By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
One of the key elements that gives Japan’s mobile social gaming platforms Mobage and GREE their “identity” is the concept of the virtual social graph. Simply put, the idea is to offer up a social environment in which the people the player interacts with are (mostly) strangers in...
It took them a while, but Mobage operator DeNA has passed GREE in terms of quarterly sales again. Both companies have just released their financial reports for the April-June quarter: while GREE hit 40 billion yen (US$510 million) in sales in that time frame, DeNA was able to pull in 47.6 billion...
Rage Of Bahamut is getting a Korean version. Just like with the Japanese original and the English-language follow-up, maker Cygames has chosen Mobage as the distribution platform. DeNA and their local partner Daum, a major online portal, have started offering Rage Of Bahamut on the jointly operated...
Following Mobage operator DeNA last week, GREE released its financial report for the April-June quarter (Q4 of fiscal 2012) today. The company has seen net sales grow to 40 billion yen (US$510 million), which is up 90% year-on-year. Profit shot up, too, but both sales and profit took a nose dive on...
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...
Dark Summoner, a mobile social card battle game made by Nagoya-based Ateam, continues to do well. The title was released worldwide on iOS on February 23 this year, on Android on July 18, and hit 1 million downloads on July 27 – after around 170 days. And today Ateam announced that Dark...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry