By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
If the amount of printed books on Facebook (business guides, how-to books etc.) is any indication for the popularity of the social network in Japan, then it’s starting to look better for Facebook over here. I visited my local book store today and counted a total of 10 Japanese books that were...
Mixi just announced that from today, it will be possible to register on the social network for owners of Android users. Until now, Mixi required a Japanese cell phone number and cell phone email address on a feature phone for registration (iPhone users have been able to register with their...
Facebook Japan still has one or two things to learn about the local social media scene, it seems. Tokyo-based tech blog Asiajin (I am a writer) is reporting that a few decisions made by Facebook leave the Japanese confused about the company’s terms of use. Facebook is trying to enforce the...
Mixi caused a splash last month, when it announced its decision to change its role from a “pure” social network provider to social network and social game provider (at least to some extent). It chose CyberAgent as a partner in a joint venture that will exclusively produce social apps...
What percentage of sales are DeNA (Mobage) and GREE generating through sales coming from their own games as opposed to those from third-party game providers? That’s a question I get asked regularly. Both DeNA and GREE publicly break down how much they are making through ads as opposed to...
Not only GREE, but also CyberAgent is aggressively hiring people at the moment, if a report by The Nikkei Marketing Journal (February 18 edition) is to be believed. The paper says that the Ameba provider wants to have 500 engineers (programmers) in its workforce by September 2012, up from the 200...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry