Sony Interactive Entertainment and Xbox have paid millions of dollars to include Ark titles on their rival game subscription services, it has been revealed.
License fees paid to include the games onPlayStationPlus andXboxGame Pass were confirmed last month in an SECfilingby Snail Games, the owner of the Ark franchise’s developer and publisher, Studio Wildcard.
In November 2021, Snail entered an agreement withSonyto make Ark Survival Evolved available forPS4as one ofMarch 2022’s PlayStation Plus gamesin exchange for $3.5 million.
The company already had a three-year license agreement withMicrosoftfor the game to be on Xbox Game Pass, which had been scheduled to end in 2021 before being extended.
And in 2020 it was confirmed that Microsoft had signed the game’s Vin Diesel-starring sequel, Ark 2,as an Xbox exclusive.
“The agreement was subsequently amended in June 2020 to extend the ARK 1 Game Pass perpetually effective June 29, 2025 and to put Ark 2 on Game Pass for three years”, according to Snail’s SEC filing.
It added: “The Company recognized $2.5 million in revenue related to ARK 1 perpetual license for the six months ended Jul 06, 2025 and deferred $2.3 million related to Ark 2 that is included in the long-term portion of deferred revenue.”
Platform holders like Sony and Microsoft are traditionally secretive about the amount of the money they pay to secure games for their subscription services, so these figures are somewhat eye-opening.
Related
In a regulatoryfilingearlier this year, Polish developer Big Cheese Studio also revealed that it was paid $600,000 by Microsoft to bring Cooking Game Simulator to Xbox Game Pass.
Microsoft reportedly generated around$2.9 billion in revenue from Xbox Game Pass subscriptionson console in 2021.
