South Korean developer Pearl Abyss has reportedly given every employee a bonus of five million won, roughly $3,400 USD, following strong sales of Crimson Desert.
The payout is tied to the game’s commercial performance, with reports linking the figure to a milestone of five million copies sold. A second round of bonuses is rumored to follow at a later date, though that hasn’t been officially confirmed.
Pearl Abyss is estimated to employ between 700 and 800 people. That puts the total cost of the company-wide payout somewhere between $2.4m and $2.7m, or about 3.5 to four billion won.
For context, five million won sits comfortably above South Korea’s median monthly wage, which hovers around 3.5 to 3.75 million won.
Crimson Desert launched as Pearl Abyss’ big swing beyond Black Desert, the MMORPG that put the studio on the global map. The new title is a large-scale fantasy action-adventure with open-world exploration, cinematic combat, and the kind of high-end visuals Pearl Abyss is known for.
The studio has also kept a steady stream of patches and updates rolling out since launch, including recent tweaks to difficulty settings.
Cash bonuses tied to game sales aren’t unheard of in the industry, but they hit differently right now. The past two years have been a bloodbath of layoffs, studio closures, and restructuring across publishers big and small. A developer cutting checks to staff because a game actually did well is the kind of headline that has become rare.
