Obviously, sales and positive Steam reviews don't mean anything with regard to "quality", but in the larger discourse, there's a significant, hardline, pro-consumer voice that has a way of drowning out rational discussion about what is really good or bad. This one in particular was an easy mark to get people whipped up in a frenzy.
I think it's great that Minecraft has ushered in an era where people buy games that are being developed and get free updates later. I think that's really great. But a bad side effect of this is people becoming conditioned to think that games should be updated indefinitely and that they have been stolen from if they are not--the idea that the initial $20 purchase price means that for as long as you want, and maybe ever longer, the game should be updated. There are people who complain that TF2 doesn't get enough support. There are people who complain that Minecraft doesn't get enough support. I would think more players would be able to look at their $20 upfront cost and their 581 hours played and say "Yeah, okay, I feel like the developer probably isn't a greedy asshole if he considers that his duty to me as a consumer has been faithfully executed". Sometimes this manifests itself as the Cult of 1.0, where there is little connection between how advanced the game is and whether the consumer is going to stop yelling until the game is 1.0. This sends a powerful signal to actual scammer developers to just do a 1.0 release even if the game isn't ready--you might get some bad reviews if you do this, but you can move on with your life instead of trying to negotiate with consumer terrorists. If ARK had dropped the early access label, said "this is our 1.0 product, we've got 3 million customers on PC and millions more on consoles and they love our game. This is not the end for updates though, stay tuned", waited 3 months, and launched DLC, there'd be significantly less whining because the labels are different even though the content isn't. And frankly, ARK is 1.0-ready.
Let's look at the people really mad that ARK has added new content to pay for, going by Steam's most helpful reviews in the last 30 days:
426 hours
987 hours
134 hours
1843 hours
715 hours
446 hours
865 hours
611 hours
301 hours
50 hours
Who among these people has not gotten their money's worth? They've paid more in electricity for the game than they have paid for the game, I think they should probably firebomb their local power authority instead of the developer. (Unless they don't pay rent? I'm not judging). Suppose you don't want to buy the paid expansion? Great. You can either keep playing the base game, or you can give up the base game. If you're having an anxiety attack because you paid $20 for something a year ago, used it for 400 hours, and now don't want to use it anymore, go to a doctor, not a review section. Asking other people to upvote your epic rant to coddle your hurt feelings is childish.
You know how the business model works in other forms of software? You pay $20 a month for something. It gets updated once a year, give or take. Then one day you get an email saying "Thank you but we're closing in 7 days" and if you're lucky you can export your data and if not, well, you're fucked. Am I arguing that's how developers should treat people? No, absolutely not. SaaS is a menace. But my point is that we can observe the actual harm commensurate with really being screwed over. And that harm is... negligible. And that's when you actually get screwed over, not when you're just having a FOMO attack for no reason.
On reddit, a thread got mad that... imagine this, the developer took money from game X... and used it to build game Y... to sell to customers of game X. They thought this generic analogy, removing the context, actually enhanced the argument. Except that this is how you actually build a sustainable business. Reinvesting all your profits from a game in the same game ensures that when you hit audience saturation, you have no ability to continue to exist as a company. It also ensures that when you inevitably do something that causes the al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade to suicide review-bomb your game, you have no capacity to address what they're saying. Being cautious and spreading your risk and seeking new income sources as a company is a good idea. This is actually how game developers work. If you can only invest money from project X into project X then you'll always have to beg for handouts whenever you start a new project, and you'll probably go bankrupt the second you have a project people don't like.
Others went back and, as is predictable at this point, rounded up every claim the developer ever made about features to throw it back in their face. You said you'd try to implement X! And Y! and Z! And look, they're not implemented? Look, should developers lie? No, developers should not lie. Should consumers be right to be disappointed if the final product is materially different than what was essentially promised? Yes, of course. But holding a developer at gunpoint with every word they've ever said with no flexibility about implementation, game testing, or fun is crazy. "You Said You'd Implement Hovercraft." "We tried, but internal playtesters found that they weren't very fun and were confusing to use "Fuck You, You're Worse Than Pol Pot And Hitler Combined, But Only Half As Bad As Sean Murray. When Aliens Come To Our Planet They Will Nuke Our Cities Because No Man's Sky Doesn't Have Variable Gravity." Like, come on. Part of these iterative development games is that not every idea makes it in. You don't buy them for the promise of any one specific bullet-point. And you might be disappointed that any one feature doesn't make it, but your disappointment doesn't make it reasonable that you carry a grudge for years about a product you otherwise enjoy and play for hundreds of hours.
There's also a strong component of motivated reasoning. Motivated reasoning is when a smart, rational person makes an impulsive, emotional decision, and because they know they look like an idiot, they justify their outburst with reference to rational facts. So, for example, climate change deniers who are otherwise smart and educated. They would make you think that they looked at the scientific evidence and decided climate change is not real. What they actually did was had an emotional response to climate change based on the fact that they were in the "Climate Change Isn't Real" tribe politically, then because you need evidence, hoovered up any evidence that confirmed the stance they just took emotionally, and then say that evidence is what led them to it. It's not just people who are factually incorrect that do this. You see it with console purchase rationalizations on GAF. Everyone does it. You see it all the time when someone is making some argument and all their evidence is just the first things that come up on Google when you search "Evidence for <x>" or "Evidence against <x>". They chose their position, and then backfilled the evidence.
Why does that apply here? Let's take No Man's Sky. When someone says "I bought the game because of the multiplayer features", it sounds like their grievance is justified. But did they really spend $60 on a game at launch for a feature that gave you a one in a million chance of non-interactively running into another player for a fleeting moment? A feature that is basically like Journey's multiplayer, only even less likely to run into anyone, and even less interactive? Did they really buy the game for any number of the LYING!!!!!! features? Did they really buy the game for one specific creature with a long neck visible in a trailer? No, no, I don't think so. I think what happened is that basically they made a broad emotional decision to get caught up in the spectacle of the game, they played the game, the game itself is fairly shallow--let me note that even if all of the proposed features made it in it would still be a shallow game--and then finding the game boring, the consumer feels disappointed and ripped off. So far, so reasonable. And then the motivated reasoning happens. Why did I buy something that I find boring? Well, I must have been mislead. What was I mislead about? Well, the trailers had the long necked dinosaur, variable gravity, and in this interview I thought I'd get to meet other players.
Let me suggest an alternative tack. Instead of going hyper-nuclear about how the developers scammed and lied to you, why not do the following: Acknowledge that you bought a game you didn't like because it was boring. Try to get a refund if you can, and if you can't then eat the loss (or resell or trade if you have the console version). Make a mental note for better judgment pre-release for future titles--maybe don't buy a game on day one? Don't pre-order? Don't obsessively F5 hype? Don't go on fucking media blackouts and instead use media information to research your purchases? Like, it's possible to go see a bad movie and think "Wow, the trailers made it out to be good, but it was bad, that sucks, I feel ripped off" without going ballistic about how the movie studio lied and mislead you and there should be a congressional investigation. The same thing is true for a game. It's definitely a painful lesson, especially if you're a kid with limited money (I got a Virtual Boy for a birthday once, I feel your pain) but harness that disappointment productively by teaching yourself how to avoid future mistakes instead of taking up a pitchfork. It's not victim blaming -- and let's as an aside note that taking a concept developed to talk about women being raped and applying it to you maybe regretting buying a video game is exceptionally disproportionate -- it's a recognition that disappointment can be a lesson to learn.
This has departed a bit from ARK. What I think happened with ARK is that people have this angry anxiety, FOMO (fear of missing out), often connected to personal depression or lack of real-world personal support, where they overidentify emotionally with things they buy. They want to be the #1 fan. They want to know everything. They want to buy everything. They want control. And they have very little ability to express these emotions. And they're largely smart, rational people, who fall victim to motivated reasoning. These developers announce this paid DLC. It rubs them the wrong way, emotionally. The anxiety kicks in. Why do I not get this content? I've played 800 hours, I'm a fan, I invested in this, you have wronged me. The motivated reasoning kicks in, NO DAY ONE DLC CONSUMER RIGHTS NO DRM EARLY ACCESS FRAUDS. Lacking a useful outlet, they lash out through review bombing, spamming the dev, abusive comments, etc.
The short version? Chill the fuck out, and if your money means that much to you, apply that standard to initial purchases instead of losing your shit after it's already gone because you can't get it back.
