Most video game developers would pay a fortune to see their game stay online, but few get to do it, especially to meet fan demand.
Palworld, one of the biggest surprise hits in gaming history, struggles to stay available for all of its players. As Pocketpair, the game’s developers, finds itself taking on much more than it can handle – to be fair, no one in the right mind would expect Palworld to blow up so fast and so soon – it’s quickly finding out that running a successful game isn’t cheap.
In a recent post on X, the company’s CEO, Takuro Mizobe, revealed how it’s costing to keep Palworld servers online.
あれ、ひょっとしてサーバー代で倒産する？ pic.twitter.com/ahxYHM3zWl
— Takuro Mizobe | Craftopia, Palworld (@urokuta_ja) February 2, 2024
According to the studio’s leading executive, Palworld servers are forcing Pocketpair to cough up a whopping 70 million yen a month, which translates to roughly $480,000 USD. The figure is courtesy of u/needle1, who posted the revelation on Reddit.
Upon further digging, the Redditor found the X account of the “only serverside team guy in the company” who replied to the post and claimed that Pocketpair is sparing no expense.
To be fair, any developer would literally throw an absurd amount of money at Palworld’s enviable problem if it means keeping the game’s momentum going.
Palworld launched exclusively on Xbox Series S/X, Xbox Game Pass, and PC, on January 19. It didn’t take long for the game to blow up. In less than a week, it’s become the third-fastest-selling video game of all time, eclipsing the numbers posted by The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It wasn’t quite able to outsell Hogwarts Legacy but it has set a high bar for the most units sold for a video game this year. More importantly, Palworld has made an impact on Steam, where it currently stands as the second-most-played Steam game of all time, next only to PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
While Pocketpair can’t afford to keep spending so much money on Palworld’s servers, one of its partners, Microsoft, is likely helping it out as it brings in more individuals to help stabilize the situation.
For now, fans can focus on the positive as Pocketpair is promising a robust roadmap for Palworld for the next year.
Palworld is currently not available to play on mobile platforms and PlayStation but it might be available on these platforms once it’s publicly released.
