TheRetroArcade
Veteran
Posts: 1,989
Joined: Feb 2026
Joined: Feb 2026
Let's get weird.
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Every Friday
GamesRadar+
Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.
Every Thursday
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Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.
Every Friday
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From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
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Once a month
SFX
Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!
Last week: I found a good excuse to wheel out our beloved Big Geralt image in my RPG column.
This week: Crimson Desert has taken over my life. No, please, don't send help. I'm having a lovely time.
A strange narrative regarding Crimson Desert started to sprout up after the reviews for Pearl Abyss's peculiar RPG first appeared—that it was somehow a disappointment. The very respectable 78 Metacritic score was held up as evidence of this, implying that a game is only great if it garners universal acclaim.
This aggregated review score quickly became a cudgel wielded by timid investors. The share price of Pearl Abyss dropped by almost 30%. Was this because it was a bad game? No, of course not. But in the world of speculative investments, where trading is based on soothsaying, not achieving 90+ scores across the board implied something had gone terribly wrong.
After Seoul Economic Daily's story on the share price broke, that quickly became the story. The Korean business site framed it as a response to "disappointing preview reviews", or as we'd call them, "reviews". When Insider Gaming picked up the story, it said "Crimson Desert might be all style and no substance". Eurogamer, meanwhile, claimed that "enthusiasm may have waned" (it hadn't), and that reviews were "sitting at a very middling average" (they weren't).
It was painful to watch, because it's obviously such bullshit. The share price and its Mixed review status on Steam were being treated as immutable, when these things always fluctuate. Investors are notoriously fearful creatures, and early user reviews are typically knee-jerk reactions.
And we're talking about a massive, eccentric game with wild ambitions; it was always going to be at least a little bit divisive at launch. But it's also been entirely dominating the videogame discourse since the first reviews went up. This game is utterly fascinating. There was no way it wasn't going to do well.
Only a few days after all the doomsaying, Crimson Desert is now sitting at Very Positive on Steam, and Pearl Abyss announced that it's already shifted 3 million copies. And what a big surprise: Pearl Abyss's shares have climbed up 26% since that announcement.
It's been incredibly well received, then. That's the story. And this shouldn't be a surprise—especially for PC gamers. We love an obtuse weirdo over here, and we always h...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
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Every Friday
GamesRadar+
Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.
Every Thursday
GTA 6 O'clock
Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.
Every Friday
Knowledge
From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Every Thursday
The Setup
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
Every Wednesday
Switch 2 Spotlight
Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.
Every Saturday
The Watchlist
Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.
Once a month
SFX
Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!
Last week: I found a good excuse to wheel out our beloved Big Geralt image in my RPG column.
This week: Crimson Desert has taken over my life. No, please, don't send help. I'm having a lovely time.
A strange narrative regarding Crimson Desert started to sprout up after the reviews for Pearl Abyss's peculiar RPG first appeared—that it was somehow a disappointment. The very respectable 78 Metacritic score was held up as evidence of this, implying that a game is only great if it garners universal acclaim.
This aggregated review score quickly became a cudgel wielded by timid investors. The share price of Pearl Abyss dropped by almost 30%. Was this because it was a bad game? No, of course not. But in the world of speculative investments, where trading is based on soothsaying, not achieving 90+ scores across the board implied something had gone terribly wrong.
After Seoul Economic Daily's story on the share price broke, that quickly became the story. The Korean business site framed it as a response to "disappointing preview reviews", or as we'd call them, "reviews". When Insider Gaming picked up the story, it said "Crimson Desert might be all style and no substance". Eurogamer, meanwhile, claimed that "enthusiasm may have waned" (it hadn't), and that reviews were "sitting at a very middling average" (they weren't).
It was painful to watch, because it's obviously such bullshit. The share price and its Mixed review status on Steam were being treated as immutable, when these things always fluctuate. Investors are notoriously fearful creatures, and early user reviews are typically knee-jerk reactions.
And we're talking about a massive, eccentric game with wild ambitions; it was always going to be at least a little bit divisive at launch. But it's also been entirely dominating the videogame discourse since the first reviews went up. This game is utterly fascinating. There was no way it wasn't going to do well.
Only a few days after all the doomsaying, Crimson Desert is now sitting at Very Positive on Steam, and Pearl Abyss announced that it's already shifted 3 million copies. And what a big surprise: Pearl Abyss's shares have climbed up 26% since that announcement.
It's been incredibly well received, then. That's the story. And this shouldn't be a surprise—especially for PC gamers. We love an obtuse weirdo over here, and we always h...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?