…with the open beta of Black Desert Online (which lasts until August 13th @2AM Pacific). Like their other platforms, the game will be buy 2 play and will also require a PlayStation Plus subscription (the open beta doesn’t require it). The pre-order pricing (US) for the standard edition is $29.99 (10% discount for current PS+ subscribers – $26.99). The deluxe edition is $49.99 (60 day Value Pack buff) and the ultimate is $99.99 (90 day Value Pack buff); PS+ subscribers can also get a 10% discount off of those prices.
Those prices are pretty much a guaranteed upfront cash grab since Pearl Abyss knows that serious players will continue to purchase Value Packs and the requisite $300 per month that hardcore PC players sink into the cash shop each month.
Yes, I don’t like/trust Kakao Games as a PC/mobile publisher BUT I don’t trust Pearl Abyss (the developer of BDO who also self-publishes on console) given their cash shop heavy mechanics where players buy back a lot of functionality, RNG, conveniences, QoL, etc which has been stripped out from the core game (more so when compared to other Korean MMO design studios). Back in 2017, the company outlined their desire to become more involved in self-publishing their titles in an article that was more or less a message telegraphed to investors.
According to that article, the CEO viewed the console market in NA as being at least 5-10 times larger than the PC market at that time (which was coming off the release of the game on Xbox). PS4 still has a far larger share of the console market though which is why they focused on getting it ported over. That is all they care about (increasing the numbers to use as a selling point to potential investors). Their servicing of console operations gives them a model for what it would take to do this for PC when it comes time to re-negotiate their publishing contracts on PC.
I do question how it will end up doing though (B2P and PS+ subscription required) when it comes to the long term life span they see as an objective. TERA console started off well (population wise) on both PS4 (no PS+ sub required) and Xbox One (which requires an Xbox Live subscription for any online only game) as a F2P title and also for the fact that it was a nice addition to what is a dearth of MMO’s on consoles. I played during the betas and at launch but didn’t put a lot of time into it (I have only one level 65 and never bothered gearing it). It was refreshing to play on console though since the combat lends itself well to a game pad controller where the UI was also re-designed for it (unlike PC where it can use a game controller BUT doesn’t have a custom UI for other parts of the game).
Digressing, the population has dwindled to where En Masse Entertainment has had to perform several merges (there is now just a single PvE server for PS4 and Xbox One in each region). The dynamics of game play on console is different from PC where a much smaller percentage do the “grind”. The platform doesn’t lend itself well to MMORPG’s due to that unless larger parts of the game play adapts to it. The action combat does play well but not the grind related aspects that are part of these Korean MMO’s. The failure of both developer (Krafton/Bluehole) and publisher (EME) to adapt portions of the end game (which is tilted towards RNG failure mechanics) is a good reason for the inability to retain players. I don’t expect this to be any different with BDO on console.
This is why Diablo III on console plays even more like an action combat arcade game on console (the extra power/movement buffs from Nephalem Glory orbs for example is toned down on PC) because Blizzard learned from research (as well as hiring console designers) that this is what console “couch co-op” entails (where the downtime is minimized and the actual game play is executed at a faster pace).
