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Studio Wildcard Reveals ARK: Genesis while Streaming #ForTheKids

Studio Wildcard made a name for themselves by creating the popular survival game called ARK: Survival Evolved and the still-under-construction pirate MMO ATLAS. Since 2015, Studio Wildcard has been one of Extra Life’s fastest growing supporters. Their first year fundraising, they brought in over $20,000 USD. The team managed to pull in over $110,000 USD this year. In total, the folks at the studio and their fans have managed to raise over $300,000 USD. That’s freaking incredible and we are absolutely blown away by what they are doing for the kids across the country and especially at UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital in Gainesville, Florida.

Over the past three years, Extra Life’s head Mike Kinney has hopped onto Studio Wildcard’s stream to do a Game Day interview. As a guest, Mike has been able to spread the message of Extra Life and explain what it is and the good the organization does for kids across the US and Canada. This year, Studio Wildcard’s stream kicked off with Mike’s now traditional appearance. We were honored to be able to participate and contribute in a small way to the team’s Game Day activities!

Studio Wildcard’s Game Day plans were extravagant. The team streamed on their Twitch channel for 24 hours beginning at 9am PST on November 2nd. The stream featured a series of interviews starting with the aforementioned Mike Kinney interview. Later on in their schedule, the team interviewed sponsors like Alienware, Discord, and also brought on developers working on ARK and ATLAS. Between those high-profile chats, Studio Wildcard played games in real life on-stream.

One of the biggest draws of the stream, however, was Studio Wildcard’s reveal of the upcoming Genesis DLC for ARK. These information drops occurred every two hours, providing fans of the game ample incentive to stay tuned and donate. Exciting new items, locations, creatures, and features took center stage during those reveals, like the introduction of the Lunar Biome Environment which brings the survival game to the surface of the moon.

On top of all of that, Studio Wildcard managed to attract several partners for the stream including AMD, Alienware, MSI, Elgato, Discord, Nitrado, and more. In total, these partners and the studio itself accrued over $10,000 USD in prizes to use as giveaways. These included shirts, plushies, goodie bags filled with cool stuff, collector’s editions of amazing games, season passes for their Genesis DLC, and more!

Additionally, during the stream, the team boosted the rates for how fast players could progress through the skills and levels of both ARK and ATLAS. Every $5,000 USD donated to their team gave all players a 0.5x multiplier for the experience they earned, stacking up to 8x. Each donor to the stream received a forum badge for ARK or ATLAS and those who donated over $500 USD would receive a golden badge. As a super special perk, those who donated over $2,500 USD got added to the credits of both ARK and ATLAS as an Extra Life Superfan.

This all goes so far above and beyond what we ever could have expected. The amount of good this does for hospitals across North America can’t be overstated. The work Studio Wildcard has done over the years has helped kids get treatment, either by providing them the facilities they need or paying for their care. We are blown away. Thank you so much to each and every person who helped pull together these events every year since 2015 and the community for turning out to support Studio Wildcard’s efforts with each new year. Your efforts matter. Thank you.

#ForTheKids

It’s never too late to sign up for Extra Life to help sick and injured kids in hospitals around the US and Canada by playing games! Donations for 2019 are accepted year-round!