There is a great dissatisfaction in the ARK: Survival Ascended community. While many players are having great fun with the game despite poor performance, there is a heavy stone in the stomach: the server hosting and the exclusive rights of the company Nitrado. In an allegedly leaked message to its employees, the CEO of Nitrado is said to have commented on the situation.
What statements are being made by the Nitrado CEO? Currently, there is a post circulating on Reddit that allegedly shows a leaked message sent by Nitrado CEO Raphael Stange to the employees of the company.
In the message, Stange allegedly claims that ARK: Survival Ascended (ASA) would not even exist without a “$4 million” loan from Nitrado. Additionally, it is stated that this loan ensured that the developers received their salaries:
Without this loan, ASA would never have existed. We made sure that the developers of ASA got their wages. And we were the last chance for this to happen in a reasonable time.
via Reddit.
Whether the message shared on Reddit actually comes from Nitrado CEO Raphael Stange is not known at this time. We at MeinMMO have requested a statement from Nitrado. Should Nitrado comment on the message in a statement, we will update the article with the new information.
You can see the Reddit post with the allegedly from Nitrado CEO Raphael Stange originating messages here:
What is behind the statement? The $4 million in the statement probably refers to a deal the company “Marbis GmbH” has made with the ARK publisher Snail Games. Nitrado belongs to the Karlsruhe-based Marbis GmbH.
In a document from the American stock exchange authority dated July 26, 2023, it was stated regarding the deal that Marbis is forgiving outstanding amounts of $1,046,932 to the ARK publisher Snail Games. Additionally, the document shows that Marbis GmbH paid $3 million to secure the exclusive rights to the server hosting of ARK for seven years (via investor.snail.com).
On August 15, 2023, ARK publisher Snail Games and Studio Wildcard announced an official partnership with Nitrado.
ARK community expresses sharp criticism of Nitrado and the exclusive deal
How did the message come about? At the beginning of the message, Stange – if it really is the Nitrado CEO – addresses his employees about the criticism being expressed towards Nitrado by the ARK community on social media.
The players of the survival game are dissatisfied because Nitrado holds the exclusive rights to server hosting for ARK: Survival Ascended. Criticism regarding server stability, customer support, and Nitrado’s pricing repeatedly flares up (via Reddit).
Shortly after the release of ARK: Survival Ascended, the dispute over server hosting escalated temporarily due to severe restrictions on creating dedicated servers that run on players’ own hardware.
The message shared on Reddit states that Nitrado had not prevented anyone from starting private servers and playing with friends. They had only wanted to protect their own interests and prevent other commercial server providers from hosting ASA servers. However, the way they wanted to protect their own interests led to problems. This was not intended and has now been resolved.
In fact, the restrictions for dedicated servers were lifted in a patch on October 27.
Nevertheless, ARK: Survival Ascended is still not in a perfect state – the performance of the game could be better. How you can get more FPS in the survival game is explained on MeinMMO:
ARK: Survival Ascended: Performance – With these graphics settings, the game runs smoother
