Black Desert Online Brings In $2 Million In Its First Week

Black Desert Online raked it in over the final week of 2014, which could be good news or bad news, depending on your point of view.

An earnings conference call from Korean publisher Daum Kakao details Black Desert's strong start following the commercialization of the game on Dec. 24. It has 1.5 million subscribers and brought in 2.3 billion Korean won until the 31st, which translates to about $2.075 million USD. The conference call goes on to say that due to Daum's "accounting standards" (expenses?) the actual figure was 570 million KRW (about $514,000).

On the one hand, it's a great first week and shows that the game is of a general high enough quality that players are willing to spend on it, and it should bode well for the game's continued financial future. On the other hand, while BDO doesn't seem to have the worst cash shop ever, thanks to the previews we've seen, you can never be quite sure until you try the game out for yourself. Thinks like XP boosters seem innocent enough until you realize they're all but necessary to proceed at an acceptable, non-grindy rate. Korean MMOs are notorious for this sort of thing, and maybe revenue was so high because players felt compelled to spend, rather than because they wanted to spend. Let's hope that's not the case.

You can listen to the conference call here. The relevant portion starts at about 79:18. Black Desert is scheduled for a Western release in 2016.