On Thursday morning in Seoul Pearl Abyss held its latest earnings call discussing both Q4 2025 and full year financial results. For the final three months of 2025 the South Korean game maker recorded ₩95.5 billion ($65.9 million) in operating revenue, basically flat year-over-year revenue compared to the ₩95.7 billion ($69.8 million) recorded in the final quarter of 2024. For the year, Pearl Abyss recorded ₩365.6 billion ($257.5 million), a 6.8% increase over 2024's revenue of ₩342.4 billion ($251.0 million).
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| From the Q4 2025 Pearl Abyss Earnings Call |
Not everything went well for Pearl Abyss in 2025. The fourth quarter resulted in the third quarterly operating loss and second net loss of the year. For 2025 Pearl Abyss racked up ₩14.8 billion ($10.4 million) in operating losses and a net loss of ₩7.6 billion ($4.9 million). Last year was the third consecutive year Pearl Abyss experienced an operating loss.
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| From the Q4 2025 Pearl Abyss Earnings Call |
Before diving into the performance of the game IPs, looking at the performance of the Pearl Abyss' financial subsidiary is in order. For the fourth quarter non-game revenue accounted for 5.4% or ₩5.2 billion, of the company's total revenue. Unlike on previous calls with a large amount of non-game revenue, an explanation behind the income was not provided.
On the call the presenters made a point of mentioning the age of Pearl Abyss' two main games. For Black Desert Online, the game is in its 11th year of operation. The 10th anniversary was in Q3 and the revenue shows the extent of the celebrations. Quarter-over-quarter, Black Desert revenue dropped 20.8% back down to ₩63.0 billion ($43.5 million) for the quarter. The third quarter surge did result in Black Desert revenue increasing by 4.2% to ₩260.4 billion ($183.4 million) for the year. The South Korean won was weak against the U.S. dollar for most of the year, explaining why Black Desert revenue only rose by $200 thousand when the amount is converted to U.S. dollars.
The EVE IP, on the other hand, had a very successful year in terms of revenue in 2025. The final 3 months of the year resulted in revenue of ₩27.3 billion. On the call the presenters indicated the fourth quarter was EVE Online's highest revenue quarter since the pandemic lockdown years. And yes, while benefiting from foreign exchange effects, the $18.8 million recorded in Q4 was CCP Games' highest revenue quarter since the Icelandic studio was acquired by Pearl Abyss in October 2018.
CCP's success wasn't just confined to one quarter. With ₩92.8 billion ($65.2 million) in revenue for 2025, revenue in South Korean won increased year-over-year by 13% and 8.5% in U.S. currency. Both totals are records for CCP Games since the acquisition by Pearl Abyss.
A big event is coming up for Pearl Abyss: the launch of Crimson Desert. First announced in 2019, the launch is confirmed for 19 March 2026. Talk already has begun about Pearl Abyss' next game, DokeV. The presenters blamed part of the delay in releasing Crimson Desert on the need to develop the Black Space engine in parallel with the game. Investors were told that with the development of the engine complete new games will release faster. The company will release a date for the planned release of DokeV later in 2026.
Finally, anticipate progress reports on EVE Frontier to feature prominently on future earnings calls. While games utilizing blockchain technology may no longer be the flavor of the month anymore, I have the feeling investors are still interested in crypto. With crypto games dropping as fast as crowdfunded and AAA games have lately, CCP may not face much competition in the field for the next few years.
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