By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Mega-popular communication app LINE has come a long way since launch in summer 2011 in Japan, with many people speculating about a possible IPO coming soon. And now the cat is out of the bag, it seems: Japanese business daily The Nikkei is reporting on its website it learned LINE Corp., the company...
Colopl (3668), the Tokyo-based company which I recently profiled as the biggest mobile game maker you never heard of, is on a roll. The stock has been going up and up as of late, making Colopl reach a staggering US$3.4 billion market cap today at the Tokyo Stock Exchange (it was even higher a few...
Japan’s biggest smartphone game Puzzle & Dragons is now boasting over 20 million registered users in the country, maker GungHo Online Entertainment (3765) announced today. While this is a pretty impressive milestone, this chart from news site Social Game Info shows that growth is slowing...
In today’s smartphone gaming world, GREE (3632) and Mobage operator DeNA (2432) have one thing in common: following numerous attempts, they both still have no big (first-party) app-based hit in their portfolio. As a reaction, during the last financial call, DeNA said it will pump out around...
Social gaming juggernaut GREE (3632) has clearly been having trouble in recent months: the last financial quarter was pretty weak (by GREE’s standards), some once promising first-party games have been quietly closed over the summer, international business was cut down on, and the...
You could call it a clever marketing idea, total nonsense or a sign of how mature the Japanese social gaming industry is, but the day has come: Japan has a credit card that’s connected to a mobile gaming platform, as DeNA (2432) has released a Mobage credit card today. To be more precise, the...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry