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Pearl Abyss, the maker of Black Desert Online, has agreed to buy Eve Online Maker for $ 425 million. The move is a big expansion in the West for the South Korean online gaming manufacturer.
The acquisition of CCP, based in Iceland, highlights Pearl Abyss, which is not well known globally, but has more than 9.5 million registered users for Black Desert Online.
The agreement shows the considerable capital advantage that Asian gaming companies have over acquisitions, as their large online gambling gaming bases and their confident investors allow them to compete. to raise a lot of capital to acquire Western gaming companies.
But Robin Jung, CEO of Pearl Abyss, said in an e-mail interview with GamesBeat that CCP fans had nothing to fear. No change occurs at CCP and in its flagship game. The deal ends Oct. 12, but Jung, 38, has answered a variety of issues related to the transaction.
Here is an edited transcript of the interview.
GamesBeat: Tell me about the story of Pearl Abyss. When was it founded? How many employees does he have? What are his annual revenues?
Robin Jung: Pearl Abyss was founded in 2010 by our current president and development director, Daeil Kim, who is behind the creation of the open world MMORPG Black Desert Online. After an open beta test in 2014, Black Desert Online was launched the following year in Korea, Japan and Russia, followed by North America and Europe in 2016. Today Now, more than 10 million users in 150 countries play in 12 different languages.
We have also evolved as a game development studio and publisher with more than 500 employees around the world. In 2017, our annual business turnover reached 105.7 million dollars, up 90.26% over the previous year. After the Korean launch of Black Desert Mobile earlier this year, we achieved record sales of $ 169.6 million in the first half of 2018 increase over the previous year. In the future, we hope to see additional growth through the addition of competitive IP, such as Eve Online, the upcoming global launch of Black Desert Mobile, and other new projects in the future. development course.
GamesBeat: Why do you want to acquire CCP?
RJ: The video game industry is becoming more competitive than getting strong IPs. We knew that to continue to grow, we would need more IP than the only Black Desert, and that's why we made the decision to make the company public and raise additional capital to acquire IPs and IPs. promising talents.
CCP Games was founded in 1997 and is best known as developer and publisher of the successful spacecraft [massively multiplayer online role-playing game] MMORPG Eve Online. We have found the company attractive for many reasons, one of them being that Eve Online is a longtime MMORPG with a strong player base, much like Black Desert Online. I think we share a common DNA as game developers who create top quality MMOs and together we can leverage our strengths to take us to the next level.
In addition, the global trend of the video game industry is to extend beyond PCs for mobile platforms and consoles. Multi-platform games are already the norm in Asia, and North America and Europe follow the same path. Based on these market trends, we have become certain of the future growth potential of competitive IPs and have therefore made the decision to acquire CCP's EVE universe.
GamesBeat: What is attractive? Is it online games like EVE Online or its experimentation with VR, for example?
RJ: The greatest strength of CCP is undoubtedly EVE Online. We know that it is not easy to develop a successful game and maintain it for more than 15 years, but CCP has done exactly that and continues to excel.
We are also impressed by the way CCP is continually supporting new experimental projects such as virtual reality games, as well as the company culture that encourages the development of the highest quality games.
Finally, CCP has done an incredible job in engaging and maintaining its community of players, which we will learn a lot and hope to integrate natively into the general practices of Pearl Abyss in all our games.
Above: Black Desert Online
Image credit: Pearl Abyss
GamesBeat: How many employees do you recover with CCP? Will there be redundancies?
RJ: CCP Games will work as an independent studio. We currently have no plans to restructure the company.
GamesBeat: how will the two companies work together?
RJ: At present, CCP Games will operate independently as a development studio. We plan to communicate over time how the two companies will be managed, while finding effective solutions and determining what works best for everyone. In the long term, we are considering the joint development of new games.
GamesBeat: What is your vision for the future of the CCP?
RJ: First, we plan to support Eve Online's long-standing success and maintain its position as one of the world's leading providers of science fiction software. We also hope to continue our growth in the market with Eve Online, projects for which we are not yet ready to announce. Ultimately, we seek to integrate CCP's extensive development and publishing know-how into the creation of our original IP pipeline.
GamesBeat: How will the CCP's publishing staff work with Pearl Abyss?
RJ: Our current plan is to ensure that CCP continues to operate independently of Pearl Abyss, but our goal is to open lines of communication between the two teams that will allow us to learn from each other. At some point, we hope to more closely align teams to build on each other's strengths and collaborate successfully to introduce our games to new players around the world.
GamesBeat: Why do you think Black Desert Online has been so successful?
RJ: I think Black Desert Online has been successful for a number of reasons, but mainly because of the quality of the intellectual property and the direction we have chosen as a company.
In 2010, when Daeil founded Pearl Abyss, the goal was to make available to all the best MMORPGs. As a result, the game's content is vast, from action-based combat and raids to free roaming and exploration, and our players have built a life in the open world of Black Desert. That's why we have such a diverse group of players. The game has also been hailed by critics for the quality of its graphics and its hyper-personalization system in particular, which are major factors in the realistic and immersive nature of the game.
In addition, we dedicate a lot of manpower and resources to the quick and frequent update of the players.
Above: Robin Jung next to a poster of Black Desert Online.
Image credit: Pearl Abyss
GamesBeat: does it share some features with EVE Online or are the games very different?
RJ: Eve Online and Black Desert Online share many characteristics, and that's one of the reasons we've been interested in the CCP.
Both are open-world MMORPGs that offer extremely broad content with non-linear scenarios, critical to the long-term success of both IPs. Both games are also very community-oriented, centered on a long-time group of players.
CCP and Pearl Abyss also discuss the development and maintenance of our games with a similar mindset. Our teams are never satisfied, we are obsessed with the need to always push the boundaries and take up new challenges.
GamesBeat: Have you ever learned anything from the EVE Online team that might be useful in BDO? If so, what is an example?
RJ: For Black Desert Online and EVE Online, a strong player community is the key to the game's long-standing success. I believe CCP did a great job of communicating with EVE players, listening to them and even trying to work with them. them to offer the best experience of the game.
This year, I visited the Eve Fanfest festival for its 15th anniversary. I've heard that it was one of the biggest Fanfests of the company. I've witnessed the passion of the Eve community and the way CCP engages its players to improve their game. It's been awesome, and we want to learn a lot.
Above: Black Desert Online
Image credit: Pearl Abyss
GamesBeat: Black Desert Online Remastered did well. What explains how he managed to get players to come back and attract new players?
RJ: Black Desert: Remastered is really an extension of what our team does every day to keep improving what we built yesterday. Remastering the game's graphics and audio gives players an even more immersive and realistic experience.
For the graphics, it was about applying the latest technologies and methods to mimic what the naked eye sees in real life, in terms of lighting, shadows, texture expression and much more. We have added and upgraded most of our graphics with new techniques, such as physical rendering, advanced post-processing, image-based lighting, and so on.
The audio team had a lot of autonomy to experiment new sounds and apply a whole new depth to the game. Our audio director, Hwiman "Croove" Ryu, wrote 100 original songs, only for the remaster, and has worked with renowned orchestras around the world. What has resulted from this long-term project are impressive, self-contained soundtracks that I think many – not just the players – will appreciate.
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