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.
Comments
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.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
(-_-)
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?).
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
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.
See in March at the 1 year celebration.
See you when they reveal Project W.
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.
The only downside will be... bots, and other trash flooding in through the gates. =/
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
If you mean an advantage can be purchased directly from the cash shop, I think you are mixing this up with another eastern game.