By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
GREE has announced it has inked a deal with 2K Games to bring Sid’ Meier’s Pirates! and Civilization to the company’s global platform. Both titles are being developed in 2K’s studio in China and have no release date yet. What I find weird is that GREE only issued a press...
One key success factor for the rise of social gaming in Japan are the big investments in TV promotion the two big platform providers, GREE and DeNA, have been making in past years. If you live in Japan and watch a random national TV program for a few minutes, it’s almost impossible not to see...
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...
Thank god it’s Friday (and the end of the trading week) for Mobage operator DeNA and GREE: both stocks got hammered again at the Tokyo Stock Exchange today, closing a terrible five trading days overall. Investors apparently sold the stocks as a response to margin calls – this is...
Zynga Japan released their second game with original IP yesterday: just like role-playing game Montopia (released in February on iOS and in March on Android), the title is: mobile-only and free to play offered exclusively on smartphones (Android first this time, an iOS version might be launched...
The social game industry in Japan is rather a “social card battle game industry” at the moment: the number of titles belonging to this genre over here is ridiculously high, and there is no end in sight. In case you need background: my description of Japanese social card battle games can...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry