By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Rage of Bahamut, the social card battle game offered through Mobage‘s international network, has proven to be a smash hit – and a money printing machine. It’s not known how successful exactly (from a financial perspective) the game is, but there are a few pointers that lead to a...
Apparently, things aren’t going too well between DeNA and Namco Bandai, two companies that entered a spectacular partnership right after the Tokyo Game Show last year. Following the deal, Namco Bandai rolled out a number of hit titles on Mobage, i.e. Tales of Kizna, Idolmaster, and mega hit...
Unmei No Clan Battle (“The Clan Battle Of Fate”), a mobile social RPG released by Tokyo-based social game maker Pokelabo and Sega today, is off to a terrific start. The iOS title is currently the top free app in the Japanese App Store and shot up to No. 7 in the ranking of the top...
There can be no question that the quality of social games in Japan, from a technical standpoint, is rising. Case in point: Buddy Monster, a 3D social RPG that just hit Mobage. Even though the name is terrible, the game itself actually looks great: after all, Buddy Monster is the brain child of Yuji...
Japan is the only country in the world where social games are being advertised on national TV on a regular basis. The newest title to get the TV promotion treatment is Final Fantasy Brigade, Square Enix’ first social version of the popular RPG franchise. Final Fantasy Brigade is doing very...
Why are GREE and Mobage operator DeNA monetizing better than global social gaming juggernaut Zynga? That’s the question I tried to answer in a presentation I gave a few weeks ago. The 14 reasons I came up with are by no means covering everything that can be said about this topic, but I do...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry