Viral ‘Pokémon with guns’ game Palworld sparks cloud service race between Alibaba, Tencent in China
- Chinese cloud service providers are offering dedicated server plans for players of Palworld, a hit game that has been compared to Pokémon
- Alibaba and Tencent have repeatedly engaged in price wars in China’s competitive cloud computing market
A popular video game developed by a Japanese studio has set off an unexpected cloud-computing race between Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group Holding, as the two Chinese tech giants rush to draw players to their respective servers.
Palworld, an open-world survival game developed by Pocketpair that lets players catch and raise creatures known as Pals to build structures and fight, has become a breakout hit since its release on game distribution platform Steam on January 19, selling more than 8 million copies in less than six days.
With Pocketpair struggling to accommodate the surge of gamers that has overwhelmed its servers, the Tokyo-based company has given players the option to host the game on private servers.
Chinese cloud service providers, including Tencent and Post owner Alibaba, have seized on the opportunity to promote their server packages to mainland gamers.
Alibaba is offering dedicated server plans for groups of eight or 20 Palworld players, with monthly fees ranging from 26.5 yuan to 271.8 yuan (US$3.71 to US$38.06). Tencent has also introduced similar packages, priced between 26 yuan and 580 yuan per month.
“In view of the popularity of Palworld … which led to problems on the official servers, setting up private servers is the most stable and comfortable solution for those who are financially well-off,” read a post on Tencent Cloud’s official WeChat account published on January 25.
