Black Desert Online: 2nd Awakening, Console Versions, Mobile Version and Dungeons

Mikeha

In what was seen as a surprise move, Black Desert developer Pearl Abyss started a subsidiary in Taiwan and decided to self-publish in the Great China region (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau), rather than finding a big local publisher. As Black Desert prepares for Open Beta on January 25th, the 2 core leaders of Pearl Abyss sat down and talked to the local media over at Taipei Game Show 2017.

http://mmoculture.com/2017/01/black-desert-pearl-abyss-talks-about-2nd-awakening-and-mobile-game/




For those who still are not able to play Black Desert because it is not available in their region the Taiwan Server will have no IP block. 

ste2000

It looks like the game is doing rather well, despite its many detractors.
It recently launched in South America, so with China it will have pretty much the whole world covered.
Next the Mobile Version and the Xbox and Playstation version are in development.

It seems those Costumes are making Pearl Abyss a lot of money, which means that Cosmetics pay off, the Cash Shop doesn't have to be P2W in order to succeed.

Azaron_Nightblade

ste2000 said:

It looks like the game is doing rather well, despite its many detractors.
It recently launched in South America, so with China it will have pretty much the whole world covered.
Next the Mobile Version and the Xbox and Playstation version are in development.

It seems those Costumes are making Pearl Abyss a lot of money, which means that Cosmetics pay off, the Cash Shop doesn't have to be P2W in order to succeed.

Yeah, they've been making some serious bank. Especially in the West. I still remember being surprised at their press release that the game was performing much better than expected in the EU & NA, better than on the home market. xD

alancode

It is P2W. Even though they have disguised it to not be, it is definitely p2w. 

ste2000

DMKano said:

Azaron_Nightblade said:

ste2000 said:

They had 120,000 CCU in the west at launch - their CCU now even with the most optimistic estimates is under 50K - but that doesn't matter as they've already made money from players who've moved on.

But yes - they did quite well.

I don't want to be argumentative, but where do you get those numbers?

Even if they have 50k CCU, that's not bad at all.
CCU (Concurrently Connected Users) is usually much lower than the total of Active Members as it takes into consideration how many players are connected at the same time.
So if we average 3 hours play for each player and divide 24h by 3h we get 8 chunks of CCU per day.
8 x 50k = 400k potential Active Players per day (at Launch they were probably double that).

I know, they are just estimates, but then again your numbers are estimates too (I guess?).

Azaron_Nightblade

DMKano said:

Also this paragraph from the interview:

"According to them, the development team will explore the possibility of a 2nd awakening for the classes this year. As they felt the players are too strong after the 1st awakening, they are looking to power-up players who have yet to awaken by implementing the system on the starter weapons. Basically, starter weapons awakening = 2nd awakening. This has yet to be officially confirmed."

So 2nd awakening is something they are considering - not at all a 100% feature yet.

Also the whole thing of players who are yet to awaken... umm really? Starter weapon awakening... no, that's a waste of dev resources IMO


Mobile market is all the rage in Korea so maybe BDO mobile will do well there, in the west mobile versions of Korean games have done terribly - because the mobile market is beyond saturated.

I though the 2nd Awakening was to offer more of a choice, instead of pretty much dumping your mainhand use once you get an Awakening weapon?

Phry

DMKano said:

Also this paragraph from the interview:

"According to them, the development team will explore the possibility of a 2nd awakening for the classes this year. As they felt the players are too strong after the 1st awakening, they are looking to power-up players who have yet to awaken by implementing the system on the starter weapons. Basically, starter weapons awakening = 2nd awakening. This has yet to be officially confirmed."

So 2nd awakening is something they are considering - not at all a 100% feature yet.

Also the whole thing of players who are yet to awaken... umm really? Starter weapon awakening... no, that's a waste of dev resources IMO


Mobile market is all the rage in Korea so maybe BDO mobile will do well there, in the west mobile versions of Korean games have done terribly - because the mobile market is beyond saturated.

I don't know about mobile market, but it will be amusing to see how they try and squeeze the game onto either of the Consoles, trying to get a PS4 to run it will be challenging enough, for the XB1 it will be nigh on impossible without some pretty severe reductions in graphical fidelity, though i have no doubt even a PS4 would struggle to run medium level graphics at 1080 resolution, and BDO is not the kind of game you want to try running at 30 fps, its too action orientated. Perhaps the newer versions of both consoles will manage to run the game at 1080 reasonably well, but i doubt it would be at a level of graphics currently enjoyed on PC, as you need a high end PC to run the game well, and a high end gpu to get the best out of the game, and since even the ps4 pro is at best a mid range gaming PC, i would imagine even attaining 60 fps at 1080 might still be beyond the hardware capabilities of a PS4 pro, and certainly beyond that of the Scorpio or whatever its called. O.o

ste2000

DMKano said:

ste2000 said:

120K was reported by Daum after launch in an interview.
My current numbers come from insiders and I don't want to give the exact figures.
CCU formula for active users vary
on launch it's usually CCU x4-6
After 3-6 months - it's usually CCU x9-12

So pretty much closer to my estimates of 400k actual Active Players.
In the current market is not bad at all.

If you add Japan, Korea, Russia, South America and soon China, it is not difficult to imagine BDO having 2 Million Active Players worldwide, give or take.

I say Pearl Abyss did many things right with this game, one of which is the non intrusive Cash Shop, even fussy people like me don't mind it.
If they could fix PvE, the Market Place and the insane nonsensical RNG, this game would have been something really special.

Mikeha

The haters still can not accept it.  


See in March at the 1 year celebration. 

See you when they reveal Project W. 

holdenhamlet

DMKano said:

Azaron_Nightblade said:

ste2000 said:

It looks like the game is doing rather well, despite its many detractors.
It recently launched in South America, so with China it will have pretty much the whole world covered.
Next the Mobile Version and the Xbox and Playstation version are in development.

It seems those Costumes are making Pearl Abyss a lot of money, which means that Cosmetics pay off, the Cash Shop doesn't have to be P2W in order to succeed.

Yeah, they've been making some serious bank. Especially in the West. I still remember being surprised at their press release that the game was performing much better than expected in the EU & NA, better than on the home market. xD

They had 120,000 CCU in the west at launch - their CCU now even with the most optimistic estimates is under 50K - but that doesn't matter as they've already made money from players who've moved on.

But the numbers don't tell the whole story - as the most important factor is "total sales per player" - which due to the cash shop design were quite high. On the downside they did have a moderate number of chargebacks on the bases of false advertising.

On average a BDO player has probably spent well over $100 on BDO.

Their cash shop sales were very strong during the first 3 months and only slowed down afterwards.

But yes - they did quite well.

Yeah releasing it as B2P here even though it's basically the exact same game as the f2p game in other versions made them a good bit of money.  And the cash shop prices are so incredibly outrageous that they certainly made a good bit of money off people last year ($30 outfits?).  They definitely did not need as many people to use the cash shop compared to any other game.

I don't see this year going nearly as well.  They've already dropped the price of the box almost completely.  The hype is almost completely gone.

If the game ever encounters any real MMORPG competition from a new game, unless they actually implement an endgame, it's donezos, here in the west at least.  The mobile integration may help it in the east.

I definitely expect them to drop the charade of B2P completely in the west this year, probably sooner rather than later.

Azaron_Nightblade

holdenhamlet said:

DMKano said:

Azaron_Nightblade said:

ste2000 said:

It looks like the game is doing rather well, despite its many detractors.
It recently launched in South America, so with China it will have pretty much the whole world covered.
Next the Mobile Version and the Xbox and Playstation version are in development.

It seems those Costumes are making Pearl Abyss a lot of money, which means that Cosmetics pay off, the Cash Shop doesn't have to be P2W in order to succeed.

Yeah, they've been making some serious bank. Especially in the West. I still remember being surprised at their press release that the game was performing much better than expected in the EU & NA, better than on the home market. xD

They had 120,000 CCU in the west at launch - their CCU now even with the most optimistic estimates is under 50K - but that doesn't matter as they've already made money from players who've moved on.

But the numbers don't tell the whole story - as the most important factor is "total sales per player" - which due to the cash shop design were quite high. On the downside they did have a moderate number of chargebacks on the bases of false advertising.

On average a BDO player has probably spent well over $100 on BDO.

Their cash shop sales were very strong during the first 3 months and only slowed down afterwards.

But yes - they did quite well.

Yeah releasing it as B2P here even though it's basically the exact same game as the f2p game in other versions made them a good bit of money.  And the cash shop prices are so incredibly outrageous that they certainly made a good bit of money off people last year ($30 outfits?).  They definitely did not need as many people to use the cash shop compared to any other game.

I don't see this year going nearly as well.  They've already dropped the price of the box almost completely.  The hype is almost completely gone.

If the game ever encounters any real MMORPG competition from a new game, unless they actually implement an endgame, it's donezos, here in the west at least.  The mobile integration may help it in the east.

I definitely expect them to drop the charade of B2P completely in the west this year, probably sooner rather than later.

If they do, there will probably be perks for those who bought the box before the conversion. Similar to how 90% of the MMOs out there have done it. (RIFT, TERA, Defiance, etc...) so I can live with that, if it happens.

The only downside will be... bots, and other trash flooding in through the gates. =/

Talonsin

alancode said:

It is P2W. Even though they have disguised it to not be, it is definitely p2w. 

By your definition then just about even MMO is P2W since Eve, Rift, WoW and most every MMO allow real money to be converted into game money.

If you mean an advantage can be purchased directly from the cash shop, I think you are mixing this up with another eastern game.

MaxBacon

Now they'd be smart if they overhauled the PvE and/or story wouldn't they, hmmm