• sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      26
      ·
      9 months ago

      Pocketpair says it’s sold about 12 million copies of Palworld on Steam. At $30 each, that puts Palworld’s gross revenue at $360 million so far, and that’s ignoring its Xbox sales (it’s on Game Pass, too).

      Looks like a little more than 2M.

    • RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      24
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      9 months ago

      Yeah but even at $360m, $500k every month is operating costs for the server only, and doesnt include the business’ other expenses. That’s a big chunk of profit going to operating costs.

      If the business had no other expenses then yeah, they could keep the servers up for 60 years. But more expenses lowers that and the look to get a subscription model or new game becomes more attractive to a company.

      • Sethayy@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        9 months ago

        Ive seen articles that also say they’ve paid $500k on monthly server fees (ie total not per month) a couple times, so it could also just be a game of telephone messing up the info

      • etchinghillside@reddthat.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        9 months ago

        They can optimize over time to get that number down. I assume they’re being a little sloppy right now in just over provisioning to keep up with peak demand.

        But, yes, not particularly sustainable long term on just an initial purchase.

      • ZephrC@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        9 months ago

        That’s in the first month of release, when users are at their highest, the code is at its buggiest, and everyone is getting their first impression of the game.

        Eventually they’ll have to be more reasonable, but I can see this making sense for the first few months.

    • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      9 months ago

      They need to make 17,000 sales every month perpetually to cover the costs, and then those sales will cause the server costs to rise as more people start playing.

      It’s a one time income to cover perpetual costs. They will probably either need to start raising prices, reduce server costs, or maybe start a subscription service eventually, or start doing micro transactions.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          9 months ago

          And I’m guessing their focusing on server improvements in software to further reduce the costs. $500k is a lot of money for this kind of thing, I still balk at the $50k or so my company pays and we’re nowhere near the scale of Palworld.

    • M137@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      9 months ago

      Why did you randomly choose that number? It sold more than that on its first day.

      • etchinghillside@reddthat.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        9 months ago

        I vaguely recalled hearing a number of 1-2 million - but in hindsight it was a number related to peak consecutive users.