Fair warning: The information in this article is going to frustrate you. That’s because Pearl Abyss has released relative numbers for Black Desert, claiming that daily players have surged by over 300%. Over 300% of what, you ask? Hey, look over there!
“Pearl Abyss announced Black Desert Online has seen an over 300% increase in new and returning daily players, thanks to new content updates, season server, and sales promotions,” the studio says, also suggesting that the Heidel Ball, summer season server, new Corsair class, and free trial helped account for the surge. “As a result the popular game also reached the number one position on Steam within the MMORPG category.”
As of last fall, Pearl Abyss was counting 40M lifetime registered BDO players across all four platforms, although of course we have no idea how many of those are actually logging in every month now. According to SteamCharts, the game’s PC version – again, only through Steam – has seen a more modest gain in the last month, still quite a bit down from its high of 60K peak players on Steam in 2019.
For comparison’s sake, since we’re playing with numbers: Elder Scrolls Online last counted 18M lifetime players, Albion Online saw a daily population peak of 140K players this past spring, DC Universe Online is Daybreak’s biggest MMORPG with 419K monthly active players as of 2020, Blizzard’s online titles including WoW have lost 11M aka almost 29% of their overall active playerbase in the last three years, and I’ve had exactly two cups of tea this morning.
