ASE, ASA, ARK 2, the future, And admin abuse

[Scrymgarr]

So been playing ASE since Aug 3rd 2015. The closing of the official servers is disappointing, it is the death of ASE. "Just play unofficial or make your own." youll say. Soon ASE would be off the market places killing off any chance of new players to ASE in favor of ASA, and how long until they do that for ARK 2? "They said they won't do that Ark 2 will be a completely different game" and what trust do we have for those statements to remain true? Even more so.... Are they even going to address the snail games tribe abusing servers and such... while Im only a PVE player... I don't doubt they would go to pve servers just to raptor with people, just for having a base spot, going after a tame, or even getting an extra rare blueprint. Admin abuse is Admin abuse...  It disappoints me where these games are going and how they seem uncaring about these issues.

[GrumpyBear]

I'm sure they care, but they are a public facing company who can't be airing their dirty laundry in public unless it is in the shareholders best interest.  Which it isn't in their best interest to talk about it or how they will deal with it going forwards.  I wouldn't mind some cryptic message that gave us some sense of assurance that its an aspect they are planning on rectifying in the future, but I'm not holding my breath for one.

 

They are stuck with snail games whether they like it or not.  Its just business.

[darkradeon]

they don't have basically shareholders. 90% of assets are owned by the company (the publisher, not the devs) itselft.

[GrumpyBear]

2 hours ago, darkradeon said:

they don't have basically shareholders. 90% of assets are owned by the company (the publisher, not the devs) 

Companies that aren’t publicly traded still can have stock.  It doesn’t have to be publicly traded for it to have shareholders.

[Pipinghot]

4 hours ago, darkradeon said:

they don't have basically shareholders. 90% of assets are owned by the company (the publisher, not the devs) itselft.

What do you base that on?

They're a publicly traded company, where have you found information that indicates who the big shareholders are? Of course I'm not talking about average investors, people that might own 1-100 shares of stock, but the big owners. Why do you say that Snail owns 90% of the assets?

Edited May 17, 2023 by Pipinghot

[Joebl0w13]

3 minutes ago, Pipinghot said:

What do you base that on?

They're a publicly traded company, where have you found information that indicates who the big shareholders are? Of course I'm not talking about average investors, people that might own 1-100 shares of stock, but the big owners. Why do you say that Snail owns 90% of the assets?

[Frack]

33 minutes ago, Pipinghot said:

What do you base that on?

They're a publicly traded company, where have you found information that indicates who the big shareholders are? Of course I'm not talking about average investors, people that might own 1-100 shares of stock, but the big owners. Why do you say that Snail owns 90% of the assets?

page 1page 2

 

Snail owns 99.77% of themselves

SNAL vs Gaming Stocks

Ticker	Inst. %	Insider %	Net Insider (L12M)	Net Insider (L3M)
SNAL	0.23%	99.77%
BRAG	4.62%	0.00%
EGLX	4.09%	0.00%
SLGG	6.59%	5.99%	Net Selling	Net Selling
NCTY	0.04%	0.00%

Edited May 17, 2023 by Frack

[Joebl0w13]

Careful, Cubist is coming for them.

[darkradeon]

4 hours ago, GrumpyBear said:

Companies that aren’t publicly traded still can have stock.  It doesn’t have to be publicly traded for it to have shareholders.

Snail is on NASDAQ https://www.google.com/finance/quote/SNAL:NASDAQ?window=1Y

2 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

What do you base that on?

They're a publicly traded company, where have you found information that indicates who the big shareholders are? Of course I'm not talking about average investors, people that might own 1-100 shares of stock, but the big owners. Why do you say that Snail owns 90% of the assets?

Yes they are public and since data are public you can search about them as Frack did. I can also point that they don't do dividends. But hell, I was actually wrong: they own more than 94.5% of them

Edited May 17, 2023 by darkradeon

[Pipinghot]

4 hours ago, darkradeon said:

Yes they are public and since data are public you can search about them as Frack did.

Well yes, you can, but that doesn't mean you did. Hence the question.

When you post a claim that can be supported with facts it helps to post links to the sources. Even if I want to believe you, trust but verify.

p.s. @Frack Thank you.

[Pipinghot]

6 hours ago, Frack said:

Snail owns 99.77% of themselves

Which really makes the the price history of their stock interesting. Hmm....

[GrumpyBear]

6 hours ago, Frack said:

 

Snail owns 99.77% of themselves

 

 

In my limited experience in software companies, this isn't a good sign.   This is a place where the board is made up of pretty much just one person.  It will operate on whims, and there's very little check and balance going on because there's nobody on the board to disagree with president of the board who gets more than 1 vote for themselves to cast.

 

This type of company will buy other companies to look good on a balance sheet showing revenues.  Even if they are hemorrhaging money, they can lure in other investors by this sort of tactic.  

[Joebl0w13]

I found this to be interesting. The former head of Snail games USA sued the CEO of SNAIL. in 2012:

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/former-snail-games-usa-exec-alleges-racism-and-unfair-dismissal

Alleging the SNAIL CEO (Shi Hai) is racist towards Americans. 

[Pipinghot]

49 minutes ago, Joebl0w13 said:

I found this to be interesting. The former head of Snail games USA sued the CEO of SNAIL. in 2012:

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/former-snail-games-usa-exec-alleges-racism-and-unfair-dismissal

Alleging the SNAIL CEO (Shi Hai) is racist towards Americans. 

Yeah, just one more reason why I'm hoping for a hostile takeover of Snail. It probably won't ever happen, but a boy can dream.

It's not like the original WC team was super focused on ethics *cough* $40 million dollar settlement *cough*, and they've always been part of the problem of "too much focus on content and not enough focus on quality" but... removing Shi Hai from the picture would almost certainly be an improvement for ARK's future.

Our best hope is that Project Hermes (ARK in space, but also packed with blockchain/crypto/nft nightmares) fails like Atlas did. Anything that drives down the stock price and make Snail more of a takeover target is welcome. We already know that Shi Hai thinks that web3 is the future of ARK, that guy is toxic for gaming.

Edited May 18, 2023 by Pipinghot

[Joebl0w13]

2 minutes ago, Pipinghot said:

Yeah, just one more reason why I'm hoping for a hostile takeover of Snail. It probably won't ever happen, but a boy can dream.

It's not like the original WC team was super focused on ethics *cough* $40 million dollar settlement *cough*, and they've always been part of the "too much focus on content and not enough focus on quality" problem, but removing Shi Hai from the picture would almost certainly be an improvement for ARK's future.

It's damn near impossible for a studio to divorce from its publisher. It has happened but I think the stars have to align. Looks like Ark fans are stuck with Snail Games. That's a shame. But it's the hens coming home to roost of their own doing.

This is an interesting read, but I don't think WC granted rights to Snail. I'm pretty sure WC was outright purchased by Snail USA so there's probably not much to be done.

https://www.aspectlg.com/posts//an-overview-of-video-game-publishing-for-developers

[Pipinghot]

9 minutes ago, Joebl0w13 said:

It's damn near impossible for a studio to divorce from its publisher. It has happened but I think the stars have to align.

Agreed, which is why I didn't bring it up.

I think the only chance is if there's a hostile takeover of Snail that pushes Shi Hai out completely, forever.

9 minutes ago, Joebl0w13 said:

That's a shame. But it's the hens coming home to roost of their own doing.

 Too true.

9 minutes ago, Joebl0w13 said:

This is an interesting read, but I don't think WC granted rights to Snail. I'm pretty sure WC was outright purchased by Snail USA so there's probably not much to be done.

https://www.aspectlg.com/posts//an-overview-of-video-game-publishing-for-developers

Yeah, I think any talk of there being an "agreement" between WC and Snail is just wishful thinking. As far as I've ever been able to discern it was a sale, WC sold themselves to Snail and then they figured out that was a Faustian bargain. In fairness to WC, I suspect they saw David Runyan as the face of Snail and didn't realize what lurked in the shadows. It would be easy to mock them for such a large mistake, but they're only human like the rest of us, and having a $40M settlement hanging over your head would cloud anyone's judgement.

What makes things worse is that even the concept of Snail Games USA is an illusion. Technically it's an independent corporate entity but the reality is it's only a small part of the Snail corporate empire and (has been pointed out by others) it's almost entirely owned by one person. The fact that it's a publicly traded stock is a bunch of smoke and mirrors that disguises its true nature as a sole proprietorship.

The reason this matters is that even my desire for hostile takeover is almost certainly a forlorn hope. The individual who owns Snail Games USA is also the same individual who owns Snail globally and has a massive bank account backing him up. It would take an organization with the size and deep pockets of EA or Tencent to be able to take over Snail, and if they don't have a vision of the ARK universe having great potential in the future there's no reason why they would consider engineering a takeover.

