Players of this gacha game need to spend $13,600 a month to keep its servers online

The publisher of a gacha game that previously told players it would need to meet a target to keep the game's servers alive has named its price, and it's an eye-watering figure. 

Last month, Visual Arts, the publisher of the Japanese mobile game Itsuwari no Alice told its players that it needed to keep a mysterious counter topped up so that it matched the cost of running the game's server. At the time, Visual Arts kept the specifics rather vague. However, the team has now revealed roughly how much is expected from fans. 

As Automaton reports, now that the game's server maintenance has been completed, Itsuwari no Alice features two new counters. One labeled 'Server Cost Counter' and the other labeled 'Paid Gold Coin Counter'. If it wasn't already obvious, the Gold Coin element to the game is its in-game currency, meaning the counter will go up each time players spend in-game currency. 

As for just how much in-game currency needs to be spent each month, Visual Arts revealed that the total server cost for August was an eye-watering ¥1,956,331 - approximately $13,600. According to the Automaton story, a large chunk of this sum is thought to be the cloud server fee which costs the company around $7,600. 

If you didn't know, this cost would just be to keep the game running - Itsuwari no Alice won't actually receive any new content. With this in mind, it's difficult to know how likely it is that players will be able to keep the game running, as we don't know how many people are still actively playing it, let alone how many are passionate enough about it to contribute to the cause. 

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