Palworld recently launched in Early Access on Steam. The concept of a survival game with Pokémon counterparts has become a huge hit.
An essential part of Palworld is its online component, meaning servers are required to play. As it turns out, the surging popularity has cost the creators dearly: they are forced to spend substantial amounts of money to maintain the servers.
Judging by a statement from the head of the Palworld development studio, the figure is around 70 million yen (or ~$480,000) per month.
One of the developers responsible for Palworld's server infrastructure made it clear that server expenses could have been lower, but they chose not to cut corners. At current spending levels, they can guarantee that Palworld's servers will not go down.