedicated.  So basically you have a flat one time fee MMO, without the F2P pay to win madness and power creep. 

Modding is also enabled, to multiply the hours we can spend in it - modding extends the lifespan of any game where implemented and WC did it very well. 

---

What would prohibit me to buy  the game with the current price (If I woudn't have my copy) that I know it was much cheaper a week or two ago, was even sold in bundles. So I would just wait until they go back to the price it was before - eventually I think they will do great sales soon, exploiting and misleading the uninformed with "50% sale" marketing.  So the whole reason of this price increase to pilfer the latecomers. 

Honestly, in real world, when a retail shop does it in my country (eg Tesco :D) they get a nice fine from the government for false advertising and tricking with the prices. Sometimes I miss the regulation on the internet world.... 

[lammaer555]

 

1 hour ago, wallaby said:

just checked on psn ark is  100 au$ i nearly shat! no way in hell will i recommend this game to friends for that price holy cow id say maybe 50to60 aussie dollaroonis max! (100$au is 79$us) 

Its .. just... wow!  Surely no one with sane mind would by a "noname" game from a "noname" company for such price... but isn't it the collectors edition with the physical stuff included (maps and other thrash)?

 That would "justify" a bit that pricing.... (personally I laught on people buying the collector editions, buying litle plastic stuff for horrible prices, but I accept people are different than me)

[Sphere]

You pay $60 for ark, but I am working towards $4000 to build an ark server. Reason I want to buy the hardware, is because I can then say to the community, this server is here to stay. Also Ryzen Threadripper can be turned into a fart joke. Ryzen into my nostrils, Threadripping the couch.

But yeah, I can pack as much ram into that rig as I need, and has more horsepower to drive a server cluster than any worry should have to care about. My connection is strong enough to handle an easy 60 players online at one time.

And people complain about $60 bucks.

[Chris]

With any game I buy I think about how much per hour it may cost me, so for example a triple A title I may get a 10-15hr linear story line play through (if I'm lucky) which would equate to $6 an hour. I find that pretty expensive as those types of games don't have much of a replay value. Once I've beat the game, I don't want to play the same thing again. So then if it's something I'm SUPER excited to play I may just buy it. However with an online multiplayer game I feel the value is WAY higher, instead of $6 per hour it's more like $0.03 per hour of gameplay... maybe a lot less in many cases (Different for games that charge a monthly fee).

Then as others have said it comes down to your perception of the 'cost'. People that don't have much money will find it WAY harder to justify, and I don't blame them at all as everyone has a different financial situation.

[Sphere]

5 minutes ago, Casanova said:

With any game I buy I think about how much per hour it may cost me, so for example a triple A title I may get a 10-15hr linear story line play through (if I'm lucky) which would equate to $6 an hour. I find that pretty expensive as those types of games don't have much of a replay value. Once I've beat the game, I don't want to play the same thing again. So then if it's something I'm SUPER excited to play I may just buy it. However with an online multiplayer game I feel the value is WAY higher, instead of $6 per hour it's more like $0.03 per hour of gameplay... maybe a lot less in many cases (Different for games that charge a monthly fee).

Then as others have said it comes down to your perception of the 'cost'. People that don't have much money will find it WAY harder to justify, and I don't blame them at all as everyone has a different financial situation.

I am curious to know what Wildcard's stance is on private servers and monetary contributions from the community. What are the rules of engagement with server hosts and the development team in regards to crowd funding? Donations fine to a server host? Can a host do a full cash shop to pay for the servers? Surely you know that running a game server is not free.

Sorry for off topic. But since we are talking about money.....

[lammaer555]

15 minutes ago, Casanova said:

With any game I buy I think about how much per hour it may cost me, so for example a triple A title I may get a 10-15hr linear story line play through (if I'm lucky) which would equate to $6 an hour. I find that pretty expensive as those types of games don't have much of a replay value. Once I've beat the game, I don't want to play the same thing again. So then if it's something I'm SUPER excited to play I may just buy it. However with an online multiplayer game I feel the value is WAY higher, instead of $6 per hour it's more like $0.03 per hour of gameplay... maybe a lot less in many cases (Different for games that charge a monthly fee).

Then as others have said it comes down to your perception of the 'cost'. People that don't have much money will find it WAY harder to justify, and I don't blame them at all as everyone has a different financial situation.

I partially disagree with you... for an extent you are right, if game A gives you 15 hours of entertainment whil game B gives 100 hours of the SAME excitement, then you are OK. 

BUT

Game hours are NOT necessary mean entertainment and the quality of entertainment also afactor. Like take a 3 hour boring movie vs a 1.5 hour of exciting movie...

In case of Ark this is getting a bigger and bigger problem, because the devs implement more and more timesinks in a futile attempt to make ark more challenging... (they took the wrong way, they added timesinks, not challenge)

Recent prime example is the generator... reduced oil extraction rate with doubled gasoline consumption.. that means I need to spend 3-4 times more on gasoline creation and refuel than before. With your logic that means the game got better price/hour ratio, while the only thing they did just added a timesink what is not enjoyable at all. 

Same story with bossing, more items to collect before you can kick off the boss arena...

Or with the spoiling, more food runs needed than before....

Or with the stasis food fix.... more feeding time....

 

[SuperGenki]

Spent $30 for Ark two years ago and bought SE so I could play it the day it launched. It never even occurred to me that there was some kind of ethical argument to be made about selling DLC before release because I like the game and wanted more. I've spent $60+ on AAA games that I played 50 hours or less, but Ark so far has given me a little north of 4k hours of bug filled entertainment. Always thought that it would launch at a full release price, not a surprise. They really need to do something about server lag though.

 

[Chris]

16 minutes ago, Sphere said:

I am curious to know what Wildcard's stance is on private servers and monetary contributions from the community. What are the rules of engagement with server hosts and the development team in regards to crowd funding? Donations fine to a server host? Can a host do a full cash shop to pay for the servers? Surely you know that running a game server is not free.

Sorry for off topic. But since we are talking about money.....

Private communities are free to do whatever they want to fund their servers, it has nothing to do with us  

[Sphere]

2 minutes ago, Casanova said:

Private communities are free to do whatever they want to fund their servers, it has nothing to do with us  

Is it okay to send hugs to Wildcard as thanks? :Da

[gimo]

Based purely off the time I've spent playing and the amount of fun I've had; yes.  Ark earns $60 more so than the vast majority of recent games with the same price mark.

 

However; the game as it is on all platforms does not feel ready to be sold as a "finished" product.  It has more than enough content to keep you playing, but your overall experience with this content is too riddled with problems to warrant a full release with a "triple A" price point.

[Thorium]

2 hours ago, Lewiatan said:

If I look at the game I don't care about hours I've spent on it. I always ask if I had fun during those hours. In ARK case I did not.

If you did not had fun playing it, why do you play it?

The amount of hours says a lot about the enjoyment factor. People typicly stopp playing a game if they dont enjoy it. You could argue that you did enjoy it at first but later the game changed in a direction you dislike. But then again, it's time to stopp playing...

[Dracul]

I don't know why we needed another thread for this but hey what do I know, and its another one starting off on the wrong foot: from the point of view of a insider, the people that are going to be paying the AAA pricetag won't have thousand hours of ark behind them to say 'yeah its worth it!' if your being confronted with that price tag you only know its expensive, runs poorly, and the community butts heads with the developers of the game frequently.

I bought Fallout 3:New Vegas for $30 (I was late to the party) played it more than 500 hours, there wasnt a single time and still isn't where Im playing it and go "I regret buying this instead of...."

Bought Ori and the Blind Forest for like $17, played it for twelve hours, bought six songs from it off of itunes - best twelve hours (300+ deaths) and endless repeats on itunes ever.

Metro Redux and Metro Last light together were like, $40 when I got them? collectively played 60 hours total, enjoyed it all and eagerly looking forward to the new metro.

Then we get to Ark: Survival Evolved - 4924 hours played as of this very moment? Was it worth the money I payed for it ($32 cad?) sure, but that wasnt  nearly five thousand hours of pure unbridled fun if you cut out the fat of grinding, sitting on sleeping tames for hours, picking up poop and eggs, struggling with ark's clumsy building system I got about 2500 hours (my rough estimate) of fun, 2000 of that was spent splish splashing in the ocean hunting for the perfect plesios and enjoying the serene solitude offered by the abyss back then - before eels and jellys were put in mind you.  500 hours is still a lot of fun time on its own for the money, but that is a hell of a lot of time tanked into ark for that amount of fun and people are quick to say 'price by hour equals value' but no one factors in the hours wasted getting to that point, or being stressed out by losing dozens of hours when a glitch, rollback, lag, or exploit costs us dinos/gear/baby dinos. Also worth noting I also have ark/SE on PS4 and iv played it for like, 40 hours tops and that was paying consoles overcranked pricetag before said price was stuffed into PC players faces too - if playstation didnt have such a absurd refund policy I would have definately gotten my money back long time ago.

 

[Guest BubbaCrawfish]

As was stated previously, 'worth' has lost it's definition, and means many things to many people.

It's worth it in my eyes, but I also bought it way back when it first came out. There will no doubt be people who say it's not, but really in the long run, it's all about you. Not them.

 

They may have had bad experiences, but that's the problem with many of them too, they have one bad experience then forever more they are jaded and triggered to make out that it's not worth anything because they had something stupid happen to them, and they couldn't handle it.


In my opinion, it is worth it.

 

The company is no longer 'no name', it's a well known game, and development is progressing. At least it's not like DayZ that has had 4 years to put out something good, yet haven't put out jack.

[Captnmorgan]

Everyone values there time differently it is a tough subject to breach for many individuals. I personally think it is the right price I have 80$ invested over 2 platforms and I am still  getting my times worth out of it. That being said I refuse to buy a lot of games that are just single player I am a multi player person and love playing with friends and people. I feel that most single player games aren't worth the 60$ they seem like only half a game to me. But then again I rarely play a single player game there are some acceptions but not many.