Welp, we did not see this coming, but here’s some extremely good news in the Black Desert license transfer saga.
Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been covering the planned hand-over of the game’s Russian version from publisher GameNet to Korean owner Pearl Abyss. Initially, both companies vowed to work together to transfer account data and keep the servers going at their new destination, but then Pearl Abyss admitted it had failed to acquire their game data and localization from GameNet, meaning the loss of Russian player accounts and necessitating a do-over for the entirety of Russian localization. Pearl Abyss then followed that up with a mountain of salt for GameNet parent company Vebanaul, whom it accused of denying PA access to updates since this summer, of neglecting to set up data transfer consent system to meet Russian law, and of attempting fleece PA with an “excessively high price” for the database. “Vebanaul use our users as their weapon,” the Korean studio declared, intimating that it was possible the Russian company might just “delete the database” anyway.
So now today we’ve got some seemingly good news after so much venom, as Pearl Abyss now says negotiations continued past the deadline and that it and GameNet have indeed come to a satisfying arrangement that will keep the Russian servers and accounts intact after all.
“During the negotiations, Pearl Abyss and Vebanaul Holdings Ltd jointly developed a legal solution to ensure the transfer of the entire game process, including the latest data. If the players express a desire, they will be able to continue their journey in the game Black Desert Online Russia with their favorite characters after the coordination of technical details. Although the whole process was not unhindered, and it took us a long time to arrive at such results, the transfer of the game was possible thanks to the persistent and unchanged common goal of the two companies: the stable provision of Black Desert Online Russia service in the interests of users. Once again, we apologize to the players for the anxiety and anxiety caused by the delay in such news, although it should have appeared on the pages of our official website on the 13th of October.”
The new agreement also appears to include the Russian localization, so there won’t be any need for PA to start that up from scratch either. A transfer system is apparently on the way, along with in-game gifts and some sort of “unique events” by way of apology. The message is signed from both Pearl Abyss and Vebanaul.
You might notice the stories don’t exactly jibe, but it appears everyone’s willing to let bygones be bygones for enough cash in the end, and either way, Russian players win.
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