By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Earthquake in Japan’s social gaming industry today: a council of six major Japanese companies in this space today announced they will abolish the controversial “kompu gacha” (complete gacha) function from all of their titles by the end of May. No new games offering the mechanic...
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...
With regulation possibly around the corner, that council six top Japanese social game makers and platforms formed last month has announced a first set of measures to react to the mounting criticism of the industry in Japanese media. The council consists of members...
Tokyo-based (and listed) KLab has announced it acquired Pikkle, a social gaming company established in 2005. Pikkle was led by Englishman David “DC” Collier who joins KLab to accelerate its international business. In 2009, Pikkle raised money from Mixi, CyberAgent, and a few other...
How big is the social gaming industry players like GREE, DeNA with Mobage, or Mixi are operating in? Tokyo-based designer Francesco Romano has used data I put together to create a flashy infographic that tries to answer this question, based on numbers coming from various sources. The infographic...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry