Studio Wildcard: "We just aren't cut out for free-to-play mechanics"

Studio Wildcard underestimated the difficulty and expense of launching and operating a free-to-play game, with the Ark: Survival Evolved studio choosing to retract its standalone competitive-battle game Survival of the Fittest.

Ark: Survival of the Fittest started out as a popular mod for the original game, and Studio Wildcard announced its intention to release it as a free-to-play standalone just over a year ago. It launched in April this year, but Wildcard has already decided to bring it back into the fold.

"As we look to the future of SotF, we came to a decision: Survival of the Fittest will be brought back internally as part of the Ark: Survival Evolved package," the company said in a statement published on Steam. "For technical functionality it will still exist as its own application, and everyone who has thus-far played the game will continue to be able to play it without having to own Ark: Survival Evolved, but going forward it will be considered part of the ARK: Survival Evolved product group."

"We don't know much about monetisation, and quite frankly we aren't interested in hiring an economics team to take over that process"

Wildcard stressed that the "main reason" Survival of the Fittest has been withdrawn as a standalone product relates to Ark's active modding community. "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," the company said, highlighting a portion of the community that has already expressed an interest in adapting and developing the mod further. "We wanted to ensure that you would be able to meet those desires and make SotF into the game you want to see, no limits."

The other reason is relegated to secondary importance by default, though it seems every bit as important in its own way. Wildcard acknowledged the myriad "expenses" involved in free-to-play games, and the need to earn back that investment over a long period through in-game items and other monetisation techniques. Wildcard, the company said, lacks the knowledge to make that work.

"Wildcard would have had to put a lot of resources and time into learning how to become a 'free to play' developer... 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 monetisation, and quite frankly we aren't interested in hiring an economics team to take over that process... We just aren't cut out for free-to-play mechanics."

Anyone who has already downloaded Survival of the Fittest will be able to continue playing, but newcomers will now need to purchase a copy of Survival Evolved. It will be maintained as a separate application on Steam.