About four years after the kompu gacha shock hit Japan’s mobile game industry hard, gacha as a monetization mechanic is in the news again. This might be over soon, and I don’t intend to discuss the ethics of gacha right now (this may come soon), but please refer to my simple primer from...
Box Gacha: GREE And DeNA Found A Replacement For Kompu Gacha [Social Games]
It’s no exaggeration to say that the kompu gacha shock from May this year was the single biggest drawback in the history of the Japanese social gaming industry. There is a new concept to make money in Japanese social games in town, but I think it makes sense to look back at the usage of the...
Ahead Of Self-Regulation: DeNA Starts Disclosing Odds In Gacha [Social Games]
Gacha, the biggest money-making mechanic in Japan’s social gaming industry, is about to get transformed radically. A sub-form of this electronic draw concept, “kompu gacha” (or “complete gacha”), was regulated by the Japanese government a few weeks ago. The kompu gacha...
CyberAgent’s Q3 Report: Kompu Gacha Ban Will Reduce Sales Of Existing Games By 20% In Q4 [Social Games]
Quite a few financial results from social gaming companies are due in the next days, and CyberAgent is the first company to report (for the April-June 2012 quarter). In a nutshell, sales and operating profit were up, but the Japanese web powerhouse missed expectations from analysts – and got...
“Kompu Gacha”: Japan’s Top 6 Social Gaming Companies Announce Guidelines [Social Games]
As I mentioned previously, the “kompu gacha” (complete gacha) shock isn’t over, even after the Japanese government officially clamped down on the controversial game mechanic. Over the weekend, GREE, DeNA, Mixi, NHN, CyberAgent, and Dwango (the same companies that formed a...
It’s Official: Government Regulates Japan’s Social Gaming Industry Over Kompu Gacha [Social Games]
The “kompu gacha” (complete gacha) shock has come to a temporary “official” close today: Japan’s National Consumer Affairs Agency declared [PDF] that the mechanic found in many social games on GREE and DeNA‘s Mobage platform is illegal. I am not a legal expert...