By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Japan’s social games market is lucrative, big and growing, but it’s a tough nut to crack for many foreign game developers, even the successful ones. One case in point is Zynga Japan, which decided to shut down the Japanese versions of Farmville And Treasure Isle in July after it turned...
There is a long, long list of mobile game companies from the “West” (mainly North America and Europe) that tried but failed entering the Japanese market via a local subsidiary over the last 10-15 years. The list of companies that left include powerhouses such as King, Rovio, Zynga (the...
First Zynga Japan shuts down 2 social games on Mixi, then Playfish/EA does the same with Restaurant City, and now it’s RockYou Asia‘s turn: American social game makers are having a hard time in Japan (hint: don’t come here if you don’t have anything unique to offer). And...
GREE today announced it has scored yet another exclusive social game: following Yakuza and Fist Of The North Star, Electronic Arts has chosen GREE for its first social game to be released in Japan. EA Mobile/Playfish has started offering “Minna No Sim City” (Everybody’s Sim City)...
First off, it’s important to understand that currently, social gaming in Japan largely means mobile social gaming. Second, it’s a multi-billion dollar market with mind-boggling profit rates for the biggest players involved. As such, many social gaming startups were created lately. You...
Here is the link to a column I wrote on Japan’s social games sector for the journal for the American Chamber Of Commerce in Japan, covering DeNA (Mobagetown), GREE, Zynga Japan and other things. Excerpt: The market valuation of Zynga, the San Francisco-based company behind Farmville and a host of...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry