Offizielle Mitteilung von Snail, Inc.
On July 26, 2023, Snail Games USA Inc. (the "Company") entered into a cooperation agreement (the "Cooperation Agreement") with Marbis GmbH ("Marbis"). According to this agreement, the Company has granted Marbis the exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, and irrevocable right to host and operate ARK servers for a period of seven years.
In summary, the following points are covered:
- Cooperation agreement between Snail Games USA Inc. and Marbis GmbH on July 26, 2023.
- Marbis receives the exclusive right to host and operate the games ARK SE (if ARK SA is not globally released by October 31) , Ark SA, and Ark II.
- Marbis has the right to rent out private and community servers.
- Marbis will provide funding to the company up to a principal amount of $4,046,932.
- Marbis will provide up to $3,000,000 in cash to the company upon receiving a written request.
The original document can be viewed here.
Possible Consequences
From the document, it can be inferred that private or community servers for ARK must be hosted exclusively by Marbis or authorized third parties. For ARK SE, this is only the case if ARK SA is not globally released by the end of October 2023.
The question of whether we can continue to operate our own "private/community servers" (with our own hardware) for ARK without commercial interests has been answered with "yes" (see update from August 17, 2023).
This could be very problematic for companies like G-Portal or smaller hosting providers such as arkservers.io. They would not be able to operate a business model based on hosting ARK servers without the consent of Nitrado (Marbis GmbH). It remains to be seen under what conditions (costs?) Nitrado will allow this.
This likely means that Nitrado will obtain a monopoly on renting game servers for ARK Survival Evolved. At least Nitrado could hinder competition or determine prices through licensing agreements.
However, these are currently only speculations and interpretations. Snail Games, the owner of Studio Wildcard and holder of all rights to ARK, has so far only published this as an ad hoc announcement for its shareholders. Therefore, it is not yet finally clarified what consequences this will have for the hosting of ARK servers.
Updates
Update from August 15, 2023 / 9:00 PM
Nitrado has published a post on their website about this partnership. Unfortunately, or understandably from Nitrado's perspective, only the advantages of the partnership are listed here, as well as features like cross-platform mods (Overflow).
Update from August 16, 2023
Nitrado has confirmed on Twitter that private servers can still be operated, so no problem for us 😜
Update from August 17, 2023
Nitrado's commercial exclusivity for community servers does not prevent the monetization of your self-hosted or even rented server, such as, but not limited to, donations, "VIP" roles, reserved slots, items, and anything else allowed in the Terms and Conditions and End User License Agreement of ARK: Survival Ascended.
https://server.nitrado.net/en-U…
Correction from September 30, 2023
Regarding the exclusive right of ARK SE (current game).
Assuming the game Ark SA is not officially globally released before October 31, 2023, Marbis (Nitrado) will have the exclusive right to provide official servers for the game Ark SE. In addition, Marbis will receive a license to use the server files for managing the official servers as well as hosting the game on private or community servers. These rights are global, non-transferable, and irrevocable. Marbis can also provide these services through its subsidiaries or third-party companies and is authorized to sublicense them.
UPDATE OCTOBER 26, 2023
Server hosting for private has been massively restricted by Nitrado: /node/283
Comments
Exklusiv ist ein Witz
Nun es ist schon sehr traurig was hier seit Jahren stattfindet. Die beiden großen Gameserverhoster G-Portal und Nitrado sichern sich regelmässig bei Spielen irgendwelche Exklusiv Rechte und verkleinert somit den Markt.
Den Spielern bleibt somit nichts übrig außer ob sie wollen oder nicht, den Anbieter zu akzeptieren. Dazu kommt das auslutschen der Spieler seitens der Spiel Publisher.
Natürlich ist es klar, das jedes Spiel auch zukünftige Kosten verursacht, wie aber schafft es Valve Ihre Spiele 30 Jahre + mit Updates zu versorgen?
Das Ganze hier ist allein ein Kampf um die Marktherschafft und viel Geld. Der Anbietermarkt hat sich durch diese Thematik über die letzten Jahre extrem verkleinert. Irgendwann haben auch die Publisher keine Wahl mehr. Bzw. bleibt Ihnen dann die Wahl über selbsthosting oder den letzten verbliebenen Anbieter zu wählen. Wir können nur hoffen das sie daraus irgendwann etwas lernen
Server Ark asa
Ich finde es unheimlich frech und unverschämt was Nitrado da bietet!
Ständig Serverprobleme, prinzipiell kann man nach einen Update erstmal 2-7 Tage nicht spielen und dafür zahlt man fast 20€ und bekommt nicht mal eine Gutschrift o.Ä. wenn man den halben Monat überhaupt nicht zocken kann, weil der Server down ist!
Ich könnte kotzen wenn ich daran denke das diese Idioten 7 Jahre exklusivrecht haben!