GREE has announced its line-up of Unity-powered iOS and Android social games for this summer (in Japan). In March this year, GREE partnered up with the 3D games tool development maker to make the Unity plug-in part of the GREE SDK. Personally, I am a big fan of what Unity is doing (Gamasutra just...
JETRO Event In SF On Social Networks and Casual Games In Japan And The US
I will be in the US (namely San Francisco and LA) for a few days next month to visit various companies and do other things. By coincidence, the JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization) will be holding an interesting event during that time, on July 29, in San Francisco: Social Networks and Casual...
Mixi’s Social Banner Ad Campaign Worked: 2.13 Million Users Engaged, CTR Up 11-16 Times [Social Networks]
According to an email I received today from Mixi (they didn’t post the information on their website for some reason), the NIKEiD social banner ad campaign they started earlier this month on their site worked. Does this pave the way to another channel of monetization for Japan’s biggest...
Rakuten Ichiba Now Linked With Thai E-Commerce Platform TARAD [E-Commerce]
Rakuten is continuing its aggressive internationalization: the company today created a special section on Thailand’s leading e-commerce site, TARAD.com (which Rakuten took over in 2009), that allows Japanese users to buy Thai products – in Japanese, directly from Thailand-based merchants...
Report: Japan’s Social Gaming Market To Balloon To $3.8 Billion In 2013
I tried to answer the question “How Big Is Japan’s Social Gaming Market” back in February by aggregating numbers from three different sources. And now Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities in Tokyo has issued a new report with their own findings regarding future growth of...
DeNA Scores Hit iOS Game: Infinity Blade Goes Social On Mobage [Social Games]
First Professor Layton, now DeNA has announced it scored another hit title for Mobage: Infinity Blade, the mega hit game for iOS, is scheduled to hit Mobage for smartphones in the fall of this year. The press release mentions this will be the case in Japan, but I am expecting DeNA to release the...