Synopsis
The player wakes up on a mysterious island populated by dinosaurs and fantastic creatures.
He must learn to survive by hunting, gathering resources, building shelters, and taming creatures to protect himself or explore the environment.
Licence
The game ARK: Survival Evolved is licensed under an EULA (End User Licence Agreement), as is ARK: Survival Ascended.
However, there is a specific mention of ‘Personal Use Only’, which means that the game is strictly reserved for personal, non-commercial use. In other words, players can play the game, create content or mods for their own enjoyment, but they are not allowed to exploit the game or its elements for profit, for example by selling copies or directly monetising derivative content.
The publisher
Studio Wildcard is an American video game development studio founded in 2014 by Jesse Rapczak and Jeremy Stieglitz.
The studio became known for the video game ARK: Survival Evolved, which sold over 2 million copies.
About the game
ARK: Survival Ascended is an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) that combines survival, construction, exploration in an open world, and multiplayer adventure.
The game is being developed for various platforms: PC (Windows), PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S.
Some numbers
+ 600,000 copies sold on Steam in the first two weeks after launch
≃ 1.6 million copies sold in 5 months
≃ 2.6 million copies sold across all platforms as of 26 September 2024 (≃ one year after its release)
≃ 3.4 million copies sold as of 16 March 2025
+ 90.7 million installations across all platforms for the entire ARK series franchise (Survival Evolved & Survival Ascended) as of 31 December 2023
+ 3.5 billion hours of gameplay on Steam as of 31 December 2023
≃ 43.7% of revenue comes from consoles, ≃ 43.4% from computers, and ≃ 9.6% from mobile devices across the entire ARK franchise.
Life cycle
ARK: Survival Ascended enjoyed a surge in popularity upon its release (26 October 2023). It remained very popular for several months due to media coverage.
Due to its graphical issues (bugs, freezes, crashes, etc.) and controversial marketing events, the game declined immediately without reaching maturity. However, it is still played by an average of 25,000 players per month.