By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
One current trend to be observed Japan’s mobile gaming industry is that the era of the classic card battler genre is coming to an end. In its place, “classic” RPGs with a card battle and other social elements are starting to pop up as of late, often with impressive production...
Capcom (9697) released social RPG “Street Fighter x All Capcom” in Japan, an original RPG specifically designed for smartphones. The game features characters from over 20 titles the company released over the years. Street Fighter x All Capcom is one of the many products the company...
Social networking services in Japan never really put much emphasis on chatting for several reasons: even the biggest homegrown social network Mixi (2121) waited years before releasing such a feature in 2012. Mixi’s move was caused by the meteoric rise of LINE, and other social services...
GungHo Online Entertainment (3765), the company behind Japan’s biggest smartphone game Puzzle & Dragons, has published its financial report for Q3 (July-September 2013) yesterday. And things are not looking as good as last quarter (note: there are no English-language documents available). To be...
Mega-popular communication app LINE has come a long way since launch in summer 2011 in Japan, with many people speculating about a possible IPO coming soon. And now the cat is out of the bag, it seems: Japanese business daily The Nikkei is reporting on its website it learned LINE Corp., the company...
Colopl (3668), the Tokyo-based company which I recently profiled as the biggest mobile game maker you never heard of, is on a roll. The stock has been going up and up as of late, making Colopl reach a staggering US$3.4 billion market cap today at the Tokyo Stock Exchange (it was even higher a few...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry