Black Desert Online has become quite successful since its global service expansion. According to the performance analysis that Pearl Abyss released on May 11th, Black Desert Online’s profits have increased by 30% to 33 billion WON compared to the previous quarter. Pearl Abyss claimed that the biggest reason behind this huge profit increase was Black Desert Online’s success in global market; 80% of the current profit made from Black Desert Online occurs in the global market. Black Desert Online has reached a total of 9.4 million registered players since its first release in 2014 December, South Korea. About half of this, 4.7 million players, are those who registered between 2017 and now (2018 May 29th).



One of the main causes of rapid player increase in this last year was the game’s popularity surge in the NA/EU regions. The number of sales on Steam for the NA/EU regions hit 1.2 million in May. Pearl Abyss explained that they are trying to keep up the game’s popularity with continual large-scale marketing such as Yearly Anniversary Sales on Steam for NA/EU or through releasing new classes like the Lahn.

Black Desert Online’s popularity remains massive in the Asian region as well. It has been keeping its 1st place spot in the MMORPG ranking on Bahamut, the biggest game media website in Taiwan, for over a year after its release in Taiwan and the release of its direct service in 2017 January. In Japan, where the game has celebrated its 3-year anniversary, the game recorded its highest concurrent player amount in the last 3 years after the release of the new class.

Black Desert Online hit 750k total registered players 4 months after its release in January in Southeastern Asia. The game now has 26 servers, 5 times more than when the game originally launched. Even though it has been 3 months since the start of their service, the index for both total registered players and concurrent players have been increasing every day due to the new content updates, the direct servicing, and the high quality of the game. BDO has found success even in Turkey, where the game was launched on Steam recently with the number of daily concurrent players doubling in comparison to its early phase.

▲ “Voice of Adventurers”, the player conference held in Bangkok, Thailand, on April 28th.

The root of Black Desert Online’s success lays in Pearl Abyss’ development capabilities. They have continued to optimize and minimize the total size of the game client in consideration of the network environment or propagation of PCs in each region. This is found to be the biggest reason they were able to remain successful in Southeastern Asia where the network or high-end PCs are substandard and game package sales are uncommon compared to South Korea.

James Heo, the COO of Pearl Abyss said, “Black Desert Online has obtained many global players with continual market expansion and steady updates. Since we’ve been getting continuous interest and approval from players in global markets such as NA/EU, Turkey, and Asia, we will be doing our best to achieve long-term success with constant updates added at the right times.”



Pearl Abyss will be releasing the Xbox version of Black Desert Online in NA/EU this summer thanks to the success of the PC version in the global market. Also, they will be releasing a global version of Black Desert Mobile in the 3rd quarter this year, starting with Taiwan.

▲ “Voice of Adventurers”, the SEA player conference held in Manila, Philippines, on April 21st.