sorry but tera 2 years before shut down was in worse shape than 2024 black desert

also steam chartz show 20000 player in december, it mean december 2023 is the best december in black desert history

and which mmorpg going to threat black desert? only competitor against black desert are old mmorpg like wow, ff14, guild war 2

new is lost ark and i dont know what happened with new world 

Ashes of Creation is due out this year 

ArcheAge 2 is in the works and has been, its adopting a more BDO Style combat and theme 

We've got Thrones of Liberty which I doubt will contend with this game and likely a ton of unannounced games, realistically this genre (mmo's) are stagnant. No innovation, no creativity and the biggest reason being due to players lacking the interest or will to play with others, I guess thats what happens though. Multiplayer went mainstream and since it became mainstream, no one cares anymore so why develop for it? 

Here are your numbers of BDO Steam.. i have put the exact same numbers of steamcharts in excel and made a diagramm.. but to make it more exact i took the peak(highest) player numbers per month, instead of the average.. but the results were pretty much the same anyways.. only couldnt figure the exact shown text of the date from the data input.. but if you can read a graph or scale or diagramm, than you know what it shows.. 

but to maybe adjust my statement a little bit.. the last 3 years since PA split with Kakao it might not much decreased, it rather stagnated now the numbers, with a slight decrease.. were the numbers in the years before rapidly increased a few times, which boosted the average numbers on the whole scale..

now they sit around on their average player base with not much of a increase and also not a meaningful decrease.. but the downtrend is slighty visible.. 

BDO Lead by PA (Developer)

BDO Lead by Kakao (Publisher)

If you don´t believe this numbers, go search some other more exact numbers and tell me if i am wrong or maybe correct me.. i am very open for critics :) 

My conclusion:

I can only appeal on PA, to not sit around and relax now on this rather average updates which are only simplifications and QoL features and copy-paste contents..

the only new really good content from last years is imo Arena of Solare, this is really something what brings the community together this kind of example of content.. this seems to me accessible, balanced (statwise) and players can play instantly together on a competition in a small group and even improve their own gameplay in PVP..

and making the Old-Moon Horse Grandprix more rewarding was also a very important part of making the game again contentwise more meaningful..

but if they won´t bring out more meaningful interactive content as the above, not only for singleplayer, than at some point people won´t hop any longer on the Pearlshop-Train and might not come back anymore from their breaks..

and tbh i think majority of the numbers in any statistics are AFK players.. if people start to realize, there is nothing going forward anymore on contentwise, than the numbers will start to drop steadily.. since i think not only active players care, also afk players care and only wait for better content to come.. i think afk players even care more for meaningful content to expected to come, than active players.. i think active players might have sometimes already accepted the state of the game as it is and don´t care what is to come.. 

If I were PA, I would go all in on Guild updates. Guild content, Team Content, party content, things that players could do together, grind spots, events, mini bosses, etc.

At this point if I was PA. I would release sale after sale after sale after sale to convince those that remain to spend massive amounts of money. Then I would ninja change the gear enhancement foundation to again convince people to spend more money.

Then I would systematically continue to release even more OVERPOWERED PvP gear. That have an much lower base chance to succeed than anything else before it. After that I would start giving out free PEN equipment that is two generation weaker than current BIS gear, and call it "catchup mechanics" to lure new players in to the game to convince them to spend money before ultimately quiting after learning the truth.

After that I would pay streamers and content creators on social media platforms, to advertise the game. And tweek their enhancement success rates on the backend. And give potential newbies a false scense of being able to progress to endgame easliy. 

Then I would moniter the newbies coming into the game. And temporarily tweak their enhancement succee rate to give them one free piece of current BIS gear. After that I would sit back and watch the money flow into company and it's shareholders accounts, and laugh at the naive gamers that fell for such a ploy. 

That is what I would objectively do if I was PA. No feelings, just cold calculating actions to make the most money off of the product. While spend the least amount of money and resources.