By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Final Fantasy Brigade, the social RPG Square Enix started distributing on Mobage in January this year, has reached the 3 million user mark – exactly 310 days after launch, as Social Game Info calculated. Mobage operator DeNA and Square Enix have co-developed the first social version of the...
This is getting weird: just 24 hours after entering a new partnership with GREE, Yahoo Japan announced today that it’s ready to strengthen the existing partnership with GREE’s arch enemy, Mobage operator DeNA. This “double play” (as Pocketgamer puts it) is not only a great...
It took a while, but the multi-billion dollar Japanese social gaming industry finally has its own association, named JASGA (Japan Social Game Association). JASGA’s establishment has (no doubt) been accelerated by the kompu gacha shock that hit the industry in May, followed by public pressure...
I think that this week is the busiest in Japan’s social gaming industry since May this year (when the kompu gacha shock hit), there is just so much going on. Today’s big news: GREE announced a comprehensive business partnership with Yahoo Japan, the country’s (by far) biggest web...
DeNA, GREE, KLab, Voltage, Index, A-team, Crooz… the list of publicly traded social gaming companies in Japan is about to get longer. Tokyo-based enish has announced it filed with the Tokyo Stock Exchange to go public at the Mothers section for startups on December 11 (ticker: 3667). The...
Surprise in Japan’s social gaming industry today: DeNA announced it plans to acquire a 20.03% stake in Tokyo-based Cygames, the company behind card battle game mega hit Rage Of Bahamut. The deal is scheduled to close next month. Mobage operator DeNA is ready to pay a whopping US$92 million (7...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry