By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
It took them a while, but GREE today announced the release of smartphone versions of three of their hit social games, namely fishing game “Tsuri Star” monster-raising game “Monpla” (Monster Planet) battle action game “Kaizoku Koukoku Columbus” (Pirate Kingdom...
DeNA has announced something unusual yesterday: the social games company plans to hire between 50 to 100 employees coming from areas in Japan that were hit by the big earthquake from March 11. DeNA’s motivation is to do their part in supporting the victims of the disaster, following their 100...
A quite good-looking RPG was added to mobile social gaming platform Mobage today, “S.U.N Episode Mobile”, a special version of Soul of the Ultimate Nation (an online fantasy MMORPG for Windows PCs). Made by Korean gaming company Webzen, the PC game was first launched in various Asian...
On March 10, just one day before the big earthquake hit Japan, Mixi launched a promotion campaign on Japanese TV. But on the day of the quake, Mixi pulled the spots and is now introducing a total of six (entirely new) commercials on its website. The overall idea here is to explain how easy it is to...
Zynga Japan today introduced a new CEO, a Japanese person this time: Kenji Matsubara, who previously led video game company Tecmo Koei, will take over the role from Robert Goldberg on May 9. Goldberg was sent over to Japan from Zynga proper, after the company bought Tokyo-based social games maker...
Following a small hiccup, Japan’s largest social network Mixi today announced the Mixi iPhone app was updated and is now ready for download in the App Store. While the screenshots Mixi released look great (I will try the app out myself very soon), the first reviews that are currently landing...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry