We interview the Black Desert Online team and celebrate a new class and 10 years

Recently I got to sit down with Kwonho Kim, COO Pearl Abyss America, and Max Choi, Director of Live Services, Pearl Abyss America from Pearl Abyss to talk with them about their awesome milestone for Black Desert, as well as where the future of the game lies.  The team just released their 29th character class for the game, a gunslinger called the Dead Eye, so naturally the best place to have this conversation was at a Western-themed meeting hall.  You can practically smell the rope oil and hear the ho-down.  

Ron Burke - Annyeong haseyo. (Korean for a formal hello)  I'm Ron Burke, Editor in Chief for GamingTrend.com.  Thanks for taking the time to talk with us. If you would please introduce yourself and tell us what you do at Pearl Abyss. 

Kwonho Kim -Hi, my name is Kwonho Kim. I've been a developer for Black Desert since 2011 and I'm currently the Chief Operating Officer for the North American office.

Ron Burke - Awesome. Thank you. It’s great to meet you.  

Max Choi - Hi.  I’m Max Choi.  I’ve been working at Pearl Abyss since 2017, and now I’m working as Live Service Director for Black Desert for console and PC and user experience.  

Ron Burke - Again, pleased to meet you – thank you for talking with me. 

It's 2025 – almost 11 years since the official global launch, and now nine years for the United States, with nearly 60 million players. How have you kept player growth that high for so long? 

Kwonho Kim - If we're taking development time into account as well, it's closer to 15 years and as a whole. At Pearl Abyss, all of us at Pearl Abyss, we really take our time to contemplate about how we could provide a better service for our players. How can we make the best game that we can? I'm thinking that that might be one of the driving forces that allowed us to keep the game going on for so long worldwide.

Max Choi - We always like trying to have contact with players in person, right? I mean, as you could see, we are celebrating with adventures together for our ninth year anniversary and 5th year anniversary of console cross play. I mean class cross-platform play for the console. I’m always trying to find opportunity and the chances to meet adventures in person all the time. So we are super passionate about communicating and listening to players, gathering feedback and their thoughts about the game as well. So that's one of the key elements of our success and how we kept moving on, building great content and bringing it to North America.

Ron Burke - Obviously, this is a global game. How are players distributed? Are you seeing a higher count in some countries than others? 

Kwonho Kim - We currently service something like 150 different countries. So, each region has its own cultural differences, and you might find it hard to believe, but we really do consider each region and each country.  We don’t favor one country over another, but we like bringing unique events to each one. 

With Thailand as an example, there's a big water festival called Songkran. So we take care of them with Water Festival-related events. And with South America recently, I think yesterday, they started their Carnival festivities. So with those cultural differences, whether that be like something special in Brazil or Korea, we want to break down the cultural barriers.  So for Thailand and the Songkran festival event, we try to spread that, and share so that there's no barrier between the different regions.  Each region, we want to cater to their cultural events and celebrate them.  

Ron Burke - What's it like for a new player jumping into the game in 2025, and what have you put in place to help new players get started?

Max Choi - It's hard to pinpoint just a few, but we periodically make sure to try out things, and we see whether it could be inconvenient for a new player. Then we continuously try to make improvements, so that in the year 2025 any new players trying out Black Desert for the first time doesn’t experience anything that might hinder them or create a barrier to entry.

Kwonho Kim - Another improvement we have made is around players playing together.  We don't want there to be a huge gap between new players and the existing players who have been in the game for a long time. So we have made updates such as improvements to accessories and sub weapons, main weapons, the ability to exchange old weapons from when they played last, and things like Blackstar gear for bosses. We are making those types of changes so that, as mentioned, players don't feel daunted by how much “catching up” there might be to do to.  

Max, can you speak to the service perspective?   

Max Choi - As Kwonho mentioned, it’s just about iteration.  How do you address new players?  Exactly the same way - community. Back in the day, the items that were high quality and also kinda high end, both weapons and armor, right?  We are trying to make some kinds of the separate upgrade lines for returning players.  When they played last they might have been playing with Blackstar weapons in 2022 or 23.  Blackstar weapons, sub weapons, and weakening weapons were like very tough to get.  We are always eager to add new kinds of equipment and content that helps players “catch up”, as well as mechanics that help with that.  We’re always working with players to make those kinds of things for them. 

For the returning players, we're always thinking about how, if they do end up returning to the game, to respect their time. Before they left, they might have had very high level items. We don't want to diminish the value and the time and effort that it took for them to obtain those in the first place, and when they come back we don't want them to be disheartened. We always do a lot of thinking before making these updates, trying to make sure we don’t devalue their time and effort. I think that is what might set us apart from other games.

Ron Burke - What would you say has been the biggest challenge for running live operations for that long?  You’ve been running live ops for 15 years!

Max Choi - I can't exactly pinpoint a particular thing that has been a big challenge, but to be honest, every day poses its own challenges. Black Desert was the first game that Pearl Abyss developed, and we had learned a lot. On the Korean side, we had some difficult moments with something called “Red Nose gate” (Note: They laughed but didn’t explain - seems like an inside joke.). So every moment has had its own challenges, but it's because we have our players who are so loyal and so committed to us that we can just overcome them and keep on going. They allow us to just keep going and doing our best to do better.  

Ron Burke - What about consoles – can you give me an update on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X Next-Gen update?

Kwonho Kim – As you mentioned, it is announced for the first half of this year, and we are in the final stages of just ensuring that everything can run successfully for the PlayStation and Xbox. We have had some console adventures here, but we just feel apologetic that we couldn't prepare it for our players sooner. 

Ron Burke - This should be a fun one – There are 29 classes currently, and I know it's like picking your favorite kid, but what is your favorite class? And you can't say Dead Eye, because you just released that!

Max Choi - Of course, I want to say Dead Eye!  This is, like, her home town – Texas.  That’s why we’re holding an event in Texas right now!  But like you said, I cannot say Dead Eye. Ok, ok – my my favorite class, recently, has been Dosa. The Dosa is like a Korean male class, and he uses a sword (Hwando) and pipe (Gombangdae) as his main and sub weapon, right?  I really like his AOE attack – it’s awesome.  That’s the class I’ve been playing recently. 

Kwonho Kim - Even to this day, I still play the warrior class. And I'm not saying I made the whole thing, but I was, I was part of the development for him.  We were overseeing things down to the bare bones.  What kind of effect should we have when he hits?  If we swing a sword or do a shield block, what would it look like?  Then we’d try it out and make changes the next day.  We would try it out again, and then we would make changes again, and then we would see if it really was better now, or the day before. We would just oversee every part of it.  And I don't know if it's those things that influence my answer, but I think it’s because I know so much about this character. I feel a lot of like affection, and it's my favorite class, even now.

Ron Burke - Nice, that makes sense. All right? And finally, what are you most excited about for 2025 

Max Choi - For me it’s about trying to not do the same thing the way we did it before.  In 2024 we were eager to try out new ways to play, communicating with players in person like we’re doing right now, and that’s what I want to focus on.  in 2024 we were always eager to find new ways to communicate with the players in person like we’re doing today.  That’s the part I’m most excited about.  We’ve got a lot coming out this year, and as a player and an adventurer I’m excited to see where we can go.

Kwonho Kim - It's been less than two weeks since I first came to the US and started my new life here. I came with the mission to have more spaces such as these, where we can meet with our players in person. I want to hear what they have to say from about the game, and getting new perspectives. I get to understand how they feel about the game, and now that I'm here in the North American office to do just that, I am going to work together with my team here so that we can make all of that happen.

Ron Burke - Congratulations on the celebration and your new position, and thank you so much for your time. Komapsumnida! (Korean formal for Thank You)

Black Desert has gone from strength to strength and continues to engage players in new and exciting ways. While we all keep our eyes out for Crimson Desert, there’s no denying that the success of Black Desert is doing a great deal to inspire that title.  It takes a lot of hard work, player engagement, and routine improvements with new content to keep an MMO alive for this long, but clearly Pearl Abyss have found the secret formula. 

Thanks again to the Pearl Abyss team for taking with us at Adventurers' Oasis in Texas – we’ll see you in Black Desert!