Daum Games’ new online adventure is an MMORPG success

Publisher Daum Games today announced that their new MMORPG which launched last month, Black Desert Online has sold 400,000 copies in its first month on the European and North American markets. Black Desert Online is expected to become one of Korea’s most successful games in the West as it is drawing exceptionally favorable early responses with its new player base.

“Considering the upward trend, I expect that the game will achieve over one million sales this year. What’s impressive is these figures far exceed those in the domestic market,” Daum Games Europe CEO Min Kim said in an interview in Seoul, last Wednesday.

Daum Games attributes much of the success to adopting a premium business model for Western audiences as opposed to the free-to-play model used in Korea. After purchasing the game once, players have access to all content updates for free as they become available. Daum Games is planning to catch up on the Korean service by delivering near-monthly content updates for European and North American players to enjoy.

Furthermore, Black Desert Online’s cash shop is also performing extremely well. “A game with a buy-to-play business model normally has a much lower conversion rate for paid in-game items compared to free-to-play games,” explains Kim. “But Black Desert Online is recording a much higher pay ratio than the average 11 percent normally seen in free-to-play games.”

Black Desert Online now boasts an average of 100,000 concurrent users.

So, are you one of the 400k users who purchased Black Desert Online over the past month? If so, what has your overall experience with the game been like so far? Be sure to sound off in the comments and let us know!