 

[Joebl0w13]

1 minute ago, Pipinghot said:

Agreed, which is why I didn't bring it up.

I think the only chance is if there's a hostile takeover of Snail that pushes Shi Hai out completely, forever.

 Too true.

Yeah, I think any talk of there being an "agreement" between WC and Snail is just wishful thinking. As far as I've ever been able to discern it was a sale, WC sold themselves to Snail and then they figured out that was a Faustian bargain. In fairness to WC, I suspect they saw David Runyan as the face of Snail and didn't realize what lurked in the shadows. It would be easy to mock them for such a large mistake, but they're only human like the rest of us, and having a $40M settlement hanging over your head would cloud anyone's judgement.

What makes things worse is that even the concept of Snail Games USA is an illusion. Technically it's an independent corporate entity but the reality is it's only a small part of the Snail corporate empire and (has been pointed out by others) it's almost entirely owned by one person. The fact that it's a publicly traded stock is a bunch of smoke and mirrors that disguises its true nature as a sole proprietorship.

The reason this matters is that even my desire for hostile takeover is almost certainly a forlorn hope. The individual who owns Snail Games USA is also the same individual who owns Snail globally and has a massive bank account backing him up. It would take an organization with the size and deep pockets of EA or Tencent to be able to take over Snail, and if they don't have a vision of the ARK universe having great potential in the future there's no reason why they would consider engineering a takeover.

 

During one of his interviews Shi Hai says he is all about getting his games into Hollywood. He's been about that since the early 2000s. Snail seems to be using Snail USA (WildCard) to do just that with Ark. He, and by extension, Doug Kenedy seems to be more interested in the animated series and possible movie rights than the health of the video game. They are going for the full franchise. Just one person's opinion based on what's been made public.

There'll be no takeover of Snail Inc. That's certain.

[Pipinghot]

1 hour ago, Joebl0w13 said:

They are going for the full franchise. Just one person's opinion based on what's been made public.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

1 hour ago, Joebl0w13 said:

There'll be no takeover of Snail Inc. That's certain.

Why for you stomp on dreams. So mean.

[Joebl0w13]

4 minutes ago, Pipinghot said:

Why for you stomp on dreams. So mean.

Dreams:

[GrumpyBear]

8 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Why for you stomp on dreams. So mean.

Sadly, I'd have to agree with Joe.   Snail Games is in a bad position to draw in new investment.  Their only hope of that is if ASA does well.

 

The hostile takeover would occur when they have enough shares on the market for one player to snap up enough to wrest control of the board away from the current president of the board.  The only way that would happen is if they sold off enough shares to drum up money to buy more companies to make it look like they have more consistent revenue streams , thereby exposing their shares to potential buyers who want to take over the company.

Edited May 19, 2023 by GrumpyBear

[Xavanic]

18 hours ago, GrumpyBear said:

Sadly, I'd have to agree with Joe.   Snail Games is in a bad position to draw in new investment.  Their only hope of that is if ASA does well.

 

The hostile takeover would occur when they have enough shares on the market for one player to snap up enough to wrest control of the board away from the current president of the board.  The only way that would happen is if they sold off enough shares to drum up money to buy more companies to make it look like they have more consistent revenue streams , thereby exposing their shares to potential buyers who want to take over the company.

Honestly kinda hope they are forced to do this, with Microsoft looking for more games for game pass and ARK's original success, I believe given the opportunity they would absolutely snatch it up, and really at this point anythings better then snail

[Pipinghot]

19 hours ago, GrumpyBear said:

The hostile takeover would occur when they have enough shares on the market for one player to snap up enough to wrest control of the board away from the current president of the board.  The only way that would happen is if they sold off enough shares to drum up money to buy more companies to make it look like they have more consistent revenue streams , thereby exposing their shares to potential buyers who want to take over the company.

Or hypothetically bankruptcy, but obviously that's not going to happen either. Even if Snail-USA starts losing money he has deep enough pockets from Snail-global that it would be worth it to him to lose money as long as he can retain the IP for future deals.

[darkradeon]

On 5/18/2023 at 6:42 PM, Joebl0w13 said:

Dreams:

OT: Wait, is did GRR Martin said something about The Winds of Winter release ?

 

[Joebl0w13]

43 minutes ago, darkradeon said:

OT: Wait, is did GRR Martin said something about The Winds of Winter release ?

 

Winter, is not coming.