Salutations, dear Greymane. If you are reading this, you have survived until the release date of Crimson Desert, the latest and greatest adventure game by South Korean developer Pearl Abyss.
This marks the end of a fairly long development and marketing cycle, and it feels like an eternity has passed since we were treated to this bombastic reveal trailer back in 2019:
And yet, what was set to be a jubilant date is now tinged with some hostility towards developers Pearl Abyss. The source, for once, is not any virulent mob of players, creators, or journalists, but the fickle hands of the industry’s evil puppeteer.
Investors have managed to create a crisis all on their own, sending Pearl Abyss stock tumbling down following their ‘expert’ assessment of the game’s critical reception. This knee-jerk reaction is a nice reminder that the average investor knows or cares little about games, while being the sword of Damocles hanging over the industry as a whole.
Crimson Desert Reviews Blamed for Crashing Pearl Abyss Stock
The reviews for Crimson Desert started pouring in yesterday. If I told you they’d caused Pearl Abyss shares to plummet 29.88% over the last 24 hours, how badly did you think it was received?
Well, it turns out that a bad reception that warrants a ‘sell everything, it’s over’ response is an 80% score. When Battlefield 6 launched with an 83% score, it was hailed as a very positive reception, and the game went on to become a global phenomenon despite its flaws.
The investor reaction feels even more confusing when accounting for pre-order data, published a day before the reviews went up. As reported by Alinea Analytics (via wccftech), Crimson Desert is estimated to have made approximately $20 million in revenue from around 363 thousand pre-orders on Steam alone.
Crimson Desert’s Open-World Will Be Twice the Size of Skyrim
Backed by a brand-new engine, Crimson Desert will launch on March 19th.
These numbers are to be taken with a grain of salt until Pearl Abyss drops its official count, but using previous Alinea data as a baseline, this is set to be “a better launch than both Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33“, per David Carcasole.
Pearl Abyss share price hit a peak of 71500 won (approximately $48) on March 16th, but the crash sent the price back to its January levels. Investors bet the house on Crimson Desert performing well following the hype this year, a correct choice given our impressions of the game, then backed out en masse when it didn’t get a perfect 100% score from critics.
This all-or-nothing mentality is fairly common among investors, especially trigger-happy ones trying to squeeze out short-term gains, and it wouldn’t be this much of a problem if their attitude didn’t fundamentally run the industry.
Well, it turns out that a bad reception that warrants a ‘sell everything, it’s over’ response is an 80% score.
Investors naturally want returns for their investments; that’s the core mechanic of the business, but what’s increasingly clear is that many of them forget that video games are an interactive art form. Commercial success and profitability are a consequence of shipping something that is unique and enjoyable.
If you put the profits over the end product, you end up with situations like these, which range anywhere from extremely dumb to downright tragic. Cold feet from investors are set to kill Toshihiro Nagoshi’s Gang of Dragon, for example.
Is a world with less art a worthy price to pay to move the needle by 1% on someone’s stock portfolio? The obvious answer is no, but that’s only clear if you care about the medium.
If early data is of any indication, Crimson Desert looks set to show the doubters wrong. The game unlocks today at 18:00 EST, or 22:00 UTC, and is available on Windows, macOS, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.
Crimson Desert Hardware Requirements Are Surprisingly Reasonable Despite the Game’s Scope
Your old graphics card will thank you, but start clearing space on that SSD.
- Released
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March 19, 2026
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Strong Language
