Pearl Abyss Q1 2026 Earnings Letter

Yesterday Pearl Abyss released its earnings information for the first quarter of 2026 in a new format. Instead of a call the South Korean game maker posted a letter which had most of the information given in a typical earnings call. 

The big news, of course, was the launch of Crimson Desert on 19 March 2026. The company described some rather impressive numbers.

[T]he game solidified its position as a AAA game by recording 2 million copies on the first day of launch, 3 million within 4 days, 4 million within 12 days, and 5 million within 26 days. In addition, we enhanced the overall user experiences by adding new content and improving user experience through patches based on user feedback.

According to the letter, Crimson Desert brought in ₩266.5 billion ($177.1 million) in the first quarter, meaning the first 4 million copies sold were recorded in the earnings letter. Sales were split roughly 50-50 between the PC and console versions of the game. 

Selling those 4 million copies did come with costs. Commissions increased quarter-over-quarter by ₩28 billion ($19 million) due to an increase in sales on Steam. Also, quarter-over-quarter advertising costs increased 151% up to ₩23.4 billion ($16 million).

Pearl Abyss' other IP, Black Desert, saw a 2.2% decline in revenue, both QoQ and YoY, down to ₩61.6 billion ($42.1 million).

Now for the elephant in the room: the divestiture of CCP Games, now Fenris Creations. As part of the move Pearl Abyss removed all trace of Fenris from the report except for one line in the appendix stating the losses caused by the "Discontinued Operation". From what I found, standard accounting practice is to reclassify as "Discontinued Operations" any activity of a subsidiary that is sold. Doing so provides investors with an apples-to-apples comparison of Pearl Abyss' current business to historical data. As such the graphs in the letter had any data from Fenris/CCP removed.

Unexpectedly, at least to me, the earnings letter provided an answer to the question, just how many resources was Fenris/CCP taking from Pearl Abyss in developing games. According to the appendix, the "Discontinued Operation" would have experienced ₩33.6 billion ($23 million) in net losses in 2025 with an additional ₩12.1 billion ($8.2 million) in the first quarter of 2026.

I was also able to calculate the operating losses generated by Fenris/CCP during 2025 by combining the data from the letter to the information in the Q4 2025 earnings call. Those came out to ₩47.0 billion ($33.1 million).

With this breakdown, one can see why Pearl Abyss management moved toward the divestiture. By removing a portion of the company averaging roughly 10-13 billion quarterly operating losses in 2025

This breakdown highlights why management likely moved toward the divestiture. By removing a segment that was averaging a roughly ₩10–13 billion quarterly operating loss in 2025, Pearl Abyss's baseline profitability appears significantly stronger once the Crimson Desert revenue hit the books. Given Pearl Abyss' recent history with investors, they can use all the help looking good they can get.