By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
CyberAgent quietly inked deal with Disney Japan to license some characters for Ameba Pigg (Ameba Pico outside Japan), CyberAgent’s wildly successful virtual world. To be more specific, CyberAgent created a “Disney Town” within Ameba Pigg, which looks like this (pictures via...
DeNA and CyberAgent today announced they will jointly launch an ad network specifically for the smartphone versions of Mobage (DeNA’s mobile social game platform) and Ameba (CyberAgent’s blogging and social networking platform). It’s one of the biggest alliances in Japan’s...
Another sign that Facebook Japan is becoming more and more visible: Tokyo-based Internet company GMO has raised (via their investment subsidiary GMO Venture Partners) a fund exclusively for startups working on e-commerce solutions on Facebook (“F-Commerce”). Initially, GMO is ready to...
Cell phone novels have been big in Japan for years, and GREE now has a dating simulation that’s been jointly developed by Tokyo-based social game maker Mobile Factory and Mahou no i-rando, a major Japanese cell phone novel site. Dubbed Watashi Senzoku, the game is mainly targeted at girls who...
Last year, CyberAgent (its investment subsidiary CyberAgent Ventures, to be more precise) launched Startups2010, a program that was supposed to identify promising tech startups in Japan (report on Asiajin – actually the company started in 2009). And now CyberAgent has announced it’s...
One of Japan’s most famous boy bands, 14-member all-male pop dance group Exile, served as an inspiration for a new social game that just landed on GREE. Dubbed Ex-Samurai Senzoku, the game lets players team up with a samurai (an Exile member in avatar form) and conquer towns in medieval Japan...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry