It has been a very rare occurrence for a new mobile game in Japan to break into the top 10 grossing rankings (and to stay there, at least for a while) for a very, very long time now.
I would say Japan’s last real “mega blockbuster” was Fate Grand Order by Aniplex, an RPG that launched in summer 2015 and that made billion of dollars for the Sony subsidiary since.
There have been a handful of big commercial hits in the meantime, i.e. Pokemon Go clone Dragon Quest Walk by Colopl (launched in 2019), horse racing extravaganza Uma Musume by Cyberagent group company Cygames (2021), or action RPG Heaven Burns Red by GREE (2022).
The latest entry in this series of hit apps managing to break into the top grossing charts in Japan is Memento Mori, an idle RPG from little known (but publicly traded) developer Bank Of Innovation.
(For brevity, I will not go into the specifics of the game such as monetization mechanics or gameplay here.)
Bank Of Innovation Scores A Surprise Hit
After global release on October 18, Memento Mori quickly climbed up the Japanese grossing rankings and even managed to top them in the early days, ahead of Japan’s forever blockbusters such as Monster Strike by Mixi or Puzzle & Dragons by GungHo Online Entertainment.
Needless to say, Bank Of Innovation’s stock price went up like a rocket:
As you can see, the price has hovered just over 3,000 yen pre-launch before peaking at 15,800 yen on November 1, going down and stabilizing since.
Memento Mori Is A Multi-Million-Dollar Hit Game Already
In a rare move especially for a Japanese mobile game company, Bank Of Innovation yesterday provided details about Memento Mori’s financial performance during their earnings call – so rare that I felt the need to share the juiciest tidbits below.
Billings (numbers rounded by the company)*:
- October 18-23:
1.8B yen (US$13M**) – with 1M DL by Oct. 23 at 0 advertising cost - October 24-31:
1.7B yen (US$12M) – with 1.25M DL by Oct. 31 at 100M yen (US$710k) advertising cost - November 1-10:
1.3B yen (US$9.3M) – with 1.49M DL by Nov. 10 at 200M yen (US$1.42M) advertising cost
In other words, Memento Mori is a title for a niche audience – but one that spends very aggressively on its high-priced gacha loot boxes.
* Memento Mori has also been available on Japanese PC gaming platform DMM since day one, but contribution is likely small.
** Note the yen has been falling drastically over 2021, US$ conversion as of November 15, 2022 Japan time.
