Pearl Abyss Q3 2024: Black Desert declines, EVE Online flattens, Crimson Desert dithers

Pearl Abyss – minus Pearl Abyss America head Jeonghee Jin, who left for NCsoft America this past summer – released its Q3 2024 financials this week, and it’s a mixed bag as it has been most of the year.

Overall, Pearl Abyss saw its operating revenue fall to 79.5B KRW – about 56.5M USD, a 2.8% dip since last quarter and a 6.4% drop since Q3 2023. Q3 2024 marks the third quarter this year when the company posted operating profits in the red. So what exactly is going on with the MMOs?

Well, at least some of the decline can be laid at Black Desert’s feet. The sprawling franchise put in its worst quarter all year (54M KRW), which is particularly concerning as Black Desert PC launched the Land of the Morning Light Seoul expansion in the middle of September, and Pearl Abyss went all-out on promoting it (including sending press and influencers to a castle for the reveal at Heidel Ball at the end of June). It doesn’t seem to be any one region or platform driving the decline, either.

On the other hand, EVE Online’s revenue has been fairly flat all year, though it’s in a much better position than past years, and like a lot of MMOs, EVE has backloaded the year with content: The Revenant expansion literally just launched yesterday, so revenue from that will show up in Q4. EVE Galaxy Conquest also just rolled out a few weeks back, so that hasn’t figured into the financials yet.

Finally, much noise was made over Crimson Desert – the main clog in the company’s pipeline – during the investor call itself. We’ve been tapping our feet impatiently over not just the long-delayed game but clarity on whether the multiplayer features would remain intact, something nobody representing Pearl Abyss has seemed willing to tell us over the last few months. As Nosygamer recaps, Pearl Abyss told investors it’s still at least considering multiplayer and DLC, but whether multiplayer makes it into the launch – and when exactly that launch is happening – is anybody’s guess.