Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Snail Q3 twenty twenty-four Earnings Conference Call and webcast. I would now like to turn the call over to Brett Millot, Senior Vice President at ICR. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to Snail's Q3 twenty twenty-four Earnings Conference Call and webcast. On today's call, we have Tony Tian, Co-CEO, Heidy Chow, Chief Financial Officer, and Peter Kang, Senior Vice President, Director of Business Development and Operations. The company's Q3 twenty twenty-four earnings press release was filed today with the SEC after the U.S. stock market closed, and it's available on the Investor Relations section of Snail's website at www.snail.com or the SEC's website. During this call, management may make forward-looking statements regarding future events and the future financial performance of the company. Actual events and results may differ materially from our expectations, and forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties.
Please refer to the company's most recent Form 10-Q that was filed today with the SEC, the most recent Form 10-K that was filed with the SEC on April 1, twenty twenty-four, and other SEC filings. The company makes these forward-looking statements as of today and disclaims any duty or obligation to update them or to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect any change in its expectations or any change in events, conditions, or circumstances on which any such statement is based. Additionally, on today's call, we will refer to bookings and EBITDA, which are non-GAAP measures that provide useful information for the company's investors. You will find a historical reconciliation of bookings and EBITDA to the corresponding GAAP measures in the earnings press release and the company's SEC filings.
Now, I will turn the call over to Tony Tian, Co-Chief Executive Officer of Snail. Tony?
Thank you, Brett. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm very excited to share with you our results for the quarter, as well as provide you with some updates on our games portfolio and specifically our ARK franchise. Firstly, I would like to give a brief overview of where Snail stands today. With the release of the first half of ARK Animated Series first season and the full- size expansion, ARK Aberration, we are capitalizing on the increased popularity of the franchise by engaging new players and continuing to excite our existing community through innovative updates and launches within the ARK franchise. As such, we remain committed to being pioneers in the world of interactive entertainment, including strategic investment in advanced AI technologies that enhance both creativity and productivity.
During the Q3 , we released the highly anticipated full- size expansion of DLC, ARK: Aberration Ascended, and part two of Bob's Tall Tales DLC for ARK: Survival Ascended. As the new DLC content continues to engage with our player base, we are continually optimizing our DLC pipeline to further enhance the ARK experience our players have come to know. Through 30th of September , twenty twenty-four, ARK has been played for 3.8 billion hours, with an average playing time per user of 162 hours. Additionally, as we highlighted previously, the top 21.2% of all players have spent over 100 hours immersed in the game, according to data from Steam. We are thrilled with the success of the ARK franchise and to see so many players enjoying our games, as indicated by this data.
Before I hand the call off to Peter and Heidy to discuss our results in more detail, let's quickly go over the financials from this quarter. For the Q3 of twenty twenty-four Snail generated a net revenue of $22.5 million, a notable jump from $9.0 million in the Q3 of twenty twenty-three. The increase in net revenue was due to the recognition of $8.2 million in revenue from the release of Aberration and part two of Bob's Tall Tales, an increase in total ARK sales of $5.9 million, and also an increase in Bellwright sales of $1.0 million, partially offset by other items outlined in our financial statements. Net income in the Q3 of twenty twenty-four increased significantly to $0.2 million versus net loss of $4.4 million in the Q3 of twenty twenty-three, as a result of the aforementioned increase in net revenue. Thank you all again for joining.
With that, I will now hand the call over to Peter Kang, our Senior VP, Director of Business Development and Operations, to review our product roadmap and share some key developments. Peter.
Thank you, Tony. Now, hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Firstly, I'd like to provide some updates on each of our core franchises. Earlier in twenty twenty-four, Donkey Crew released the survival simulation title Bellwright into early access on Steam. As a reminder, that launch was an incredible success, with over 78% of reviews giving a positive score and the overall Steam review score being, quote, "mostly positive." As such, we have sold over 380,000 units to date, and the wishlist count for the game remains over 1 million. There are a lot of new developments on this project. Keep an eye out on Bellwright's Steam store page for the most up-to-date sneak peeks at the upcoming content. We are excited to welcome Honeycomb: The World Beyond to our Snail Games portfolio.
Honeycomb is an upcoming single-player sci-fi survival adventure where players explore vast biomes, crossbreed alien species, and build a base to support their mission to save humanity. Honeycomb represents Snail Games' dedication to providing a unique gameplay experience within the survival genre. Moving on to our indie publishing label, Wandering Wizard. As previously mentioned, we have expanded our publishing catalog, having signed two additional games earlier this year, which will be released in Q1 of twenty twenty-five. Respectively, the first project is titled The Cecil: The Journey Begins, a horror game set in the legendary Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles and developed by Genie Interactive Games. The second title is Chasmos, another horror FPS game developed by two brothers in Macedonia under the Misty Dev banner. Since the second quarter of twenty twetny-four, we have signed two more games, Castle of Secrets and Stoneguard.
