By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Unmei No Clan Battle (“The Clan Battle Of Fate”), a mobile social RPG released by Tokyo-based social game maker Pokelabo and Sega today, is off to a terrific start. The iOS title is currently the top free app in the Japanese App Store and shot up to No. 7 in the ranking of the top...
There can be no question that the quality of social games in Japan, from a technical standpoint, is rising. Case in point: Buddy Monster, a 3D social RPG that just hit Mobage. Even though the name is terrible, the game itself actually looks great: after all, Buddy Monster is the brain child of Yuji...
Japan is the only country in the world where social games are being advertised on national TV on a regular basis. The newest title to get the TV promotion treatment is Final Fantasy Brigade, Square Enix’ first social version of the popular RPG franchise. Final Fantasy Brigade is doing very...
Why are GREE and Mobage operator DeNA monetizing better than global social gaming juggernaut Zynga? That’s the question I tried to answer in a presentation I gave a few weeks ago. The 14 reasons I came up with are by no means covering everything that can be said about this topic, but I do...
Just a few weeks after investing in Wizcorp, GREE acquired a stake in another Tokyo-based social game maker. GREE has invested an undisclosed sum to buy 49.2% of GeePlus, recently spun off of digital content company Polygon Magic. As GeePlus was formally established just a few days ago, the startup...
I don’t know what it is with GREE and airports, but following the Haneda and Narita airports in Tokyo, GREE decided to install promotional banners in the US, too. Pictured below is a set of banners currently being used at the international airport in San Francisco (where GREE International...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry