Studio Wildcard

Studio Wildcard (formally named Wildcard Properties, LLC) was founded in October 2014.[2] Its founders are Doug Kennedy, Jesse Rapczak, Jeremy Stieglitz and Stieglitz' wife, Susan, of whom Kennedy serves as chief executive officer for the company.[3][4][5] While falling under the jurisdiction of Florida, the company's primary offices were set up in Washington.[2] In December 2015, Snail Ark, Inc., a California corporation and subsidiary of SDE, Inc., was merged into Studio Wildcard.[2][6] Three managers of Snail Ark subsequently became managers of Studio Wildcard.[2] In February 2016, the company had 60 people employed at its studio in Bellevue, Washington.[7]

In December 2015, Trendy Entertainment, the former employer of Jeremy Stieglitz, filed a lawsuit against Studio Wildcard and Stieglitz, alleging that Stieglitz had violated a non-compete agreement between him and Trendy when he, following his resignation from Trendy, secretly formed Studio Wildcard and started working on Ark while hiring developers from Trendy for his endeavor.[3][2] Trendy sought US$600 million in damages, and the two parties settled on April 13, 2016, for $40 million .[8]

At The Game Awards 2018, Studio Wildcard announced Atlas, a massively multiplayer online game featuring pirates.[9] According to them, the game was 1,200 times larger than Ark and could host 40,000 players in the same game world.[9][10] To develop Atlas, Studio Wildcard had set up a sister studio, Grapeshot Games, and run a one-year-long recruitment phase to ensure that the development of the game was not coming at the expense of Ark.[11] A sequel to Ark, Ark II, was announced at The Game Awards 2020.[12]

• Official website