By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
CyberAgent‘s super-popular virtual world Ameba Pigg (aka Ameba Pico) is getting a new, in-world social game: a gardening simulation called Pigg Life yesterday followed the casino and fishing game that were playable on Pigg already. In Japan, Ameba Pigg has hit 7 million members in March...
Granted, this isn’t exactly a social game, but the title is important enough for GREE to issue a separate press release: “Hourface for GREE” is the GREE version of popular iPhone photo app Hourface. Just like that app, Hourface for GREE visualizes how the user’s face may...
More games for the Mobage for Smartphones platform: Tokyo-based Pokelabo (a major third-party social game developer in Japan) has announced Pokelabo Basketball on Mobage for Android. The game isn’t a separate app but can be downloaded via Mobage’s native Android app, which went live...
GREE has announced it invested in video and social game maker HAND, which has developed a number of games published by major companies in Japan in recent years. Games developed include various Kingdom Hearts titles for the DS (published by Square Enix)or Puyo Puyo 7 for Wii and PSP (published by...
The Wall Street Journal Online posted an article on GREE’s CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka today. The piece offers nothing really new on the person or his company, but if you’re reading this, chances are you will find it’s well worth a quick read. It’s one of the relatively few...
Big news from DeNA today: Tomoko Namba, the founder, Representative Director, President and CEO, will be stepping down on June 25, after DeNA’s 13th annual shareholders meeting. Namba, who apparently plans to take care of a sick family member, will be replaced by the Mobage operator’s General...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry