Crimson Desert's Game of the Year Odds Plummet to 5% After Mixed Reviews; Jason Schreier Highlights Betting Market Reaction
The recent launch of the new game has elicited a mixed response from both players and investors.
Pearl Abyss's project, Crimson Desert, which recently hit the market, has received "mixed" reviews from both gaming journalists and Steam users.
Renowned Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier highlighted a significant shift in the betting markets: following Crimson Desert's official release, its chances of winning the "Game of the Year" award have dramatically fallen by sixfold.
Earlier this month, betting sites had assessed Crimson Desert's odds of becoming 'Game of the Year' at 30%, placing it second only to Grand Theft Auto VI at 45%. However, this figure has now plummeted to a concerning 5%.
Schreier further elaborated on the situation, adding:
For the past few months, Crimson Desert was heavily hyped on platforms like YouTube and TikTok, where content creators lauded it as the 'Second Coming,' artificially inflating expectations for a game that, in Schreier's view, could never live up to such enormous hype. This has happened with other games before, but in 2026, one can actually place bets on such outcomes.
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