I’ll say it again: if there is one mobile game out there right now that people in Japan will remember in 10 years, it’s Puzzle & Dragons. The game, which boasts 13 million registered users in this country (10% of the population), has generated US$113 million in sales in April. Since late last year, maker…
As I have mentioned earlier, Japan is the only country in the world where mobile games are regularly being advertised on television. And this isn’t about cheap night time slots in niche TV programs no one watches: DeNA, GREE, GungHo, and many other developers are paying for spots aired during prime time, on national TV…
DeNA has quietly shut down a total of five games on the Mobage platform in Japan recently, offering players who have purchased (but not yet used) virtual currency for the titles reimbursements. The list news site Social Game Info released today includes a few big titles, especially the first two: Ninja Royal (a social “Ninja…
There is no end to the Puzzle & Dragons hype in Japan, it seems. The country’s top smartphone game now has over 12 million users, is generating a staggering US$62-86 million – per month, and has been advertised with a new campaign on national TV since the end of March. Maker GungHo has just announced…
GREE is apparently close to releasing Lost In Stars, a 3D MMORPG that looks pretty awesome. The game has been in development at GREE Korea, which makes it difficult at the moment to obtain info in English or Japanese. One of the recently released images I copied and pasted below says “Coming Soon”, apparently within…
Tokyo-based smartphone game maker Pokelabo (acquired by GREE last year) has launched SWORD OF PHANTASIA in Japan yesterday, a social RPG for iOS (F2P download). Like a lot of Pokelabo’s recent games, Sword Of Phantasia isn’t a “simple” game but tries to appeal to “core” users with high production values, real-time battles, a skill and…
I was recently asked by Eric Seufert, marketing and mobile user acquisition specialist at Grey Area in Helsinki, to give an interview on Japan’s mobile and social gaming scene. Eric has an excellent blog, on which he analyzes various aspects of the mobile industry, most recently the gaming markets in China and South Korea. For…
Here is a presentation I gave a few days ago in Tokyo on Japan’s social and mobile gaming industry. It’s dubbed “Social Games In Japan 2013: Status Quo, Trends And Internationalization”, and it covers exactly what the title suggests. (I need to add that nobody in the audience belonged to the gaming industry – everyone…