By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
GREE has finally come out with a few details regarding that unified/global/mobile social gaming platform it plans to launch next year. The news item is actually so big that I decided to publish it on TechCrunch: Japan’s GREE To Challenge Facebook And Zynga As Global Social Gaming Platform In 2012...
One key reason why Japan’s social gaming platforms are so successful is frictionless payment. Both DeNA and GREE have put a lot of effort in optimizing this part of their business in the past, and now GREE made it even easier to pay for virtual goods. GREE users in Japan that don’t want...
I am giving presentations on Japan’s social gaming industry from time to time, anything from granular analyses of very specific topics to 101-style presentations. A few weeks ago, I prepared some slides on social games in Japan in general to shed light on a industry that’s very hard for...
RockYou Asia won’t be called Rockyou Asia anymore: according to a report on Japanese news site Social Game Info, the US company renamed its Tokyo subsidiary to “Chocobot Games” (or “Choco Bot Games”, there is no English transcript yet). I have no idea why RockYou Asia...
Tokyo-based social game maker gumi announced it has raised a whopping two billion yen (US$25.7) from a total of six investors today. The fresh money comes from JAFCO, DBJ Capital, Shinsei Bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and Tecmo Koei. Gumi says they have now reached a US$154 million post-money...
Major Tokyo-based social game provider (and DeNA partner) gloops has announced the establishment of two offices outside Japan. The company is currently operating some very successful mobile social games on Mobage in Japan. gloops International is located in San Francisco, while the Vietnam office...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry