By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Social network analytics tool Socialbakers still says Facebook has 4.6 million users in Japan for some reason, but Facebook Japan itself now claims it has 5 million active users in this country (active=all users who logged in at least once in the last 30 days). TechCrunch Japan reported the newest...
First Zynga Japan shuts down 2 social games on Mixi, then Playfish/EA does the same with Restaurant City, and now it’s RockYou Asia‘s turn: American social game makers are having a hard time in Japan (hint: don’t come here if you don’t have anything unique to offer). And...
And yet another games studio gets snatched up by DeNA: today, DeNA announced it plans to acquire Punch Entertainment, a Hanoi-based game studio that’s owned by a Palo-Alto based company of the same name (website). Until now, the American HQ was responsible for design, art, engineering and QA...
I had the opportunity to speak at the so-called Tofu Project x Open Network Lab Day earlier this week in Tokyo. Approximately 150 people came to the event, which was sponsored by seed accelerator Open Network Lab and JP Morgan Japan. If you missed the event, here is a video of me speaking about...
If you still needed proof that Kaito Royale, the No. 1 title on Mobage, is Japan’s biggest social game (over 10 million registered users), here’s another hint: as probably the first social game in the world, Kaito Royale will be turned into a TV series. As in the game, there will be...
Konami has announced the user base of their social games across GREE and DeNA‘s Mobage has passed the 10 million mark at the end of last month. Their biggest hit is Dragon Collection, a social collectible card game, that is close to occupying the No. 1 spot on GREE for an entire year straight...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry