Palworld is spending nearly $500K per month on servers to support its growing player base

[DragonSlayer101]

In context: Palworld has become a smash hit for developer Pocketpair, which recently announced that the game has racked up more than 19 million players worldwide since its debut just over two weeks ago. This is despite the fact that it has only been released on Xbox and PC, and is not yet available on PlayStation and other popular gaming platforms.

Success, however, has come at a cost for Pocketpair, with the company reportedly spending an eye-watering $478,000 per month to maintain the server network to support its rapidly expanding player base. The news comes from Pocketpair's network engineer Chujo Hiroto, whose recent X post revealed that the team has been explicitly instructed by the company's CEO, Takuro Mizobe, to ensure 100 percent uptime at any cost.

According to Hiroto, Mizobe asked Palworld engineers to ensure that the service never goes down, no matter what. Following the order, Hiroto and his colleagues reinforced the server network without any regard for cost, and are pulling out all the stops to ensure that players can enjoy the game around the clock.

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!

$478,000...

– Chujo Hiroto (@chujohiroto) February 2, 2024

Server upkeep is a massive expense for any game studio, and $478,000 per month is astronomical, especially for an indie developer. While you expect AAA titles to incur high server costs due to the sheer number of players globally, it is unusual for smaller developers to have so many concurrent players. In an acknowledgement of the high server costs, Mizobe joked that it could make the company "go bankrupt from server fees."

Despite Mizobe's joke, it's unlikely that Pocketpair will go broke any time soon. With Palworld becoming such a phenomenon, the company is minting money left, right and center. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that the firm already made more than $300 million on Steam alone, in addition to the revenues it received from Xbox and PC Game Pass, suggesting that the actual earnings are much higher.

For the uninitiated, Palworld is an open-world, action-adventure, survival, and monster-taming multiplayer game made by Japanese indie game company Pocketpair. The game requires players to fight, farm, build and work alongside mysterious creatures called "Pals," which can be captured and tamed for base building, traversal, and combat. It is currently only available on PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, with no word on when or if Pocketpair plans to release it on other platforms, such as PlayStation, Switch, Android, and iOS.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/101762-palworld-spending-nearly-500k-month-servers-support-growing.html

 

[yRaz]

Here's an idea, add private/dedicated server support.

 

[toooooot]

For such large number of players, it seems right.
Although, I bet it was more affordable before Amazon and MS decided
it is their territory.

 

[Hexic]

About time someone did something that Nintendo has been begged to do for years, well done.

 

[Kotters]

Here's an idea, add private/dedicated server support.

Here's an idea, do 5 seconds of research before commenting. The game uses private servers with no drm, has a dedicated server program, and the article refers to the official servers ala Team Fortress 2.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

At 19 million sales, the creators will never have to work again and can keep those server sup until everyone who has played it has passed of old age. Bet its going to surpass the 26 million record of sword+shield soon enough.

Here's an idea, add private/dedicated server support.

Here's an idea, do 5 seconds of research before commenting. The game uses private servers with no drm, has a dedicated server program, and the article refers to the official servers ala Team Fortress 2.

LOL rekt.

 

[yRaz]

At 19 million sales, the creators will never have to work again and can keep those server sup until everyone who has played it has passed of old age. Bet its going to surpass the 26 million record of sword+shield soon enough.

LOL rekt.

Not on Xbox, they're paying top dollar for MS cloud services to run it

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Not on Xbox, they're paying top dollar for MS cloud services to run it

When did consoles ever get dedicated private servers? Consoles are closed platforms, nobody really expects that there.

 

[yRaz]

When did consoles ever get dedicated private servers? Consoles are closed platforms, nobody really expects that there.

That's actually changing, but the users have to pay MS for their dedicated server. There's also cross-platform play now which is the source of a lot of the cheating. IE, using a games soft aimlocking for a controller with a keyboard and mouse.

But MS probably gave them several million dollars to be an Xbox exclusive on game pass and then charge them several hundred thousand a month in cloud services since they have to use their servers. most of that 500k/m isn't coming from the PC users. MS is going to make back most of what they paid to put it in gamepass and they get a tax writeoff.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

That's actually changing, but the users have to pay MS for their dedicated server. There's also cross-platform play now which is the source of a lot of the cheating. IE, using a games soft aimlocking for a controller with a keyboard and mouse.

But MS probably gave them several million dollars to be an Xbox exclusive on game pass and then charge them several hundred thousand a month in cloud services since they have to use their servers. most of that 500k/m isn't coming from the PC users. MS is going to make back most of what they paid to put it in gamepass and they get a tax writeoff.

So, its not changing, you're just able to rent an instance for your friends. To me a "private dedicated server" is one I control, not one MS controls.

And I think you severely underestimate the number of PC players that use official servers. I'd be shocked if more then a quarter of PC multiplayer was done on private servers. Even back int he day the majority used official servers.

 

[Adhmuz]

Small company caught off guard by how many servers they need to host their player base:

Spends $500k per month to meet the need.

Commendable!


Large company with AAA game with huge demands and knowledge of what to expect server demand wise:

Introduce a queue to connect to online only platform to play solo online.

Despicable!

 

[Endymio]

Small company caught off guard by how many servers they need to host their player base:
Spends $500k per month to meet the need.
Commendable!

Large company with AAA game with huge demands and knowledge of what to expect server demand wise:
Introduce a queue to connect to online only platform to play solo online.
Despicable!

This "small company" just made over half a billion dollars in the last two weeks ... and spent 0.1% of it on servers, so they can keep raking in that windfall. When you actually do the math instead of reacting emotionally, it looks a bit different eh?

 

[Vrmithrax]

This "small company" just made over half a billion dollars in the last two weeks ... and spent 0.1% of it on servers, so they can keep raking in that windfall. When you actually do the math instead of reacting emotionally, it looks a bit different eh?

How dare you bring logic and reason into a discussion on the internet? This is no place for facts and/or intelligence! ;-P

 

[VariableSpike]

Wouldn't be surprised if they have a longer term plan to have a more dedicated network if servers themselves instead of getting rinsed by cloud / server providers (more than likely some combo of Google, Amazon, MS cloud in the mix)

 

[Lounds]

Wouldn't be surprised if they have a linger term plan to have a more dedicated network if servers themselves ibstead of getting rinsed by cloud / server providers (more than likely some combo of Google, Amazon, MS cloud in the mix)

I remember when Valve had very few regional servers and Europe in general was a proper bottleneck for steam especially when a new game launched. Obviously as the years went by they increased their server hosts for steam to more than be able to cope with the bandwidth and load.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

This "small company" just made over half a billion dollars in the last two weeks ... and spent 0.1% of it on servers, so they can keep raking in that windfall. When you actually do the math instead of reacting emotionally, it looks a bit different eh?

Why did you put "small company" in quotations? Are you trying to imply it isnt? Because it's a tiny studio, or more accurately a group of enthusiasts working out of bedrooms.

And for the record, EA, ubisoft, activision, ALL of them had servers issues with games that had smaller player bases, and couldnt figure out how to pay to keep the servers up.

When you stop acting emotionally and think logically, these guys are doing a bang up job compared to the rest of the sorry excuse of an industry.

 

[Endymio]

Why did you put "small company" in quotations? Are you trying to imply it isnt?

Company size is determined by revenue. Even should receipts for this game trail off drastically, they're still looking several billion dollars this year. That isn't small.

When you stop acting emotionally and think logically, these guys are doing a bang up job

I never implied otherwise. But they're expending only a tiny portion of their profits -- and doing it solely to protect their own financial interests -- just as every other corporation does. Which is as it should be. My pushback was solely against the inane "big greedy corporation" vibe expressed by the OP.

 

[Adhmuz]

This "small company" just made over half a billion dollars in the last two weeks ... and spent 0.1% of it on servers, so they can keep raking in that windfall. When you actually do the math instead of reacting emotionally, it looks a bit different eh?

What does math have to do with your emotional state? I don't understand. Mathematically your emotions are running rampant? That still doesn't make sense logically speaking.

Regardless, company size and profit are two vastly different things, a single person making huge profits doesn't make them a huge company, just like the studio in question being a small one, their profits can lead to them becoming a larger studio over time, but it's not a direct correlation.

I still stand by my point, for a small studio, they spent money to fix a problem, where as historically larger studios have not. Most importantly, does the player base suffer from their expenditures? Or is the money being spent meeting the needs of their player base?

I wouldn't see the point in them spending 10 times what they did on servers if they weren't needed by the player base.

 

[Kashim]

Small company caught off guard by how many servers they need to host their player base:

They were not caught off guard, that's the point. The article specifically says they planned for this and paid a lot of extra money to make sure their servers are resilient and can stay up 24/7.

 

[saladbarsmash]

This "small company" just made over half a billion dollars in the last two weeks ... and spent 0.1% of it on servers, so they can keep raking in that windfall. When you actually do the math instead of reacting emotionally, it looks a bit different eh?

Not to mention they will write off all of those expenses as losses on their taxes, so it's nothing to them.

 

[Sir Sparkles]

I'm not sure how they got a per month figure when the game has only been released 2 weeks.

Clickbait anyone?

 

[Sir Sparkles]

How dare you bring logic and reason into a discussion on the internet? This is no place for facts and/or intelligence! ;-P

That's right! Outrage or off stage!

 

[Adhmuz]

They were not caught off guard, that's the point. The article specifically says they planned for this and paid a lot of extra money to make sure their servers are resilient and can stay up 24/7.

I can't find anywhere in the article that specifically says they planned for this, maybe you're reading it wrong?

Chujo Hiroto post was made on the 2nd of February to assure the servers never go down, then the next paragraph "Mizobe asked Palworld engineers to ensure that the service never goes down, no matter what. Following the order, Hiroto and his colleagues reinforced the server network without any regard for cost" No date was provided for this, but given the February 2nd post, to me at least, it looks like this was being done as a reaction to the massive number of players playing their game after the fact, which I can't see they had envisioned from the start.

Later in the article "While you expect AAA titles to incur high server costs due to the sheer number of players globally, it is unusual for smaller developers to have so many concurrent players." which I totally agree with and where I based my findings in stating the developers were caught off guard, why would they have planned on spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on servers before knowing if their game was going to be a success?

Can you find somewhere that specifically states that the developers had planned this from the beginning when they released the game?