Official figures put Crimson Desert at 4 million sales in just under two weeks, but how much money has it made? One analyst believes they’ve worked it out.
Rhys Elliott, head of market analysis at Alinea Analytics, said in a Substack post that Pearl Abyss’ open world action adventure has made $200 million across platforms (PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S) so far. Somewhat surprisingly, Elliott believes $75 million of that has has come from PS5 alone. The overall verdict is that the huge sales success proves “there is a massive appetite for high-fidelity, single-player-focused sandboxes.”
“Crimson Desert has silenced sceptics (and the stock market…), who feared a rocky critical reception would hinder potential among consumers in the long term,” Elliott said, referencing Pearl Abyss’ initial share price plunge, believed to be in response to Crimson Desert’s high 70s Metacritic score, and subsequent bounce back as player sentiment improved and impressive sales were announced.
38% of PS5 Crimson Desert players have also played Dragon’s Dogma 2, Elliott said, revealing a significantly higher overlap typically seen with the likes of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. “Weird and wonderful RPG fans, let’s go,” he concluded.
It’s worth noting that Pearl Abyss doesn’t see all this $200 million — console makers Sony and Microsoft and Steam owner Valve take a cut of sales, as is industry standard. But there can be no doubt that Crimson Desert is a hit. According to the Korean business press, Pearl Abyss reportedly spent seven years making Crimson Desert, with development costs coming in at 200 billion won (approx. $133 million). Last week, Pearl Abyss CEO Heo Jin-young said Crimson Desert was on its way to 5 million sales, so it looks like the game has legs, and, over time, that profit margin will improve.
The natural next question is whether Pearl Abyss will expand the game with DLC (Crimson Desert doesn’t have any microtransactions at the moment, and there’s no in-game shop.) Pearl Abyss CEO Heo Jin-young last week said there were no solid plans for any DLC, and cast doubt on the possibility of official mod support, but a Nintendo Switch 2 version is apparently being explored.
We’ve got plenty more on Crimson Desert, including a story on how the NPCs are the stars of the show, a hidden food consequence system that a modder has restored, and cats. Yes, cats. We recommend you take a look at our guide to Things to Do First in Crimson Desert, plus Things Crimson Desert Doesn’t Tell You (we’ve got 28 and counting!). We’ve also got a guide to the Best Early Weapons we recommend picking up, the Best Skills to Get First (including a handy explainer of the skills system), and 34 Essential Tips and Tricks to help you succeed in Pywel.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
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