While Black Desert Online is currently serviced by Kakao Games in North America and Europe, it seems that developer Pearl Abyss has huge ambitions to go solo in the future, as it did with the Asia region such as Taiwan and Southeast Asia. In the recent financial report (since Pearl Abyss is now a publicly traded company) for 2nd quarter 2018, opening these 2 offices and acquiring global IP are 2 of the major ongoing processes mentioned. Other than Black Desert Online its remastered update, Black Desert Mobile is being prepared for global launch as well.
According to the Q&A session (where representatives of Pearl Abyss answer live questions from banks and major stockholders), Pearl Abyss also confirmed the following details:
1. Black Desert Mobile is scheduled to launch in Taiwan later this month with over 1.5 million pre-registered players.
2. To counter the slight decrease in domestic (South Korea) MMORPG sales, Pearl Abyss plans to add more characters and add more content such as “world management” later this year. (Pearl Abyss did not mention is this for the PC or mobile version of Black Desert)
3. While Black Desert was showcased at ChinaJoy 2018 by publisher Snail Games, there is nothing to update the board with regards to any schedules.
4. As of end June 2018, Pearl Abyss has 513 global employees. This number is set to increase to around 700 by end 2018 due to the global preparation of Black Desert Mobile and new projects development. This includes the opening of offices in Japan and USA, as mentioned above. Effort is also made to retain current employees.
5. Black Desert Mobile is scheduled to launch in Southeast Asia in the 4th quarter of 2018, followed by the rest of the world next year (2019). Content needs to be modified for the Japanese version to suit the local market, hence the launch date for Japan is scheduled for first half of 2019.
6. There are plans to develop a mobile version of Project K using assets from the PC and console versions, similar to how Black Desert Mobile was developed. Pearl Abyss will internally make sure it releases new information about the new games, including Project V, at the most effective marketing time.
7. With the Remastered update for Black Desert Online arriving soon, Pearl Abyss expects a significant of returning players.
In case you are wondering how Pearl Abyss performed financially, it posted increased revenue and profits from the previous quarter, and reaching new heights while at it for both. The numbers can be seen clearly below in the presentation slides, so I shall not explain further. The incredible performance of Black Desert Mobile is most probably due to its initial launch period in South Korea. But with the game set to launch in Taiwan and Southeast Asia soon, the mobile revenue should maintain at a similar level despite an expected Korean decrease.
