By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
CyberAgent finally rolled out its long awaited social gaming network, which is directly positioned against GREE and DeNA‘s Mobage on the Japanese market. The network, which has no distinct brand name, is the biggest competitor GREE and Mobage are seeing since Mixi opened its site to game...
Korean gaming powerhouse Nexon (headquartered and listed in Japan) announced it will acquire Tokyo-based mobile social game maker inBlue. Founded in 2010, the startup currently runs a total of six games on GREE and Mobage (on both feature phones and smartphones). Nexon itself, which already...
Following E3, GREE is ready to showcase their newest titles at yet another game industry event: this time, the company will have a booth at the gamescom exhibition in Cologne, Germany (August 15-19). First held in 2009, the event takes place once a year and is one of the largest of its kind (even...
Rage of Bahamut, the social card battle game offered through Mobage‘s international network, has proven to be a smash hit – and a money printing machine. It’s not known how successful exactly (from a financial perspective) the game is, but there are a few pointers that lead to a...
Apparently, things aren’t going too well between DeNA and Namco Bandai, two companies that entered a spectacular partnership right after the Tokyo Game Show last year. Following the deal, Namco Bandai rolled out a number of hit titles on Mobage, i.e. Tales of Kizna, Idolmaster, and mega hit...
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...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry