By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Japan’s National Consumer Affairs Agency hasn’t even officially confirmed plans to regulate the lucrative gacha mechanism in social games, but listed companies in this industry in particular are already suffering. The list of the biggest losers at the Tokyo Stock Exchange today reads like a...
Two days after the Daily Yomiuri, Japan’s biggest newspaper, reported that Japan’s National Consumer Affairs Agency is planning to regulate a certain lucrative mechanism in social games, shares of makers are dropping like a rock. A few people in the industry (myself included) speculated...
Some people thought I went out on a limb when I speculated that Japan’s social gaming industry will get regulated “soon” four weeks ago (the post was later translated into Japanese by tech blog Startup Dating). But exactly that’s what’s very likely to happen. And as I...
There’s no doubt that there’s a lot of money in Japan’s social gaming market to be made: GREE and Mobage operator DeNA alone are projected to hit up to US$2 billion each in sales this fiscal year (see here and here). Both companies make around 90% of their money with virtual item...
GREE was said to be interested in buying US-based OMGPOP (which was then acquired by Zynga), but today the company announced it bought Funzio, a game maker based out of San Francisco (GREE International is headquartered in SF’s China Basin). GREE paid US$210 million to make the deal happen...
GREE has just announced it has rolled out its third mobile social game in the US, Dino Life. The Android-only game’s dedicated website in English is here, while it can be downloaded on Google Play (for free) here. GREE explains: Dino Life opens the doors to a lush world where players can...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry