Pocketpair are currently spending £380k a month in server fees following the huge success of Palworld.
Palworld launched in Early Access last month and, according to developers Pocketpair, has seen over 19million people play the game.
However, this has resulted in massive server fees, with Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe taking to social media to joke that the game’s success could “bankrupt” the studio. He also shared an invoice for £380k for server fees, which are up 359 per cent this month.
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
Replying to the original Tweet, Palworld network engineer Chujo Hiroto wrote: “Following the order to never let the service go down no matter what, we have prepared servers without regard to cost. We will continue to give our all to ensure that all players can enjoy to the fullest,” he added.
It comes as most online games rent server racks from a server farm to avoid hefty upfront costs and the maintenance of their own set-up. Those costs are expected to come down once the team has time to work on optimising spend and resource utilisation, so hopefully Pocketpair don’t end up spending £4.5million this year on server fees alone.
Following the successful launch of Palworld, Pocketpair shared an Early Access roadmap.
Coming to the game over the next year is player versus player combat as well as a “Pal arena” that will facilitate battles between friends. Palworld will also get a number of raid bosses as “end game content” while cross-play between Steam and Xbox users is also being worked on. The roadmap also promises “various” Xbox feature improvements, server transfers and improvements to the building system. Players can also expect new islands, new Pals, new bosses and new technologies.
Pocketpair has also said it will work on taking on the cheats who are currently operating on official servers.
In other news, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is now a Grammy award-winning game after picking up the trophy for best soundtrack at the 2024 ceremony.