Snail's third-quarter bookings rose 30% as ARK: Survival Ascended sold about 1.2 million units

Snail, the Culver City, California, publisher of the sandbox survival series ARK, said on November 12, 2026, that its bookings rose 30.4% to $23.0 million in the three months to September 30. Snail defines bookings, a non-GAAP measure, as “the net amount of products and services sold” digitally or physically in a period, and presents them as a useful indicator of sales. Reported revenue rose much faster, by 139.2% to $33.1 million, but Snail attributes $13.9 million of that increase to a change in deferred revenue. That is about 72% of the $19.2 million increase its 10-Q reports (our calculation).

Snail holds some payments as deferred revenue until it delivers what was paid for, such as the part of a game bundle that covers add-ons not yet launched, and spreads others, such as sales of virtual items, over an estimated service period. Its 10-Q ties about $11.9 million recognized from that deferred revenue backlog in the third quarter to the three ARK add-ons it launched in early July. Reported revenue can therefore swing without a matching change in what players bought in the period. The rest of the revenue gain came mostly from ARK: Survival Ascended and from Bellwright, a medieval survival and strategy game.

One franchise, most of the money

Snail sold about 2.0 million units in the quarter, up 73.3%. ARK: Survival Ascended accounted for about 1.2 million of them, or about 60% (our calculation), and the original ARK: Survival Evolved for about 559,000. In early July Snail released three add-ons for Survival Ascended: ARK: Genesis Part 1 Ascended, ARK: Tides of Fortune and ARK: Dragontopia, the last released without advance notice.

The ARK franchise brought in 91.5% of Snail's revenue in the quarter, up from 88.4% a year earlier, according to its 10-Q. ARK is developed by Studio Wildcard, which Snail lists as a related party and from which it holds an exclusive license. On Steam and the Epic Games Store, the two ARK games together averaged 220,000 daily active users, against 216,000 a year earlier.

Mobile shrank sharply as a share of revenue. ARK: Ultimate Mobile Edition had about 14.5 million downloads by September 30 and averaged about 134,000 daily users, but its sales fell by $0.2 million in the quarter. Survival Ascended averaged about 121,000 daily users, peaking at about 184,000; the older Survival Evolved averaged about 99,000.

A profit, and a long ARK roadmap

Net income was $6.7 million, against a loss of $7.9 million a year earlier. Over nine months, bookings rose a slower 7.0% to $71.7 million. Snail credits higher sales of Survival Ascended and Bellwright, both helped by promotional pricing, offset by Survival Evolved as demand shifted to Survival Ascended and its add-ons.

Chief executive Hai Shi called the ARK content pipeline, which runs through 2027, “a key driver of engagement and monetization” for Survival Ascended. The company lists a new ARK: Dragontopia map for December 2026 and, for 2027, the ARK Maker creation tool, a Survival of the Fittest game mode, three more add-ons and a new title, PixARK Worlds, planned for Steam, Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch 2. Those dates are Snail's targets. Its larger games in development, For The Stars and two 9 Yin Sutra titles, are listed with release dates still to be set.

Snail also runs SaltyTV, a short-drama app, which had released more than 350 short dramas by September 30.