By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Following a disappointing financial report, Japanese video game maker Cave announced it will focus more on social games going forward. The company has an 18-year old history and is especially famous for its shoot’em ups aimed at a hardcore gamer audience (personally, I am a big fan)...
Tokyo-based Interspace and Takara Tomy Entamedia have announced “Transformers for GREE“, a social game based on the popular movie and toy franchise. Like so many new titles, Transformers for GREE will be a social card game. Players will be able to choose between various robots from the...
CyberAgent has announced that Ameba, its social networking and blogging platform, hit 20 million users across all related services at the end of last year. Ameba started off as a blogging platform in September 2004 and added various services like Ameba Pigg or Twitter clone Ameba Now over the years...
Tokyo-based mobile contents provider MTI is planning to launch a Mobage and GREE competitor. Dubbed entag!, the mobile social gaming platform is set to start operations on January 11. Not too surprisingly, membership will be free. As Mobage and GREE, entag! will offer a host of casual social games...
Nico Nico Douga, Japan’s answer to YouTube (but with a much stronger social element), is now counting 1.5 million paid members. Dwango’s video service hit the milestone on January 3. Nico Nico Douga hit 21 million users in May last year and reported 1 million paid users on October 13...
Another Japanese triple A video game brand is going social: it took a bit longer than announced last month, but Square Enix started offering Final Fantasy Brigade on Mobage today, a social game based on the super-popular RPG franchise. DeNA actually announced the title first back in October last...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry