Black Desert Online: Land of the Morning Light Edition

PearlAbyss was a small developer with a mere 10 million US$ budget back when it started developing Black Desert in Korea in 2010 and people don’t realise how amazing a feat it was to develop such an intricate and complex character creation system back in the early 2010s with such a meagre budget. PearlAbyss’ head of studio, Kim Dae-il, was an award-winning game director and game designer [he received multiple awards even before BDO was released and received the Presidential Award by the Korean government in 2017 for his contribution to the propagation of Korean culture in the global scene through Black Desert] before he founded PearlAbyss. Kim’s dream since he was a child was to create games, and his aspiration is to create a title, as a Korean, that will one day win the Game of The Year Award.

Unfortunately, due to the financial circumstances of PearlAbyss at the time of its founding, Kim was unable to publish Black Desert on their own so they signed a publishing contract with the infamous and unscrupulous KakaoGames, who was called Daum Games back then.

Some of the P2W elements that were in the game when BDO was initially released in the West were an inevitable result of having to work with KakaoGames, and PearlAbyss knew that in order to realise its aspirations, it had to become independent. That’s why in 2019, when the contract with KakaoGames finally ended, PearlAbyss, against most industrial speculations, made the decision to not renew the contract and publish Black Desert globally on its own, even though BDO was already immensely popular worldwide at that time.

It was a risky decision, because PearlAbyss had no publishing experience back then, but with great risks, come great rewards.

PearlAbyss’ independence has given it almost limitless freedom in removing and improving old systems, reducing P2W elements [which, to a small extent, still exists within the game], and its tireless efforts over the years to make Black Desert into the game that it deserves to be is clear as day.

PearlAbyss is the only game company that, against common expectations, created a traditional Korea-culture based massive expansion for its flagship game title even though the majority of its users are not Koreans.

The dedication to doing what the studio has aspired to do since its creation is, in itself, inspiring.

Perhaps many non-Korean users might not be able to fully understand the idiosyncrasies of the ancient Korean culture depicted in the new Land of the Morning Light region but this is merely the first step in a multi-decade effort to improve the understanding of traditional Korean culture around the world.

As a non-Korean living in Korea, and who has witnessed countless money-grabbing Korean companies doing the exact reverse of what PearlAbyss has been doing over the years, I would like to sincerely applaud this effort by PearlAbyss because it touched me, even as a non-Korean, which is also why I am sharing this little-known history of PearlAbyss with the rest of the world.