By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Japan’s leading social gaming companies GREE, DeNA, Mixi, NHN, CyberAgent, and Dwango (which established an industry council back in March) have released a new set (Japanese only) of self-regulatory measures. Last month, the industry tackled just the kompu gacha mechanic in a guideline, but...
GREE has released details about their booth at the upcoming E3 in LA, after announcing their presence at the show back in February. Between June 5 and 7, GREE is planning to showcase a total of 26 games (including some new ones) and staff the booth with some high-level executives. The E3 lineup...
Apart from gacha (and complete gacha in particular), real-money trading is another area for which Japan’s social gaming industry has been under fire in recent months. What is real-money trading? Real-money trading (RMT) describes a phenomenon under which virtual items are being sold for real...
Earthquake in Japan’s social gaming industry today: a council of six major Japanese companies in this space today announced they will abolish the controversial “kompu gacha” (complete gacha) function from all of their titles by the end of May. No new games offering the mechanic...
With regulation possibly around the corner, that council six top Japanese social game makers and platforms formed last month has announced a first set of measures to react to the mounting criticism of the industry in Japanese media. The council consists of members...
GREE is introducing yet another measure against real-money trading of virtual items from its platform – following a task force, a set of automated tools, payment caps and a council with members from Japan’s top social gaming companies (see here, here, and here). The main driver here is...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry