{"id":20472,"date":"2023-08-03T12:38:37","date_gmt":"2023-08-03T03:38:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=20472"},"modified":"2023-08-03T12:38:39","modified_gmt":"2023-08-03T03:38:39","slug":"20230803-20472","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20230803-20472\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese mobile game reveals monthly server cost of $13.6k and users must top this sum in purchases for the game to survive\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Japanese publisher Visual Arts announced on July 31 that they have completed the last maintenance of their iOS\/Android title<strong> Itsuwari no Alice<\/strong>. Along with the announcement, the company also revealed a certain detail about the game \u2013 its monthly server cost, and a condition that needs to be fulfilled in order for the game to not be shut down.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"ja\" dir=\"ltr\">\u3010\u30e1\u30f3\u30c6\u30ca\u30f3\u30b9\u7d42\u4e86\u306e\u304a\u77e5\u3089\u305b\u3011  <br>11:00\u304b\u3089\u306e\u30e1\u30f3\u30c6\u30ca\u30f3\u30b9\u306f18:00\u306b\u7d42\u4e86\u81f4\u3057\u307e\u3057\u305f\u3002<br>  \u3054\u5354\u529b\u3001\u8aa0\u306b\u3042\u308a\u304c\u3068\u3046\u3054\u3056\u3044\u307e\u3057\u305f\u3002  <br><br>\u203b\u30ab\u30a6\u30f3\u30c8\u306e\u958b\u59cb\u306f8\/1 0:00\u304b\u3089\u3068\u306a\u308a\u307e\u3059\u3002\u3054\u6ce8\u610f\u304f\u3060\u3055\u3044\u3002  <br><br>\u305d\u306e\u4ed6\u3001\u30a2\u30c3\u30d7\u30c7\u30fc\u30c8\u5185\u5bb9\u306b\u3064\u304d\u307e\u3057\u3066\u306f\u3001 \u30b2\u30fc\u30e0\u5185\u306e\u304a\u77e5\u3089\u305b\u3092\u3054\u78ba\u8a8d\u304f\u3060\u3055\u3044\u3002 <br><br> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/%E3%82%A4%E3%83%84%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AA?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#\u30a4\u30c4\u30a2\u30ea<\/a><\/p>&mdash; \u507d\u308a\u306e\u30a2\u30ea\u30b9\u3000\u516c\u5f0f\u30a2\u30ab\u30a6\u30f3\u30c8 (@itsuwari_alice) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/itsuwari_alice\/status\/1685938949595058176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 31, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><font size=\"2\"><strong>Tweet translation:<\/strong> (Notice of completion of maintenance) The maintenance commenced at 11:00AM has been completed at 6:00PM. Please note that counters will be activated starting from 8\/1 at 0:00AM. For further information regarding updates, please refer to the in-game announcements.<\/font><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>On July 15, it was announced that the game would no longer receive new content. Now, after the last maintenance on July 31, a &#8220;server cost counter&#8221; and a &#8220;paid Gold Coin counter\u201d were introduced to the game. The \u201cpaid Gold Coin counter\u201d had been previously announced under the mysterious name of \u201ccounter of something,\u201d but now it has been made clear that the counter tracks how much in-game currency is being spent, going up when players spend their Gold Coins. The game will apparently continue to operate under the condition that the Gold Coin counter does not drop below the server cost counter, in other words, for as long as sales of the in-game currency can cover operational costs. (<a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20230718-20141\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Related Article<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Itsuwari no Alice management team publicly revealed the game\u2019s operational cost for August on Twitter. This sum includes the cloud server, server maintenance, chat system and customer support expenses.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"ja\" dir=\"ltr\">\u3010 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/%E3%82%A4%E3%83%84%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AA?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#\u30a4\u30c4\u30a2\u30ea<\/a> \u4e2d\u306e\u4eba\u3011<br><br>\uff08\u304a\u305d\u3089\u304f\uff09\u507d\u308a\u306e\u30a2\u30ea\u30b9\u6700\u7d42\u30e1\u30f3\u30c6\u30ca\u30f3\u30b9\u304c\u7d42\u308f\u308a\u307e\u3057\u305f\uff01<br><br>\u5148\u751f\u306e\u7686\u69d8\u30684\u5e74\u8fd1\u304f\u30b3\u30f3\u30c6\u30f3\u30c4\u3092\u5171\u306b\u4f5c\u3063\u3066\u3044\u3051\u305f\u3053\u3068\u3001\u5149\u6804\u306b\u601d\u3044\u307e\u3059\ud83d\udcaa<br><br>\u4eca\u5f8c\u306f\u81ea\u7531\u306b\u4e2d\u306e\u4eba\u30c4\u30a4\u30fc\u30c8\u3092\u4e0d\u5b9a\u671f\u3067\u3057\u3066\u3044\u304d\u307e\u3059\u306d\ud83c\udf1d<br><br>\u4eca\u5f8c\u3068\u3082\u3088\u308d\u3057\u304f\u304a\u9858\u3044\u3044\u305f\u3057\u307e\u3059\ud83d\ude47<br><br>\uff08\u3061\u306a\u307f\u306b\u9bd6\u4ee3\u306f\uffe51956331\u3067\u3059\uff09 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/f0sJOArk1b\">pic.twitter.com\/f0sJOArk1b<\/a><\/p>&mdash; \u507d\u308a\u306e\u30a2\u30ea\u30b9\u3000\u516c\u5f0f\u30a2\u30ab\u30a6\u30f3\u30c8 (@itsuwari_alice) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/itsuwari_alice\/status\/1685983665107632128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 31, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><font size=\"2\"><strong>Tweet translation:<\/strong> (Itsuwari no Alice staff)&nbsp;<br>The (most likely) final maintenance is over! I\u2019m honored to have worked on content for the game for the past four years alongside all of you! There will continue to be staff tweets on an irregular basis. Thank you for your continued support! (By the way, the cost of the server is 1,956,331 yen)<\/font><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The total server cost for August was revealed to be a hefty sum of 1,956,331 yen (about $13,600), with the main expense being the cloud server fee of about $7600. It\u2019s quite unprecedented for such costs to be revealed so openly, but it\u2019s interesting to get a sense of how much it costs to run the game. Also, while they disclosed the necessary server costs, they did not disclose the number of active users or sales to date, which makes it difficult to judge how hard this condition is to meet.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, as of the July 31 maintenance, a &#8220;fundraising store\u201d has been introduced into the game. This is a store where users can support the management team by spending their Gold Coins on items such as \u201cfried chicken for the staff\u2019s team dinner\u201d and \u201cexpansions of the team members\u2019 work desks\u201d. This could be a noble way for players to spend currency left over after doing gacha. The fundraising seems to be successful so far, with the staff having <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/itsuwari_alice\/status\/1686346052813856768?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">already received<\/a> 339425 portions of imaginary friend chicken (=339425 yen). \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:12px\"><br><br><br><br><em>Written by. Amber V based on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/articles\/newsjp\/20230801-257852\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">original Japanese article<\/a>\u00a0(original article\u2019s publication date: 2023-08-01 00:52<\/em>\u00a0<em>JST)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Japanese publisher Visual Arts have revealed the monthly server cost for their mobile game Itsuwari no Alice, and players need to make sure total in-game purchases exceed this sum if they don&#8217;t want the game being shut down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":20474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-20472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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