By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Japan has another social game maker that went IPO at the Tokyo Stock Exchange: Ateam, a Nagoya-based company, got listed in the Mothers section (code: 3662) yesterday. As many domestic social gaming companies (i.e. Klab), Ateam didn’t start with a focus on these games: the company was founded...
When do you know a country’s gaming market has gone into overdrive? When a publisher goes and introduces a printed magazine entirely dedicated to social horse racing games (yes, those exist). Keiba Keita Game Collection (“Mobile Horse Racing Game Collection”), which is available...
About two to three years ago, many people in the Japanese social gaming industry were in fear that the rapid adoption of smartphones in the local mobile market would break the entire business model of social games offered on feature phones. Fast forward to 2012, and the situation isn’t as bad...
Following Zombie Jombie, GREE International has pushed out a second social game specifically geared towards a non-Japanese audience – and Alien Family, released on iOS in English (download), is doing pretty well. Just like Zombie Jombie, Alien Family has peaked at the No. 4 spot in the...
Walt Disney Japan is betting high on social games, and the company has chosen Mobage operator DeNA as their partner for development and distribution of Disney-themed titles worldwide. The two companies don’t lose time – at least in Japan: after releasing the first jointly developed...
How will GREE and DeNA (with Mobage) do outside Japan? That’s a key question for the future of these two companies – and one I tried to answer during a recent presentation I gave in Tokyo. Here’s the edited version of the slides (direct link to SlideShare): DeNA And GREE: My...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry