Snitches get stitches, but it turns out they also get paid. The makers of Ark: Survival Evolved, the Early Access survival game with ridable dinosaurs, are offering bounties of $100 to anyone who can provide them with information on hacks that impact gameplay or server stability. The bounty has actually been on the table for awhile—there's a mention of it in a Steam forum post from last week—but the first reward was handed out yesterday, so I guess people are suddenly taking the bounty a little more seriously.
The cash went to a user by the name of ZeroDay(++), who yesterday afternoon reported "a potential hack/exploit which could force servers to crash unexpectedly, as well as have other unintended side-effects." The exploit was reproduced internally and confirmed, after which the 100 bucks was sent via PayPal.
There are limits to what the developers are willing to pay for: Aimbots won't be credited because they can't be stopped server-side, nor will speedhacks, which will be patched out later. That leaves things like "teleportation, god mode, the ability to take over tribes, remove fall damage, ghost/fly mode, spawning creatures, [and] generating items," developer TheRightHand wrote. All of those features are handled server-side, he added, "and it would positively make me ♥♥♥♥ myself if they can be hacked."
Bounty submissions, if you have one, can be posted in a new thread on the Steam forums, or emailed to info@studiowildcard.com.
