12 million players are celebrating, but not everyone will get a gift. ARC Raiders devs give away pickaxes and bans
ARC Raiders has reached an impressive milestone of 12 million players. To mark the occasion, Embark Studios is giving away a free item and... bans.
Nothing shows a game's success quite like its official sales numbers. Embark Studios boasted that their game, ARC Raiders, has sold an impressive 12 million copies across all platforms.
Huge success for ARC Raiders
To celebrate this milestone, the devs are giving away a prestigious golden pickaxe. Anyone who has logged into the game since it launched up until the end of today will get it. Interestingly, it was originally meant to be a gift for hitting 10 million players, but during the winter break, the number of players shot up so fast that the creators missed the milestone.
GamesRadar+ had the opportunity to speak with Virgil Watkins from Embark Studios about such a huge success. The developer admitted that he feels both relief from his achievement and considerable pressure from the large player base. Now, however, with some time having passed since the release, the team knows well what they should focus on.
Of course it's encouraging that people are still finding the game compelling and diving in and bringing their friends in. But yeah, obviously we sense the appetite is there, so it kind of gives us that nice push to keep building and keep doing stuff for them.
ARC Raiders was already getting a lot of attention during the beta tests, but no one at Embark Studios expected the game to be such a massive hit after its release. To this day, it records very high activity levels on Steam, which continues to astonish the developers.
The way it took off, I think, took all of us by surprise. And the way it's done has taken us by surprise. Mostly it's, you know, you catch each other in the hall or in a meeting like, what is going on? This is ridiculous. Because of course we liked what we've done, and we think it's fun and stuff, but having this level of validation is pretty humbling.
Apart from the pickaxe, there are also bans
The golden pickaxe isn't the only "gift" Embark Studios handed out. As previously announced, the developers have started weeding out cheaters in ARC Raiders. On Reddit, you can find posts from people who received a 30-day ban for breaking the rules. However, not all players are happy because they were hoping for a permanent account suspension.
If they are cheating, why isn't it a permanent ban?
Only 1 month? I really hope they start giving longer bans for different types of cheating.
Some, however, believe that instead of permanent bans, cheaters should receive more creative punishments. The most popular idea is placing them in the same lobby so they have to struggle exclusively with each other. Other ideas include having fewer items to collect, constantly having enemy machines flying overhead, or having the map covered with never-ending fireballs. Time will tell if Embark Studios decides to implement stricter penalties in some way.
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Author: Martin Bukowski
Graduate of Electronics and Telecommunications at the Gdańsk University of Technology, who decided to dedicate his life to video games. In his childhood, he would get lost in the Gothic's Valley of Mines and "grind for gold" in League of Legends. Twenty years later, games still entertain him just as much. Today, he considers the Persona series and soulslike titles from From Software as his favorite games. He avoids consoles, and a special place in his heart is reserved for PC. In his spare time, he works as a translator, is creating his first game, or spends time watching movies and series (mainly animated ones).
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