ARK sells 1m, studio partners with Epic

Studio Wildcard has sold over one million copies of its dinosaur survival game ARK: Survival Evolved and it's now offering modders a new development tool in partnership with Epic Games.

"As we've opened up the world of ARK to everyone, we've been seriously on the edge of our seats with anticipation. The amazing gameplay ideas lighting up the forum conversations can be turned into reality right away," said co-creative director Jesse Rapczak.

"The UE4 mod tools that we're providing are phenomenal, and we can't wait to see the limitless creativity of our fans come to life in fantastic new ways."

The tools are available now and modders can share their work through the Steam Workshop.

"ARK provides a brilliantly creative universe for modding, and a wealth of beautiful environments and dinosaur content to build upon," added Epic's Tim Sweeney.

"Many of us here began in the mod community, so we're grateful to see Studio Wildcard open up their creative work to a new generation of programmers, artists, and designers."

ARK: Survival Evolved went on sale as an Early Access game on June 2. Last month Rapczak told GamesIndustry.biz that after a week on sale 400,000 units had been sold at $25 apiece, yielding over $10 million in revenues.

"It's too early to talk about profit since we still have a game to make and there are plenty of costs associated with all of that, but the revenue from sales has already paid for the $1.5 million cost of development over the past seven months," he said.