How much money we need to save the Bondless. Im not joke.
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Only one way to find out. Let us know what they tell you
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Good question, let’s discuss it some.
For one you’d have the upfront purchase, guessing that range would be about $100k-$200k give or take for assets, IP, code and community.
Which doesn’t sound all too bad, right? Bare with me here, its about to get alot more costly.
Total Recurring Costs (No Developers)
| Category | Monthly Estimate | Annual Estimate |
|---|---|---|
| AWS (servers + backend) | $4,000 – $9,000 | $48,000 – $108,000 |
| Website + Forum | $100 – $300 | $1,200 – $3,600 |
| Total | ~$4,100 – $9,300 | ~$49,200 – $111,600 |
This is not including paying a developer/s.
This is not including any advertising.
Total Recurring Costs with actual Paid Devs
| Category | Monthly | Annual | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWS (servers + backend) | $5,000–$9,000 | $60k–$108k | Dominant scalable cost |
| Website + Forum | $100–$300 | $2k–$4k | Very low |
| Developers (2–3 FTE) | $21,000–$33,000 | $250k–$400k | Biggest fixed cost |
| Total | ~$26,000–$42,000 | ~$312k–$512k | Rounded |
Updated Total Recurring Costs (with Advertising)
| Category | Monthly Estimate | Annual Estimate | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWS (servers + backend) | $5,000 – $9,000 | $60k – $108k | Dominant scalable cost; grows with player count |
| Website + Forum | $100 – $300 | $2k – $4k | Very low |
| Developers (2–3 FTE) | $21,000 – $33,000 | $250k – $400k | Biggest fixed cost for maintenance & updates |
| Advertising (decent) | $5,000 – $15,000 | $60k – $180k | Targeted campaigns; best tied to updates. Recurring for sustained visibility |
| Total | ~$31,100 – $57,300 | ~$372k – $692k | Rounded; assumes periodic ad pushes |
Over 10 Years (Recurring Only, No Inflation)
- Low end: ~$3.72 million
- High end: ~$6.92 million
Updated Total Recurring Costs - Consider development and advertising slows
| Category | Monthly Estimate | Annual Estimate | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWS (servers + backend) | $5,000 – $9,000 | $60k – $108k | Dominant scalable cost; grows with actual players |
| Website + Forum | $100 – $300 | $2k – $4k | Very low |
| Developers (minimal/slowed) | $8,000 – $13,000 | $100k – $160k | 1 FTE equivalent or contractors; maintenance only, no heavy feature work |
| Advertising (periodic) | $1,000 – $3,000 | $12k – $36k | Annualized (e.g., 2–3 month campaigns tied to updates); not constant monthly |
| Total | ~$14,100 – $25,300 | ~$174k – $308k | Rounded; much leaner “keep it alive” scenario |
Over 10 Years (Recurring Only, No Inflation)
- Low end: ~$1.74 million
- High end: ~$3.08 million
Updated Ultra-Lean Costs (No Devs, No Ads) Maintain as is
| Category | Monthly Estimate | Annual Estimate | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWS (servers + backend) | $4,500 – $8,500 | $54k – $102k | Slightly lower than before due to no dev-driven optimizations needed; still scales with 1,000 CCU voxel simulation + bandwidth |
| Website + Forum | $100 – $300 | $1.2k – $3.6k | Static hosting + basic forum; could drop lower if forum is archived |
| Hidden fixed overhead (legal, compliance, basic anti-cheat/monitoring, backups, support tickets, accounting) | $1,000 – $3,000 | $12k – $36k | These don’t fully disappear even with zero active development — privacy requests, chargebacks, basic security, taxes, etc. |
| Total | ~$5,600 – $11,800 | ~$67k – $142k | True “as is” bare minimum |
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The upfront cost isn’t the hurdle, its the recurring monthly/yearly cost that is the issue.
It’s also a VERY risky investment. There is no guarantee the game could ever garner more than 1000-2000 player as it has never had more than that and it’s never been proven the servers can handle more than the inital 2000 players it had at one point close to release.
I put together a proposal for the game to possibly make money and also shared that with Monty and Jon-Eric and while it was pretty on paper, I was told that I would need a “concise, believable plan” that would pose “little risk” that would make $300k a month.
I proposed the plan, I thought it was pretty conise and believable, but I could never say it was “little risk”, I don’t think anyone can in the video game industry.
Not to mention Boundless has a poor track record not ever garnering more than 1100 on Steam (not including PS). It’s like purchasing a stock on the stock market that has never performed well and you keep buying more stock in hopes that one day it does.
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Advertising (periodic) $1,000 – $3,000 $12k – $36k
Considering everyone including Monty called Sony’s $300,000 campaign inadequate that would have never grown the game, we might as well just forget this small amount and run in like a private club
Seems doable with enough players splitting the costs and some donating minimal dev work
What would Monumental want? Might help if they are losing lots of money on it
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Cost would totally depend on who purchased the game and what their goals are for the game. All the numbers above are purely estimates based on what I know of some of the costs for Boundless.
There are also a ton of variables in the numbers. Free development by volunteers is one.
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Forum $$$ that’s expensive they should kill the forum and go strictly discord 
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looks lik im pooooor I give most of my money to my mother. I want to give some part to you so that the game develops.In Russia, we think in other terms.
actually i have a lot of money)
I see you here so rarely. I’m sorry that my messages provoked you. I’ll probably never come here again) I have one suggestion - let’s buy this game)
I can pay 2-3 thousand dollars. Imagine if we could all do this? But we will need to maintain and pay for the servers.
Im just being realistic here. If you can pay 2-3 thousand dollars per month and we all do that then sure maybe.
If you ask me the ideal situation is Monumental runs the servers they let a few folks do some skins and some coding for free, hire someone to do some social media marketing (again someone may offer to do it for free), and it’s a win-win.
There may be enough people to raise $100-200k, but that only purchases the game, the recurring cost is the tough pill to swallow.
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In this case, we have someone’s rich son who bought our game on a whim)
Maybe he’s smart enough to let it go on)
This didn’t help things:
…’monumental’s shift to mobile gaming and crypto’. Those kinda folks huh? Rip.
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That was my take once I did as much digging on information as I could find on them. They have no intention of doing anything with boundless if they are listed as a mobile game developer. They are just raking in as much money as possible from boundless.
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Let’s also mention one of the things that’s most telling. Their website:
makes no mention of Boundless ANYWHERE. You would think that if they wanted to bring more people in and actually get the game to bring in more money, they would promote it on their website.
They’ve had the IP for almost 4 years now with no promotion, no mentions, nothing.
Do they really think that we’re a bunch of sheep that won’t do a deep search of the internet and find detailed info? For example, the new community manager at Monumental:
https://www.zoominfo.com/p/Austin-Godfrey/9176869552
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Unfortunately, Boundless isn’t the only one to have suffered from poor management; the Chilean studio Gamaga, acquired by Kongregate (now Monumental), met a rather inglorious end following that acquisition.
For a company touted as capable of turning around MMOs, the reality is far from that.
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We are all lost, since Tiggs left. What community manager is there?
I honestly think that Monty set her up so that he could fire her.
Austin Godfrey is the new community manager.
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