All right. I think we can go ahead and get started. We got ourselves a tight-knit little group here today. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to come here. I'm sure we'll have a few more trickle in. My name is David Chomiak. I am an Investment Banking Analyst here at H.C. Wainwright. I'm on the ECM team, and with me here today, I have Heidy Chow, CFO, and Jim, a member of Snail's board of directors with Snail, Inc. I want to give them as much time as possible for them to talk to you here today. Without further ado, it's all yours.
Thank you, David. Good afternoon, everyone. You have already, I'm pretty sure, everyone probably seen lots of presentations today. We'll begin somewhere more familiar, a television series that you did not want to end. With us, I do want to remind everyone about a disclaimer before we go forward. There are some of the forward-looking statements. Our plan involve uncertainty, and actual result may differ from our expectation. With that, I'll pass to Jim, one of our board member, to talk about our dream.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for your time. Today, we're going to talk a lot of video game. Started with a dream in 2009 to provide quality interactive entertainment globally. Snail began in 2009 with a simple ambition: build worlds worth spending time in. We develop and publish game, but the real product is the experience players carry with them. Our history is the best understood through the world we have created and what those world through us. Our path has three chapter. We began with worlds such as Age of Wushu and Taichi Panda. ARK then changed the scale of the company. ARK: Survival Ascended continue that story today. Every chapter added capability. None guarantee the next success, but each give us a strong foundation for creating it.
Here are the two numbers I want you to notice: $47 million in net revenue for the first six months of 2026, and the net loss of approximately $900,000, substantially narrower than a year earlier. The question behind the number is straightforward. Can audience demand become durable financial performance? That is the work in front of us. The investment case rests on something we already have and something we still must prove. We have an established audience and a franchise with a real story. We also have a development portfolio that must turn opportunity into result. I will keep the distinction clear throughout the presentation. The gaming market, a growth engine for ARK. Gaming is enormous, but the size of the market alone tells you very little about who will win. A television network does not succeed because many people own television.
It succeeded by creating something people choose to watch. Game works the same way. Our job is to create worlds that particularly player choose to enter and return to. ARK began in 2015 and has generated approximately $1.1 billion in cumulative franchise gross revenues through June 2026, before platform fee. The more interesting question is why player return after so many years. A shelter you built with friends become more than an object on the screen. It becomes your place and shelter place, and difficult to leave behind. The number to remember here is 4.5 billion hours of Steam play time reported through June 2026. Hours are evidence of attention. Players return to the new content, unfinished challenge, and the people they play with. The continuing relationship is what gives a franchise commercial life beyond the first sale. Then I will pass on to Heidy.
Thank you, Jim. This chart connects creativity to business performance. Follow the release moment rather than every individual bar. Every time when we have a new game or new content release, it gives player another reason to return and continue to play our game. Some movement reflect accounting timing as well as we recognizing revenue, so the pattern matters more than any single quarter. Our challenge is to keep creating moments that renew our players' interest. So far, we have talked about the world and our audience that already exists. The next question is: where Snail goes from here? Our strategy has three distinct parts. First is continue building new games and establish franchise. Secondly, making creative ambition answer to profitability. Third, explore newer opportunities such as AI, digital, and digital assets with separate milestones and risk standards.
These opportunities are at different stages, so we will judge them differently, and I will cover those in a little bit. Think of this slide as a map, not a promise about every day. The top shows continued investment in ARK. Below is the internally developed and licensed projects that broaden our portfolio. The structure matters. Support the franchise people already know, while creating new reasons for players to discover who Snail is. Our AAA game beyond ARK. Everyone heard about ARK, but AAA game beyond ARK, a familiar world can open the door to a new chapter, while a completely new world can invite a different audience. For the star, explore space. The 2 19 Citra projects draw on the Age of Wushu universe in different ways. Past riches create an opening, but each new experience must earn attention on their own. Sandbox survival beyond ARK.
Players do not all dream about the same world. Some want dinosaurs, others prefer martial arts, a medieval settlement, or an alien planet. The common thread is agency, room to act, build, and discover. A broader portfolio works only when each experience has a clear identity and a reason for the audience to choose it. With all those projects that is currently going on, we are actually doing our cost control as well. Creative ambition needs operating discipline behind it. A large pipeline is impressive only when the company makes intelligent choices about what to fund, what to finish, and what the market may support. For investors, the test remains the same. What do we spend? What do we deliver? And how the financial performance develops. A little bit about Stablecoin and our AI project that the next session moves beyond traditional gaming into digital assets and AI.
These ideas have different maturity levels and different risks, so we'll evaluate them separately from the established financial franchise business. Stablecoin attracts a great deal of attention, but a market forecast does not create a useful product. The better question is what a player or customer could actually do with the technology. We're exploring possible applications around payments and digital experiences subject to adoption, implementation, and regulatory requirements. Imagine a player that's currently playing a game that eventually there's some rewards program that we could actually fit into our games, and that could earn benefits and may redeem them for digital experiences. This diagram shows an early concept, not established revenue sources. The value will depend on where it genuinely helps players and supports the business at the cost and requirements. We want to be the first gaming company that creates Stablecoins.
This timeline separates work already completed from work still underway. Our company has established the business and begun our infrastructure and licensing work. Development and evaluation keep continuing. The important distinction is between building a capability and proving a commercial service. We'll measure progress through concrete milestones. Next about our AI. Everyone talks about AI now. In gaming, how will AI work? Not only from developing games, but AI in the gaming companion. Imagine that you want to play games, but your friend actually is not available. Could a digital companion remember earlier sessions, understand the game, and participate in a way that feels useful? That is the idea behind non-human player, NHP. This technology becomes interesting only when it makes the player experience better. Here's our key investment highlights. If you remember the three things, remember these all give Snail an established audience.
The portfolio creates future opportunities. Execution will determine whether that opportunity becomes financial performance. Those are also the three areas where we welcome your questions as well. This concludes our presentation for today, and please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions.