7 days free Omega on the In Game Store

The Ingame Store (New Eden Store) is offering 10 free Plex and then 7 days of Omega for free.

30 days Omega normally costs 500 Plex (todays 20% off sale = 425 Plex).  That means 7 days would therefore cost 99 Plex under the 20% off deal.

Obviously, therefore this deal is a no-brainer.

Just remember - get the free Plex first and then buy the 7 day Omega.

20% off Omega in the Ingame Store

As can always be expected, after a real money offer for Plex CCP must find a way of stimulating demand for Plex to give the real money buyers "value for money".

This time, CCP has gone for a 20% off Omega in the Ingame Store: UP TO 20% OFF OMEGA IN NES | EVE Online

So, no 24 month offer which seems to be the norm these days/

With Plex at 6.3m this means the ISK cost of Omega starts at 2.7 billion is per month and, if you go for the 12 month offer, is 1.5 billion ISK per month:

The savings per month are best for the 1 month Omega, and then oddly the 3 and 12 month are the same.

As ever, i will always caution against thinking the 12 month offer is the best thing since sliced bread - you have to consider what else you could have done with the ISK.  But for sure, if you do normally buy the 12 month omega then this offer is a good idea.

What will i do?

I bought a 12 month Omega last June as part of the then Omega / MCT deal which was fantastic - basically meant i got the 12 month Omega for free and several billions ISK on top due to the skill farming profits.

My earliest Omega expiry is July and latest is October.  So i need to start thinking about this.

I have 6 accounts to Omega in total.  I normally go for the 3 month Omega.  So that is 38.4 billion isk, which would be 12.8 billion isk per month cost.

I also am considering brining a new account to Omega for manufacturing.  So adds another 6.4 (or 2.1 billion per month).

I have until 2 June.  I will think about it but perhaps i will go for it for all accounts.  That will take me into the September period where i suspect we will get more deals.

Month end update - April 2025

I made 12bn profits in April 2025 from which i distributed nothing this month.  Therefore, my wealth rose by 12bn to 2.254 trillion isk.

That said, i did take writedowns of around 36bn (more below) so underlying was 48bn isk profits.  But writedowns today are merely profits i recognised in prior months that i should not have - so i can't ignore them.

Overall then a poor month.  Holidays and real life getting in the way.  And writedowns.

Hopefully May will be better.

Distributions

These days, the aim is to distribute my profits to the Oz Tank Show or other ventures.

In April i distributed nothing 50bn to the The Oz Show or any other ventures.

So far i have given 388bn to Eve shows:

260bn isk to the Oz Tank Show

92.5bn to The Oz Show

20bn to the podcast Declarations of War to sponsor it.

13.2bn to the Nth_Dimensional Twitch show

1.6bn to the Raff_About_It show

The Oz Tank Show started in July 2023 and i have generated profits of 1.389 trillion in the July 2023 - April 2025 period and distributed 388bn.

So that leaves 1 trillion isk to distribute to some venture(s).

It is early days but the Oz Show is considering having some of its tycoons sponsor a new Corporation.  Lets see.

Six Omega Accounts to pay for / Skill Farming

In June 2024 i went for the MCT / Omega deal and have now pre-funded 6 accounts (so the 4 omega accounts and 2 alpha accounts) for 12 months.

This also took me into Skill Farming for the first time.

I spent 130bn isk on all that.  The way i accounted for this was to say that the 130bn isk was an asset spent to buy Omega and as i made profits from skill farming i would reduce this asset.

In other words, skill farming would not contribute to increasing my wealth until i had made 130bn isk profits.

I achieved that goal in January and therefore all skill farming profits i now make is profit towards increasing my wealth.

The basic numbers for April

In April i had sales of 301bn isk vs March of 317bn.  So a decline of 5% and below my long term average of £325bn.  This reflects me being on holiday and real life being busy.

This comes to average daily sales of 10.0bn isk.  In other words, each evening i expect to see across all my accounts an additional 10bn isk (less transaction taxes) sitting on the characters to be reinvested back into the markets.

Item profits were 87bn isk which is a margin of 29% (87/301).  So above the 25% target and as ever a pleasing result.  There will be an upwards distortion from Skill Farming in here which i am sure i could work out if i had the time.

Taxes and Courier fees came to 38bn isk.  That takes the Trading Profits to 49bn isk and so a trading margin of 26.2% (49/301).  So a rare occurrence where i am right at the 16% margin target.

I then had a series of other costs.

16bn of writedowns: my rule is to reduce sell orders to make them the most competitive all the time but occasionally i leave them and i get a stack of old Sell Orders way off the competitive price and so i make the decision at times to write them down to the most competitive price all at once.  Takes a burden off my shoulders and causes an accounting loss.  In this case of 16bn isk.

20bn which i can't recall.  For the life of me i don't recall what this cost was for.  A misposting perhaps.

That took me to 12bn profits for April.

What is needed to get wealth to rise to 100bn in a month?

In some ways, i am there now - lets see if i can get this to work.

I would need to make daily sales of 18bn on my 25% item market - that has never happened.  Therefore, to achieve 100bn profits a month i need to do one or some of three things.

1) Increase my item margin above 25% - possible but a risk.

2) Keep on doing Skill Farming - for the next 3 months i will be earning pure profits from Skill Farming, so this will be done.

3) Expand into station trading - i sort of do that but not to any big deal.  So this is possible.

4) Expand into manufacturing - which i mean to do when i get time.  The interview with Sir SmashAlot on the Oz Show was inspirational.

My Sales Strategy

I am putting more effort into designing spreadsheets using the Eve Excel Addin to both make my online time more efficient and find those items to sell in the Regions quicker.

This is allowing me to move faster each night.  Currently, i can now see which of my trades need updated and go straight to them rather than cycle through all trades.  I can also see which sales have been made so i can see if i can replace them.  I can also see what items i can buy from Jita Sell Orders to put up for sale in the trade hubs and make my target margin.

My strategy is to Buy from Sell Orders in Jita to sell in the trading hubs in other Regions.

I don't sell consumable items such as ammunition given they tend to be high volume and very competitive.  That includes ships.

I rarely sell items used as components in manufacturing because the end buyer tends to be cost conscious (and armed with spreadsheets) and able to manufacture the items themselves if market prices are too high.

I sell items that are in low supply and sell very slowly.  These items tend to have very low competition - sellers want to get cash quickly and so don't bother in these items.  If i put an item on the market and it sells in 15 days that is fine with me.

These items also tend to be price insensitive - players will buy the item almost whatever the price.  The Buyer is much more interested in getting the item to use now rather than setting off to Jita to get it cheaper.

I sell items that are typically bought to kit a ship as a player progresses or has to replace a destroyed ship / pod.

Each month i sell 20-30% of what i had to sell at the start of the month.

I have a rule that the minimum profits have to be 100m isk.  It is no use me buying items for 5m to sell them for 15m.  The profitability may be great but that won't move the dials.  That said, it is surprising how many items i can buy for 120m from Jita Sell Orders and sell for 220m in the other trading hubs.  At that isk level, players re-equipping don't care about spending an additional 100m isk to save time.

And in the secondary trading hubs Amarr / Dodixie / Rens / Hek buyers will not travel even one jump to buy a cheaper item.  For example, i can post an item for sale in the main Rens Trading up for 300m, and even if one jump away the same item is for sale for 250m the item in the main Trading Hub will still be the item sold.

Therefore, i mostly sell Implants, Blueprints, ship equipment and some structure modules.  And more recently Large Skill Injectors.

What is selling well in April

Quite a scrabbly month where i struggled to get any sense of consistency or theme going.

I am seeing more competition in Dodixie and Amarr, notably in ship equipment and blueprints.

Blueprints: these have slowed down now - not because of the additional competition though, the market feels genuinely slow here.

Implants: these have also slowed down which in part reflects that i am focusing on higher priced inplants.

Ship Equipment: remains a decent income generator.

Mining equipment: almost nothing sold other than a few high priced items.  The competition is all over this and the margins are too low.

Manufacturing

I am now making a fist of moving into this.

The Oz Show had a great interview with Sir SmashAlot where he talked about his manufacturing activities to the tune of making over 1 trillion profits per month!  And the author of the blog I wanna be a Trillionaire, so frickin' bad... has moved into manufacturing and is making a good job of it.

Early days, i am making some profits and will update this blog as i go.

Ideally, i want to create a process that i can scale.

Planetary Interaction

For now, i have stopped trying to make this work.

Research

For now, i have stopped trying to make this work.

Station Trading

All in Jita.  And i am not focusing on this for now, so only 25bn sales.

I don't really have a process up and running that is scalable.

My idea of station trading is not buying items when they look cheap.  For me, station trading is about sticking to the slow moving items and quite often i am the only person in Jita trying to sell an item.  Almost always Selling for over 1bn isk.

What i don't do is Investing.  I.e. i don't buy an item now i think is cheap and hold onto it to sell it a few months later when the price has risen.

Alpha Accounts

I have 1 Alpha account with a character in Venal left.  All the others were upgraded to Omega last summer to start Skill Farming.

I also added another character to that account and am training it up to 5m skill points.  The idea here is to get another set of Alpha Accounts ready for Skill Farming sometime in the future if needed.

Plex

At the start of September i bought 8000 Plex at around 5.3m each.  The main reason for doing this is to have a store of plex ready in case of any deals on the NEX store that comes along.  I now have 18,300 Plex.

Items in hanger for sale

There are a number of items that i sell that can only be sourced from Regions outside of The Forge (the home of Jita).

To make my life easier, i buy them from their home bases and have them couriered to Jita to be stored ready to be couriered to their final sale destination.

Also, given i am skill farming i have a number of Skill Extractors and Large Skill Injectors sitting in hangers waiting to be used / sold.

In all, some 421bn isk of items.

Buy Orders

Buy Orders have varied over time and peaked at around and are at a new high of 101bn.  Whilst i am not focusing on Station Trading in Jita i am taking more opportunities in all this,

Once i get a grip, Buy Orders will also increase as i ramp up the Station Trading in Jita.

ISK

I have 134bn spare ISK kicking around.

For the last 12 months the average ISK in wallets has been over 100bn compared to around 50bn before this.

The reason for his is purely real life being busy and so not having the time to make sure everything is invested.

It feels a waste - i should have as much as i can invested.  I have Plex ready for any NES deals that come along.

If i think about this: Inventory + ISK = 421 + 134 = 555 = 25% of my wealth is sitting around not earning a return!

Current Wealth

Current wealth is 2.254 trillion ISK made up from:

• Plex held as an investment 117bn ISK
• Items in hanger for sale 421bn ISK
• Items in hanger for use in business 11bn ISK
• Omega brought forward 0bn ISK
• Buy orders on the market 101bn ISK
• items for sale 1.84 trillion ISK

• less a 20% provision 367bn ISK*

• ISK in wallet 134bn ISK

When i add up my wealth, I don't count assets I use in the course of my business such as ships, fittings etc nor do I add back any expenses such as skills purchased etc.  The wealth I disclose is made up of items that are ISK or are in the process of being converted to ISK or are used to generate isk that can be readily resold back onto the market.  Any ships or skills or fittings etc i buy are counted as expenses in that month.  The only exception to this rule is Blueprint Originals i use for manufacturing.  They are held at cost.

* I take a 20% provision against the items I am selling.  Eve calculates wealth by adding up the value of the sell orders hence it is possible to increase your wealth by buying an item for 100m ISK and putting a sell order for 120m ISK (in this case your wealth would increase by 20m ISK).  For me, I want my wealth to be calculated at cost.  I know that the value of my sell orders will likely fall over time as I update my orders downwards as competition reduces their prices before my items are sold.  Hence the 20% provision is my best guess as to what the maximum reduction I would need to make to my sell orders as a whole before they are sold.  In an ideal world I would value my sell orders at the value which I bought the items for.

Pearl Abyss Q1 Results Review

Today, Pearl Abyss announced its Q1 results (January - March 2025).

As a reminder, Pearl Abyss, a South Korean gaming companies, bought CCP (Eve Online) in 2018.  It has two main income generating games - Black Desert and Eve Online.  Black Desert was launched in 2015 and is now in decline vs Eve Online was launched in 2003, peaked in 2013 but is now back to growth.

Their Q1 webcast and presentation can be found here.

Nosy Gamer has given an earlier review here.

and at the bottom of this post is the full English language translation of the earnings call including questions and answers from the analysts.

The Q1 Results

Once again, the revenues of Black Desert and CCP (Eve Online) have not been separated out.  But i suspect Black Desert was around 61 billion Won vs 67 billion in Q1 2024 and so CCP was 23 billion (=17 billion Eve Online + 6 billion Eve Echoes) vs 18 billion in Q1 2024 (=15 billion Eve Online + 3 billion Eve Echoes).

Black Desert is in decline vs CCP growing.  But, before CCP Iceland starts walking around as if they own the place - the core Black desert i think is still growing, it is the mobile side that is taking a hit from China.

I always compare Q1 to the prior year Q1 and therefore strips out holiday effects live Christmas.

Hence, for me the focus is Q1 2025 vs Q1 2024 where revenues fell 2% to 83.7 billion Won.

Within this i suspect Black Dessert fell 9% which is really their PC platform growing 5% but their mobile falling 32% which Nosy points out is them ending their Tencent China deal 3 months early.

Whilst Eve Online grew 28% with Eve Online rising 13% and Eve Echoes doubling.

However, where as in Q1 2024 there was a small profit of 0.6 billion Won, in Q1 2025 there was a loss of 5.2 billion Won.

But, as is often the case these days this was bailed out by gains taken on the value of assets held in Pearl Abyss Capital and so generating an overall profit of 0.5 billion Won.  I need to dig deeper into Pearl Abyss Accounts again to see what this is all about because i am pretty sure this does not generate cash, merely accounting profits.

But lets turn back to the core business loss of 5.2 billion Won - this was actually expected by the market and driven by the new game expenditure of CCP which is something we saw in 2024 in our review of the Pearl Abyss Iceland accounts.  So not pressure Hilmar.

Eve Online (+ Eve Echoes)

The chart below shows the quarterly revenues from the Eve ecosystem.  I have had to make some assumptions for Q4 2024 and Q1 2025 given Pearl Abyss no longer split them out.

So a decent progression since 2023 and the chart below shows the year-on-year change in quarterly revenues.  There will be some currency fluctuations in here.

What i also suspect we are seeing is CCP monetising the player base better with all its Plex / Omega deals we have seen since 2023.  If this is the case we should expect ongoing Plex, Omega, MCT deals firstly in the real money store and then in the Ingame Store (CCP needs to incentivise the player base to buy the Plex from those that paid real money for the stuff).

And the progress is well seen in the rolling 12 month revenue chart which will be a chart the management in Pearl Abyss South Korea will like to see.

We have now had 6 quarters of revenue growth.

Crimson Desert

This is what it is all about and Pearl Abyss needs this to happen.  If this fails then Pearl Abyss would seriously need to rethink their company structure and it is in this situation that i suspect a buyer for CCP could be sought

Crimson Desert launch was confirmed for Q4 2025 and investors are now putting that towards the end of Q4.

Pearl Abyss has a troubled history of delays of this launch (delayed six times since 2018), so i suspect investors are not giving much benefit of the doubt anymore.

So what do investors think?

The net effect of all this is for investors to expect lower revenues and profits in 2025 than expected but higher than expected in 2026.

Eve Online and Black Dessert are expected to do better than thought but the cut in the 2025 Crimson Desert revenues more than cancels that out.

And looking into 2025, 2026 and 2027 investors are expecting Eve Online revenues to continue to grow.

. . . . . but the share rose 4% on the day and have risen 35% this year.  I greatly suspect the year to date performance is because they do not have a tariff headwind.  But they are down 70% on the pandemic induced hype of 2021.  And flat on where they were at the end of 2019.

What was said about Eve Online?

Nothing on numbers but more emphasis on Eve Frontier.

Mentioned the Revenant Expansion Pack and "strengthened our game strategy and gained [ph] the immersive-ness to users" . . . . . not sure what that means.

Also aiming for two expansion packs each year.

Also mentioned the Legion expansion pack / freelance system.

And Eve Frontier?

Refered to it as "Blockcain-based" Eve Frontier.

"Blockchain-based EVE Frontier provided 10 days of free play, and we added new content, and held in-game events, and continuously upgraded the game."

And that marketing for Eve Frontier will be increased.

Full Earnings Call Transcript in English

Q1 2025 Earnings Call

Company Participants

Heo Jin-young, Chief Executive Officer

Jo Mi-yeong, Chief Financial Officer

Kim Kyung-man, Chief Business Officer

Other Participants

Various analyts

Greetings. I am Jo Mi-yeong. Thank you once again for taking part in our company's earnings conference call despite your busy schedules.

I would like to cover 2025 Q1 major financial highlights and performance.

Black Desert and EVE provided stable live service in Q1 as well, through strengthening content and continued consistent performance.  Black Desert in Q1 added the new dream horse, Voltarion, that uses lightning; as well as Orzekea, which is the last story of co-operative dungeon,

Atoraxxion. Atoraxxion content following the first update with the field hunting ground and main quest added a 5% cooperative conquest content to add to the fun.

For console, while carrying out steady updates, including season server and dream horse, we stepped up efforts to prepare for PlayStation 5 and Xbox X and S versions. For mobile, we consecutively updated Nightmare: Tshira, and Serene forest, and provided the fun of PvP and monster hunting at the same time.

For EVE Online, we had additional updates to Revenant Expansion Pack and strengthened our game strategy and gained [ph] the immersive-ness to users.  In addition, we revealed our 2025 roadmap and shared that we have been preparing for two expansion packs a year and the Alliance Tournament.

Apart from this, we were thorough in preparing for new services to expand revenues. First, Crimson Desert participated in GDC in March, and based on Crimson Desert assets, we demonstrated the BlackSpace Engine. In the Crimson Desert open world, we provided demos, which allowed you to directly experience interaction with nature and physics' effects, which also heightened expectations to another level.

In addition, in the three Benelux countries and in London, we held a hands-on demo for media and creators. We had continued positive responses by the media to our excellent graphics, indepth battles, open world views, and physics' effects, and we continued our successful demonstration. Blockchain-based EVE Frontier provided 10 days of free play, and we added new content, and held in-game events, and continuously upgraded the game.

Next, I would like to cover 2025 Q1 performance. Q1 operating revenue posted KRW83.7 billion and went down 12.5% Q-o-Q. This was caused by the removal of 2024 Q4 Pearl Abyss Capital's additional revenues as well as Black Desert Mobile China-related revenues.  Operating losses posted KRW5.2 billion and turned to a deficit with increase in CCP Games' new title development costs. And net profit posted KRW500 million. And with reduction of gains on valuation of fair value financial assets and foreign exchange-related gains in Q4 of 2024, it went down 98.9% Q-o-Q.

I would like to walk you through more details related to operating revenue.

The operating revenue from this quarter's games posted KRW83.5 billion and decreased 8.3% Qo-Q. Looking at the operating revenue breakdown for different regions, it was 20% for Korea, 22% for Asia, and North America and Europe reported 58%.

Next, I would like to cover operating expenses. Q1 operating expenses posted KRW88.9 billion, a 4.8% decrease Q-o-Q. For labor, it posted KRW49 billion, a 4.5% increase Q-o-Q. For your reference, headcount at the end of Q1 recorded 1,336 and 761 are in the developer category, which is 57% of the total headcount. Commissions posted KRW17.3 billion, a 6.1% decrease Q-o-Q, and advertising posted KRW7.3 billion, a 38.1% decrease Q-o-Q.

Lastly, I will cover 2025 Q2 major highlights.

Black Desert in April added a new difficulty level in the Land of Morning Light's Donghae Golden Pig King Boss. As this is a challenging difficulty content update, a variety of rewards were provided upon successful conquest, and we provided an environment where the users could immerse themselves more in the game.

Apart from this, we plan to continuously improve live content and node war and siege war to continue stable and consistent service. In addition, in June, through Heidel Ball, we plan to communicate second half major updates and provide more to enjoy and strengthen more communication with our users.

For Black Desert Console, we plan to launch PlayStation 5 and Xbox X and S versions on June 26 and provide a better experience to users. We will provide diverse contents, that we could not until now, due to the limitations of devices and provide more fun through the game. In the case of Mobile, we updated the Rabam skill in April, which could enable stronger attacks, and we have plans to launch Atoraxxion: Vahmalkea, where five party members could play together.

For EVE, we are planning to launch the new expansion pack, Legion, that implemented the freelance system. Until now, you needed to join certain groups to enable contracts between users, including for transport work delegation and related supplies, but when Legion is updated, users can enjoy free economic activity regardless of whether they belong in their group.

In addition, during the EVE Fanfest that was held in the first week of May, we disclosed our second half update, including our map revamp and strengthened communication with users.

We are also smoothly carrying out preparations for our new titles to secure new growth engines. First, we are continuously implementing tests for EVE Frontier and plan to strengthen marketing. We thoroughly will test and validate so that we can offer high-quality new content.

For Crimson Desert, before its launching in Q4 of this year, we plan to heighten marketing intensity. Last week, we participated in PAX East held in Boston, in the U.S., and successfully concluded the first Crimson Desert B2C demonstration in North America. We plan to participate in a global game event in June and plan to show a new demo built for Crimson Desert for the media.

Crimson Desert is carrying out full-scale marketing from Q2. Until last year, through notable events, including Gamescom and TGA, we focused on sharing game development progress. But from now on, we are carrying out marketing that can lead to real game performance by meeting more users, media and creators each month. In addition, apart from the boss wars that we have been sharing with you so far, we will consecutively showcase our open world and stories that you are very curious about.

As many of you have been waiting for so long, in order to achieve the performance that can repay you for your patience, everyone here at Pearl Abyss will do our best until the very end. We will be looking forward to more of your interest and support. Thank you very much.

Questions And Answers

It seems that we do not have any questions in the queue now. So, I believe that it's good time for us to give you a progress update on Crimson Desert. And I would like to tell you that for Crimson Desert, while implementing our QA process, we are in the last stages of preparing for launching, including having our voiceover work and preparing for console certification as well.

In the case of marketing, we plan to participate in more and more diverse game events this year. And in Q1, we had a demo event in Benelux three countries and in London, with core media and influencers, and we also participated in the GDC as well. And in last week, we participated in PAX East and continued our aggressive marketing action.

(Foreign Language) Through this, we have been sharing our game to our global users who have actually come in contact with our game for the first time, and we have been receiving very positive feedback. And through this, we have been increasing the name recognition of Crimson Desert, and we have been heightening expectations.

Also, at a global game event that will be held in June, we plan to have, for the media, not just sharing with you our boss war, but a demo with our new build. Also, in the process of our marketing, we plan to consecutively share with you new content, including our open world and stories to heighten the effect of marketing.

Everyone here at Pearl Abyss is doing our utmost for the successful launching of Crimson Desert.

So, I hope that all of our shareholders, investors and everyone has continued interest and support for the game development.

Q - Ji-eun Lee

Thank you for the opportunity. I think until the last quarter, you have been sharing with us your Black Desert Mobile and PC revenue breakdown. But I think that for this quarter, this was not included in your presentation. So, can you share the breakdown with us?

A - Kim Kyung-man

Well, regarding the contribution of the revenues for Black Desert and IP, it is at a similar level for each quarter. In addition, in regard to your question about our platform revenue contribution, although we do have slight differences for each quarter according to content updates, it generally shows a similar trend to the past.

Q - Junhyun Kim

Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for sharing with us updates related to Crimson Desert. And I am wondering if you can share with us in numbers about any performance or results that you gained from your marketing efforts for Crimson Desert, will that be possible?

A - Heo Jin-young

Thank you very much for your question. And I think I will need to apologize that although we are meeting diverse users in different regions directly, and we are receiving feedbacks and getting many reviews, and feeling first-hand the responses, the warm responses that they are showing to the game, and we are also seeing a lot of the articles by the media regarding our game, I think it will not be possible for you -- us to give you in numbers or metrics about the performance of our marketing.

However, we can tell you that we are keeping a very, very close eye on the different responses by influencers, for example, video feedback, or the feedback by different users, and we are feeling first-hand that the expectations of the market and the users is heightening. So, although I cannot answer your question in numbers, I hope you can understand that we are getting the responses first-hand and feeling them.

Q - Jihyun Kim

Thank you for the opportunity. And I have a question about whether you are applying any of the diverse feedback that you said you are getting from global users through your marketing, so are you applying any of that feedback to the game? And we know that you've shared with us at G-STAR the boss wars, but after you had that revealed to us, can you tell us if any development direction has changed or has been revised with the feedback? Thank you.

A - Heo Jin-young

So, it seems that until now, when we see the current situation, we mentioned that we participated in the North America PAX East. So, we were successful in our first B2C demo in North America. And it seems that we have almost ended the tour when we were able to showcase the different demos through our boss wars.

So, at these events, we had the demo booth where users can experience first-hand the boss wars of Crimson Desert, and through diverse events, we actually, were one of the companies that participated in PAX East that received the most amount of attention. So, we could find out first-hand the positive responses we got to Crimson Desert graphics and our combat system.

However, we are aware that some of the users who experienced Crimson Desert for the first time gave some feedback that it was a little more challenging to play, and we also are aware that we have been getting some feedback about the optimization for console control. So, we have been getting these -- feedback with our boss war demos, and we have been making improvements based on this -- these pieces of feedback. And with the demos of the boss wars, we have been getting more increased positive feedback about the unique and dynamic combat system that is very special to Crimson Desert.

So, we will do our best to enhance our strength, but we will do our best to also incorporate these -- feedback, so that we can have more development in the right direction and do our best until the launching in optimization, so that everyone can enjoy our console play with more convenience and fun.

Review of the 2024 Pearl Abyss Iceland Report & Accounts - Part 2

I did a complete review of the 2024 Pearl Abyss Iceland Report & Accounts here.

In this post i wont to add a few additional items.

Are we due another impairment?

Each year Pearl Abyss has to check that the Goodwill held on the Balance Sheet can be jsutified.

Goodwill is the difference between the price paid for CCP back in 2018 less the value of the assets / liabilities of CCP in 2018.  This difference was $142m.

Each year CCP mush show that the value of the business they bought can cover this goodwill.

The value of the business bought = total cashflows that CCP will generate in the future = the sum of cashflows for the next 5 years + all cashflows in the future growing 2% pa.

In 2022 this failed and the goodwill was reduced by $50.9.

Since that time Pearl Abyss Iceland has generated losses of $39m.  Maybe this was known and so was accounted for - but i doubt it.  I suspect if we get 1 or 2 more years of this then Goodwill will need to be reduced again.

Will Eve Online go bust?

No.  Not at least in the next 12 months.

When a Report & Accounts are drawn up the assumption is that the business will trade as normal  i.e. as a "going concern".  And the management need to prove to the Auditors that this is the case.  If they cant, then all assets and liabilities need to be restated at current market value.

Pearl Abyss Iceland was drawn up assuming trading would continue as normal and management will have needed to convince the auditors.

This appears to have succeeded and i am pretty sure the Auditors would have required Pearl Abyss to demonstrate that they are will to add funds to CCP in Iceland if required.

EBITDA Trend

EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) is a common metric used to asset companies.

I took a look at the last six years:

things were looking good in 2020 when EBITDA turned solidly positive at $8.3m but has then slide back into solid negative territory.  And showing no signs of improvement in 2023 and 2024.

Pearl Abyss Group Structure

To help visualise the relationship between CCP, Pearl Abyss Iceland, all their subsidiaries and Pearl Abyss - the below diagram should help.

Within Pearl Abyss Iceland there are 3 distinct groups:

CCP is the main one - but the Accounts of CCP only shows the numbers for CCP, it does not consolidate all its subsidiaries, that is all done at the Pearl Abyss Iceland level.

Angelice Prime Foundation - I need to do more work into this.

Pearl Abyss Iceland Investment. - this is relatively new and I will see what is going on here at some point.

Review of the 2024 Pearl Abyss Iceland Report & Accounts

The Pearl Abyss Iceland and CCP Report & Accounts for the year to December 2024 came out on 7 May 2025.

Since 2021 they have come out on 30 April.  not sure why they would be a few days later this year other than to observe Fanfest was happening?

Right now i will spend 3 to 4 hours or so going over the Accounts a write the review here - so perhaps more will come out as i dig deeper later on.

But in this post we will review the 2023 Consolidated Financial Statements of Pearl Abyss Iceland.

You can access the Pearl Abyss Iceland 2024 Report & Accounts here and also I have a page on this blog that hosts all the Pearl Abyss Iceland from 2019 / CCP from 2013 to 2018 here.   They can also all be found and downloaded for free from the Iceland Company Register.


Lets first be clear as to what we are looking at in this post

. . . . . . or skip this section if you are happy to go with the flow rather than being taken through a crash course in Companies vs Subsidiaries vs Group Accounting.  Personally, I love it.

In the Icelandic Company Register system there are 3 sets of Accounts that are of interest.

the Accounts for the company CCP.

the Accounts for the company Pearl Abyss Iceland.

the Consolidated Financial statements of Pearl Abyss Iceland Group.


Quick lesson on Group vs Company, (or Consolidated Financial Statements vs Company Accounts).

The company CCP is based in Iceland and sells the game Eve Online globally as well as develops and markets the game.  It also owns other companies based such as CCP North America, CCP Games UK Ltd, CCP Platform ehf and CCP Ad Astra ehf.

The Accounts for the company CCP will only have the revenues and costs of the company CCP.  The profits and losses of these companies it owns will be included in one summary line - i.e. if CCP Games UK makes sales they will not be included in the CCP sales.  So we wont get the full picture and indeed the company Accounts of CCP.  And this will be further clouded by any sales CCP makes to these companies which is meaningless to us.

We want to look at the combined revenues and costs of CCP, not just the Icelandic entity (though it is the most important).  i.e. we want to add all the sales of CCP and all the companies it owns to get the total sales number and we want to eliminate any intercompany trading it does.

Pearl Abyss Iceland owns CCP in Iceland since it bought it back in 2019.

Again, the Accounts of Pearl Abyss Iceland will only have the revenues and costs of Pearl Abyss Iceland and a summary line showing the profits of CCP.

However, the Consolidated Financial Statements of Pearl Abyss Iceland has the combined revenues and combined costs of Pearl Abyss Iceland and all the companies its owns (so CCP and all the companies that CCP owns).  It also eliminates any revenues and costs between the companies it owns (I.e any cross border charges).  This is what we are after.

One slight wrinkle, Pearl Abyss Iceland also owns Pearl Abyss Iceland Investment and so its revenues and costs will also be included in the Consolidated Financial Statements.

Therefore, from here on in we are reviewing the Consolidated Financial Statements of Pearl Abyss Iceland.

From here on in we will call the Consolidated Financial Statements of Pearl Abyss Iceland as CCP.


Bottom line Loss of CCP (again)

There overall loss was $19.4m which compares to a loss of $18.8m in 2023, $19.0m in 2022 (and then we also had the $50m impairment write off), $7.9m in 2021, $1.3m in 2020 but a $13.6m profit in 2019 and then a small $0.7m loss in 2018 after being bought by Pearl Abyss.

The total losses since being bought by Pearl Abyss in 2018 are $106m = $56m trading losses + $50m impairment write off.

I greatly suspect this was not the plan when Pearl Abyss bought CCP in 2018 for $226m (there was also an earnout of $200m but the targets were never met so it was never paid).

To date, the total cost of CCP to Pearl Abyss has been $226 + $106 = $332m.

$19m loss in 2024

Management say that "this result is primarily due to deliberate and increased investment in multiple active development projects — including EVE Frontier, EVE Vanguard, and the Carbon open-source platform — which are scheduled to enter key release phases from mid-2025 onwards".

Summary

• Revenues were up 8% to $60m ($56m)
• Game revenues were up an impressive 13% to $55m and so back at 2020 levels but not yet the all time high in 2013 of $72m
• All Regions grew
• I suspect the 13% rise in game revenues correlates with the rise in paying account numbers vs my estimated 30% decline in 2022-2023
• Europe is declining as a % of Revenues
• Costs rose 6% in 2024 on top of a 9% rise in 2023
• Salaries are a steady 45% of total operating costs
• It is the pension / employee tax costs that brings it up to 59%
• The overall loss was $19.4m vs $18.8m in 2023
• Balance Sheet and Cashflows are cleaner in 2024
• Still Tokens on the Balance Sheet
• The Value of unused Plex (and i guess MCT) has gone up by almost 10% in 2024 despite all the efforts to reduce the hoarding
• Cash is down to $13m, they will need to raise more cash this year given i suspect they will remain loss making
• They can either raise cash by selling these tokens again or going over to South Korea to face their owners and perhaps hurtling back to put up subscription prices in a hurry!

 
Profit & Loss Account

Revenues rose 8% to $60.2m vs $56.0m 2023.

Gross profits rose 6.4% to $55.1m ($51.8m).

Hence the Gross Profit Margin fell from 92.5% t0 91.5%.  I suspect this is because the level of Royalties and licenses fell - more on that below.

Total Operating Costs were $83.9m vs $79.2m in 2023.  Therefore, Operating Costs have risen 6% on top of the 9% rise in 2023.

Government Grants added $6.6m to income in 2024 vs $6.2m in 2023.

Therefore the Operating Loss came in at $22.2m vs $21.2m in 2023.

And then interest costs, currency movements and taxes take the overall loss to $19.4m in 2024 vs a loss of $18.8m in 2023.

Revenues
 
Revenues rose 8% to $60.2m.

That is broadly what we expected quarterly updates Pearl Abyss were giving us.

The revenues from subscription and in-game sales rose an impressive 13% from $48.7m to $55.0m.  Given there has been no price rise then this would correlate with an increase in paying account numbers.  Though some way to go to catch up on the 30% loss of paying accounts (i estimated ) due to the 30% price increase back in May 2022.

So we are now back up to the recent peak of $55m game revenues in the pandemic (everyone was at home) year of 2020 but still some way to go for the $72m in 2013.

But revenues are clearly going in the right direction and for now are importantly driven by a rise in paying account numbers.

The decline in Royalties and licenses from $7.0m to $5.1m (and this was $10m back in 2021) is i suspect down to lower NetEase revenues in China being replaced by direct sales into China.  I am sort of guessing there but there is no obvious movement geographically to suggest the $2m decline in  Royalties and licenses sales obviously comes from China this time.

I am not sure what Revenues from sale of goods are (Fanfest items?) but they are deminimus now anyway.

But looking back up at that Geographic Revenues table - it seems Eve Online saw growth in every region and if we strip out the Revenues and licences we can include Asia in that statement also.

One thing that is interesting is that North America used to be 30% bigger than Europe, now it is almost double the size of Europe.  Perhaps currency plays a small part.

North America has always been around half of total Revenues.  What is going on here is that Europe is becoming a lower % of Revenues as time goes by as Asia / Rest of World grows.

Despite in 2024 Europe growing 14% vs North America a lower growth of 8%.

Gross Profit

The cost of actually running the game (as opposed to creating new code, marketing et al) is very low at around $5m in 2024 and $4m in 2023.

I suspect there is no cost attached to Royalties and licences there of the $5m cost is associated with the $55m game revenues which suggests the Eve Online is a 91% Gross Profit Margin business.

Operating Expenses

CCP now expense all their development costs (historical costs are still being held on the Balance Sheet and reduced over time).  This is a much cleaner way to account for these costs.

It would not be unrealistic for CCP to hold the costs of developing new games on the Balance Sheet and wait for the Revenues to be generated before realising those costs through the Profit & Loss Account - but this relies on these new games being successful and therefore profitable.

Costs have risen everywhere.  Overall, costs are up 6%, having been up 9% in 2023.

In these businesses the biggest cost is people, so we need to look at the above at the same time as looking at employee costs.  Much of the above lines of Operating Expenses will be people costs.

I have done some analysis which is interesting on all this:

The top rows is all data from current and historic Reports and Accounts.

Obviously i have to bring my politics into this some where - look at the bottom line.  This is the additional costs CCP must bear when they hire someone.  As well as an employees salary they also contribute to their pension funds and pay Employer Staff Taxes (in the UK this is called Employer National Insurance).  in 2024 for CCP this was 33% and was as low as 25% in 2020.  Hiring people has plenty of additional costs!

But, the main point of doing this was to observe that Salaries + these related costs as a % of total operating costs has generally been 55-59% and looks like it will be around 59% going forwards.  Salaries only as a % of total operating costs has been a remarkably steady 45%.

It looks like the average salary at CCP is $93k (hard to compare to prior years without knowing the mix changes in developers vs general staff vs marketing staff et al).

And Revenue per employee is $150k today.  It needs to be around $205k for CCP to be making some profits.  In other words, a 30% higher number.

But once again i am left with the observation that Costs are not the problem, they seem to be under control.  The problem is revenues which need to be $82m for the company to be back in profits = 30% higher than today.

And that really means paying account numbers need to be 30% higher.  It seems to me that a 5% sub price rise loses 5% of players = zero sum game.

Other Income

There is $5m-$6m of Other Income in each year which is Government Grants

Finance Costs

The Group had a $50m bank loan from Pearl Abyss itself in Korea (it used to be a bank loan but it was converted to a parent company loan in 2023).

A reasonable number of moving parts but the decline in interest cost is due to being charged 4.6% interest costs by Peal Abyss vs 4.8% by the bank + no longer paying a Guarantee fee.

Interest Income will have fallen because the cash levels have more than halved.

Foreign Currency

OK, we can't ignore this.  CCP i suspect has most of it costs in Icelandic Krona, great British Pounds and that Euro muck.  But only 28% of its Revenues are in GBP and Euros.

Lets for a moment assume the Asian currencies follow the USD - then we can say that 72% of the Revenues of this business are USD related vs lets say 90% of costs being non-USD related.

If the USD remains weak (it is down 8% vs Icelandic Krona year to date already) then this means lower revenues and because the costs move with GBP and Euros then costs wont fall at the same time.

Tax

Given the business makes a loss, in Accounting the loss is reduced by a tax rebate (in actual cash flows tax is still paid given this is a global business making sales across the world – somewhere there will be profits to tax).  This accounting rebate was $4.4m vs $2.9m in 2023.

Underlying operating loss

Add all that up and the underlying operating loss of the business fell from $18.8m to $19.4m

And this year it was driven by costs rising faster than revenues.

Therefore, if costs were somehow held flat in 2025, revenues would need to rise 30% to $83m for a profit to be made.

Balance Sheet

This year the Balance Sheet looks clean with, again, the notable exception of £37.5m long term "deferred revenue" - see below.

Non-current Assets are being depreciated as expected.

I don't see any crypto being created out of thin air this year in Intangible Assets.

Deferred Tax Assets are rising which is a function of the company generating loses and so having a "tax income" in the Profit & Loss Account.  That is not a cash item, no money is reclaimed from the Icelandic State.  Instead the "tax income" sits on the Balance Sheet as an asset and will be reduced down when the company starts making profits.

Current Assets look ok.

There seems to be a "Tax credit claim" growing to $9.4m in 2024 vs $6.2m in 2023.  Not sure what that would relate to?

Non-current liabilities has a couple of points to note.

The leases are effectively a capitalisation of the annual rents they pay for their buildings - looks ok.

The $50m borrowing is from Pearl Abyss, interest charged at 4.6%.

The $37.5m deferred revenues are proceeds from the sale of Token Warrants.  $10m was received in 2022 and $27.5m in 2023.

The notes in the Accounts spells it all out - CCP is developing a blockchain-based network and planning to issue crypto tokens on the network upon completion of the development:

Current Liabilities all look ok but lets look at the deferred income here because this gives us an idea of the amount of Omega / Plex in the game.

The $3.4m of Subscriptions is Omega that has been bought but not yet used.  It will convert to Revenues as it is used.  Accounting rules don't allow it to be recognised as Revenues before all this.

This is flat on 2023 despite a higher number of paying players.  That suggests that shorter term Omega is being purchased on average.

The In-game purchases not yet consumer i believe is Plex and i guess any real money purchases other than Omega that are not yet used.  This was higher at the end of 2024 vs 2023.  As this Plex etc is used up it will be converted into Revenues.

Cashflows

Profits are one thing but cash is real.

And the cashflow is clean this year.  A loss of $19.4m resulted in $19.4m less cash.

Nothing really to say here.  Nothing looks odd.

Other than at the start of the year the company had $33m cash and now has $13m cash.  The company will need a cash injection during the year - i don't think they will make profits this year and therefore i suspect they will burn though this $13m.

CEO Salary?

I am not here to speculate on someone’s remuneration so I will just put the item below with a few lines of text.

So, $0.9m was paid to the Directors.  I don’t think the Korean Board members will be taking any pay.  So this is the CEO and whoever else is not Korean on the Board.

One More Thing - Auditor's Fees

Firstly there are interim financial statements which we don't see.  We only see the Full Year Statements.

Secondly, and this is interesting, the fees for "Other Services" have risen by 120%.  The Auditors have clearly done some special work for the company.  Not sure what it is.