By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
GREE accelerates its smartphone development. The mobile social games company just announced 15 new games by third-party developers have been added to its Android/iPhone-optimized mobile website. Partners include companies like Sega, gumi and Tonchidot (full list in Japanese here). More information...
DeNA today announced it will make it possible for the 2 million users of Yahoo Mobage, its PC-based social games platform run with Yahoo Japan, to pay via online banking. The obvious goal is to remove friction for players paying real money for virtual in-game or avatar-related items (and to boost...
Japanese web company Nifty (3828) plans to capitalize on Japan’s social games market boom. Nifty today said it will help local social game developers to offer their titles outside Japan. Services will include cloud computing and support in local payment solutions, translations and advertising...
It looks like GREE is following up on their announcement from last summer to accelerate its internationalization efforts. The company just set up a special job section on their official website, looking for people to hire all over the globe (engineers, smartphone developers, HR managers, PR people...
GREE is expanding its business from social games to online ads. The company just acquired Tokyo-based ad exchange service Atlantis for $26 million. The company will be turned into a 100% GREE subsidiary. Atlantis was founded in 2007 and has a 15-people team. With the acquisition, GREE wants to...
DeNA today announced a new way to monetize its mobile social gaming platform Mobage-town: monthly subscriptions for virtual items. The aim here is make it easier for Mobage-town users to spend money on virtual items for avatars and inside games: instead of paying per item, DeNA’s new...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry