By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
It’s a hit social game on GREE, and now CyberAgent has announced that COORDE MANIA+ has been ported over to Mixi. In the game, players take on the role of a “fashion coordinator” (essentially a stylist) and dress up avatars with virtual items and accessories (see screenshots...
Here are just a few key points (there is a lot more): Internationalization: As even the Japanese social gaming market is limited, both DeNA and GREE have to internationalize quickly. DeNA has decided to take the M&A route, as can be clearly seen by them acquiring ngmoco for $400 million plus a...
Rakuten has posted a press release in English about “Edy Autocharge”, a new feature that was added to the company’s Edy app on Android (“Edy” is a prepaid e-money service, more info here). With the new feature, a Rakuten user’s balance is checked every hour and once it falls beneath a...
CyberAgent announced it has released a new social game on Mobage this week, a “social office worker simulation” called Gyakuten Salaryman. Not too surprisingly, the player takes on the role of an office worker in the game and is supposed to raise in the ranks as fast as possible. For...
The trend in Japan to port more and more social games from feature phones over to smartphones (and start with the hit games first) continues. CyberAgent recently brought Hoshizora Bar Town (Starry Sky Bar Town) to the App Store (free download), its popular cocktail bar simulation. The iPhone...
The smartphone revolution Japan is seeing can’t be ignored by Rakuten, the country’s biggest online mall. After having released a special shopping app for the iPhone in February, Rakuten just released a counterpart for Android. Rakuten says there are two things especially worth...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry