Palworld developer’s CEO talks about “going bankrupt” from server fees 

The CEO of PocketPair, Takuro Mizobe, made a comment regarding Palworld’s high server fees on his personal X (formerly Twitter) account on February 2. 

In the short period since its release on January 19, Palworld has accumulated over 19 million players, achieving record-breaking sales. The huge commercial success was not anticipated even by the developers themselves, who are a relatively small-scale indie company. This has led to them experiencing difficulties in keeping up with the unprecedented high traffic and numerous inquiries from players experiencing problems. 

This time around, PocketPair’s CEO brought up the topic of Palworld’s server fees, which are expected to exceed 70 million yen (around $480,000 USD based on recent exchange rates) for January. This makes for a 359% increase compared to the previous month. Though he uses the worrying term “bankruptcy,” it is most likely hyperbole, but the huge figure no doubt came as a surprise to the team. 

Palworld’s network engineer quoted the post in question, mentioning that the Palworld servers were set up with a focus on not allowing services to be suspended at any cost, thus undermining profitability. They also reassured users that they will do everything they can so that players can keep enjoying Palworld. 

In response, users have been (half-jokingly, half-seriously) calling on Microsoft to step in and help, considering their recently announced plan to provide direct support to PocketPair in optimizing Palworld for their platform. 

Palworld is available for the PC (Steam), Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.