Castle of Secrets takes players into the shadowy depths of a psychological horror narrative that follows young Susan's journey through a cursed family legacy, while Stoneguard is an immersive survival strategy game set in a dark medieval world where players must protect the magical Lifestone from relentless enemies. We anticipate Wandering Wizard to have additional titles in various stages of development by year's end while maintaining our commitment to identifying new opportunities that emphasize gameplay excellence and clear market fit. Let's turn now to the ARK franchise. Firstly, on ARK: Survival Ascended, as we mentioned last quarter, our development timeline has slowed down to a cadence of launching a new DLC every three months compared to two months previously. This strategy has been successful as we focus further on the quality and level of detail that our fans appreciate from all of the DLCs in the franchise.
In Q3 twenty twenty-four, we have released the highly anticipated full-size expansion, ARK: Aberration Ascended, for our ARK: Survival Ascended players. Along with the full-size expansion, we also released Steampunk Ascent, which is part two of a paid DLC, Bob's Tall Tales. Delivering on our commitment to provide players with quality and engaging content, Steampunk Ascent brings new skins, structures, items, and creatures into the world of ARK. Later this year, we will be releasing ARK: Ultimate Survivor Edition on mobile platforms. The updated Dino Adventure on iOS and Android offers the complete full-scale PC game experience right on your mobile devices. With ARK: The Animated Series, we are excited by the release of part one of season one and the feedback from our community.
As we look forward, we are even more excited to share with our fans of the ARK franchise the exciting developments in the storyline, as well as more dino battles. I will now pass the call off to Heidy to discuss our financial results in more detail. Heidy?
Thank you, Peter. And hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Net revenue for the three months ended 30th of September , twenty twenty-four, was $22.5 million as compared to $9 million in the three months ended 30th of September , twenty twenty-three. The strong increase in net revenue was primarily due to the release of Aberration and part two of Bob's Tall Tales, which resulted in $8.2 million of revenue in the Q3 . Additionally, we saw an increase in total ARK sales of $5.9 million and an increase in Bellwright sales of $1 million, partially offset by other items outlined in our financial statement. Net income in the Q3 of twenty twenty-four increased significantly to $200,000 versus a net loss of $4.4 million in the Q3 of twenty twenty-three as a result of the aforementioned increase in net revenue.
Bookings for the three months ended 30th of September , twenty twenty-four, was $16.1 million as compared to $10.5 million for the three months ended 30th of September , twenty twenty-three. The $5.6 million, or 53.6%, increase in bookings is due mainly to the release of ARK: Survival Ascended in the Q4 of twenty twenty-three, the releases of Bob's Tall Tales and Bellwright in the first half of twenty twenty-four, as well as the releases of ARK: Aberration Ascended in September of twenty twenty-four.
In addition to increased sales of the aforementioned titles, bookings decreased because of the company-recognized deferred revenue of approximately $8.2 million during the three months ended 30th of September , twenty twenty-four , for the release of Aberration and part two of Bob's Tall Tales, partially offset by the deferral of $2.6 million in revenue for sales of ARK: Survival Ascended DLCs and the remaining part of Bob's Tall Tales, which have not yet launched. During the three months ended 30th of September , twenty twenty-three, the company also deferred $1.8 million in prepaid royalty for ARK: Survival Ascended and part two. EBITDA for the quarter ended was $500,000 versus a loss of $5.1 million in the prior year period.
The $5.6 million, or 109.7%, increase in EBITDA was due to our increase in net income and a decrease in the benefit from income taxes of $1.4 million, partially offset by a decrease in interest expenses of $300,000. As of 30th of September , twenty twenty-four, unrestricted cash and cash equivalents were $10.6 million. During the nine months ended 30th of September , twenty twenty-four, the company paid $3 million of its revolving loan and also paid off the convertible debt. To review our detailed financial statements, please refer to the earnings press release and our most recently filed Form 10-Q, which was filed today with the SEC. Thank you all for joining us today. We will now open the line for Q&A. Operator?
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press Star 2 if you would like to remove your questions from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the Star keys. As a reminder, please restrict yourself to one question and one follow-up. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. The first question comes from the line of Michael Kupinski with Noble Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my questions. I got just a couple here. I just want to know, in terms of the Steam Summer Sale, I was just wondering how that affected the quarter and the sales. In particular, too, did that affect gross margins? Because gross margins looked like they were just a little bit lower than what I was looking for. And I was just wondering if you can just comment how successful that Steam Summer Sale was.
Hey, Michael, thank you. That was a great question. Summer Sale was great, and then because during the summer, we definitely had sold more units and our gross profit as well, and it did significantly actually improve for the quarter.
Gotcha. And then I was just wondering, too, in terms of any updates on the animated series. I know you're kind of limiting the questions here. Any updates on the animated series viewership and how well it was received? Any interest for another season? Can you give us an update there as well?
Hey, this is Peter. So the rights to updates on the animated series belong to our distribution partner at Paramount Plus. So we're not at liberty to disclose. The same goes with viewership numbers. Those analytics are very hard to come by for us.
Sorry for that.
What we do know is that the second half of the first season is on the slate to be released, and we hope that it's well received by the viewership out there.
Gotcha. While I'll let others ask a question, I'll get back in queue. Thank you.
Thank you. This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.