Sony and Microsoft spend millions each month on gaming subscribers without receiving any direct compensation.

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The subscription services offered by Sony and Xbox are crucial to the current console wars, perhaps perhaps more so than ever.

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This theory is confirmed by the recent revamping of PlayStation Plus and Game Pass by both firms.

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This idea is supported by a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Image credits - tomsguide.com

Snail Games filed an S1 with the SEC in September as it prepares to go public. The S1 is one of many routine financial documents that the Commission requires before a company can apply to list its shares on the stock exchange.

Image credits -tomsguide.com

Snail is an independent developer and publisher best known for Studio Wildcard's Ark: Survival Evolved. This fact is heavily emphasised by Snail, who mentions the game by name at least 40 times in its S1.

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Snail claims that the vast majority of its revenue for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2021 came from digital sales via online platforms such as Steam, Xbox Live, and the PlayStation Network.

Image credits -tomsguide.com

What's more intriguing is Snail's admission that Sony paid $3.5 million to make Ark free for PlayStation Plus members for five weeks in November 2021.

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The contract required the game to meet or exceed certain unspecified "performance obligations" — legalese for "your game must generate a certain number of downloads in order to receive the total contracted amount."

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In 2018, Microsoft signed a licencing agreement with Snail to make Ark available on Game Pass. While the publisher did not provide revenue figures for previous years, it did state that Ark 1 earned $2.5 million in just the first two quarters of 2022.

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