One Black Desert Online costume will set you back $32

Black Desert Online is not free-to-play, and it sure isn't free to customise, either.

Black Desert Online has adopted a Guild Wars-like pay once, play forever business model for its western launch, supported by an item store.

This store mostly sells vanity items, so there's no need to get involved with it - but if you do, gosh: you're looking at a serious investment.

Ten Ton Hammer has crunched the numbers on the MMO's premium currency, Pearls, and discovered some astounding price tags - $32 for a character-specific bind-on-equip costume and weapon skin set, for example.

That's pretty egregious when compared to $10 for an account-bound Guild Wars 2 costume, and it's half the cost of a new triple-A release in the US. As well as the fairly standard XP boosts you might expect, some of the items also have durability and statistic buffs - a fact which has caused some alarm among players worried it may give rich rivals an advantage.

Mini-pets are also pretty expensive at $9-$11, and are pretty essential to play - although some can be earned in-game, so it's not essential that you buy in.

Hit the source link for more item prices and a conversion table of how much a whack of Pearls costs in each territory.