By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Yahoo Mobage, the PC-based social gaming platform run by Yahoo Japan and DeNA (Mobage on mobile phones), passed the 4 million user mark on May 17. It took Yahoo Mobage 51 days to get to the first million members, 53 more days to add another one million, 61 days more to reach 3 million users, and...
Question: Who is the daily deal market leader in Japan? (on Quora.com) Answer: Piku is the first daily deal service in Japan (launched in April 2010), but it’s not the market leader. Groupon Japan is leading the local market, after Groupon bought Qpod, a Japanese clone in August 2010 (and...
When DeNA announced in December that Samsung will ship all of their future Android handsets worldwide with Mobage pre-installed, one country was excluded: Japan, DeNA’s home market. But now DeNA confirmed that Mobage will land on Samsung’s Android handsets distributed in Japan, too...
DeNA has, for the first time, bought a company in Europe. Amsterdam-based Rough Cookie, a social games maker DeNA’s ngmoco has been collaborating with since 2008, was acquired through an all-cash deal today. Rough Cookie follows the acquisitions of Icebreaker, Astro Ape, Gameview, and ngmoco...
The earthquake that hit Japan on March 11 hit Japan’s web industry in different ways. Kakaku.com says that they suffered badly in the days after the quake (-30% daily users for Kakaku itself, and even -40% for restaurant service Tabelog) but saw a quick recovery as far as traffic is concerned...
Tokyo-based Genki has announced “Gang Warz” for Mobage for Smartphone, a social game for Android that looks much like a shameless clone of Grand Theft Auto. In the game, players take on the role of a street gang member whose gang battles it out with other Mobage players and who has to...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry