Two days after the Daily Yomiuri, Japan’s biggest newspaper, reported that Japan’s National Consumer Affairs Agency is planning to regulate a certain lucrative mechanism in social games, shares of makers are dropping like a rock.
A few people in the industry (myself included) speculated this was going to happen, and it appears that the agency is now really ready to crack down on “complete gacha”, a sub-form of the gacha game mechanic, in particular.
At the Tokyo Stock Exchange, both Gree and Mobage operator DeNA opened the trading day ask-only today.
Gree dropped a whopping 500 yen (limit-down), or 23.2%, to 1,651 yen. Arch enemy DeNA’s stock also went down by 500 yen (limit-down), or 20.1%, to trade at 1,990 yen.
It isn’t just the platform and 1st-party game providers: Japanese and listed 3rd-party social game makers are taking a beating, too, ie Konami (-13.92%), Crooz (-16.85%), or CyberAgent (-18.26%).
The last three days were certainly not good days for Japan’s social gaming industry.
The Nikkei Index as a whole is currently down 2.54% (May 7, 1115am JST).
