Pearl Abyss Q3 2023: Black Desert’s Land of the Morning Light pulled PA out of its slump

MOP readers might recall that three months ago, the news for Pearl Abyss was looking a bit on the grim side, as the Korean gaming company’s financial report for Q2 showed significant drops in revenues and profit, owing heavily to the seeming decline of Black Desert, in spite of its big summer expansion, Land of the Morning Light, which launched in June (to much praise from our discerning BDO columnist).

But perhaps the concern was all for nothing, as the expansion’s trailing effect in Q3 – and its release on console in July – more than made up for it, restoring the company’s earnings back to early 2023 levels. In its Q3 report, PA counts a quarter-over-quarter revenue lift of 8.3%, though it’s still down over 12% since this quarter last year. Either way, the company highlights its return to profitability after multiple quarters of operating losses, with Black Desert in particularly delivering a 21% revenue bump since Q2.

EVE Online, however, was performing well in Q2, but now it’s delivered its lowest revenues all year in Q3, though that’s likely to pivot soon: As Nosy Gamer noted earlier this week, last weekend EVE saw its highest player concurrency all year – and that’s before the Havoc expansion launches next week, which suggests a return to form in Q4. EVE Vanguard’s open beta “pre-alpha founders access” is also coming next month (the slides call it a “soft launch”).

As for Crimson Desert, well, you already knew it wasn’t really going to launch by the end of 2023, right? And so it isn’t, but it will apparently put in an appearance at G-STAR.

One more bit worth noting: Nosy Gamer caught PA glossing over its decline in labor costs; the studio has actually seen significant staff losses since 2021. By his calculations, the company has dropped 17.7% of its total staff over the last two years, while development staff specifically slipped down 24.3% over that same period.