By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Social games based on wrestling? They are coming: Fire Pro Wrestling, a video game series that started in Japan in 1989, is getting a social version on Mobage. Maker Spike actually started offering “Fire Pro Wrestling in Mobage” today (the title is available exclusively on Mobage for...
GREE stock has lost over 5% at the Tokyo Stock Exchange today (after the lawsuit against DeNA), but it did better than its rival: DeNA’s stock lost 6.6%, and hit 2,454 yen, the lowest price this year. GREE’s market cap now stands at US$8.3 billion, while that of DeNA amounts to...
GREE today announced it filed a lawsuit against its rival DeNA, seeking damages of at least US$13 million. Lawsuits (both corporate and private) are rare in Japan, but GREE is accusing DeNA of still putting pressure on third-party game developers and other partners to not offer games on GREE but...
The video game industry in Japan is slowly shifting towards the lucrative social games sector, and a new case in point is Samurai Spirits (Samurai Showdown outside Japan). The popular fighting game series started in 1993 on video game platform Neo Geo, and now maker SNK Playmore has rolled out the...
DeNA‘s US subsidiary ngmoco has inked a deal with Germany-based mobile company net mobile AG (Japan’s biggest telco NTT Docomo holds a 80% stake in net mobile) to help Mobage enter more countries. The German company explains: net mobile AG will help place Mobage, DeNA Group’s...
One of the biggest third-party game providers on Mobage, Tokyo-based gloops, announced that its social baseball card game on Mobage has hit 2 million registered users on November 18. “Dainekkyo!! Pro Yakyu Card” was released on August 18, meaning the game took 93 days to reach that milestone...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry