Pearl Abyss Q4 2021 Revenues Are Up, Reveals Plans To Create A ‘Stable Blockchain Ecosystem’

2021 was a good year for Pearl Abyss despite shrinking revenues from its core IPs as the company reveals in their Q4 2021 financial report. Operating revenues for the last fiscal quarter of 2021 amounted to ₩118 billion KRW, or roughly $98.6 million USD, which translates to a 22.4% increase quarter-over-quarter and 11.7% increase year-over-year.

Pearly Abyss’ main IPs, Black Desert Online and EVE Online, however, saw a 20% and 3% decrease in revenue respectively, which begs the question: Where did the extra revenue come from?

Pearl Abyss Capital, the company’s venture capital arm, apparently invested in an AI/metaverse startup, driving revenue growth not only in the past quarter but over the course of the whole year. The company is also looking to enter the blockchain gaming and play-to-earn market citing the need to “create value through games.” A notion that its subsidiary CCP Games also shared.

“Times have changed and now the values that users have created has meaning, even outside of the virtual worlds and are acting as assets. […] We believe that blockchain technology will accelerate this trend. […] Our company and CCP Games both have operated MMOs for a long time and we do have the knowhow to maintain and manage a sustainable economic system. So we are confident that we can create a stable blockchain ecosystem.”

The company is also working on a new proprietary game engine called the Blackspace Engine. The new engine will serve as the foundation for new metaverse and blockchain games, as well as Crimson Desert and DokeV, both of which have been delayed indefinitely. They also announced a new Black Clover mobile game that’s slated to launch in Korea and Japan in the second half of 2022 with closed beta testing planned for the second quarter of this year.