By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Localizing social games for different parts of the world is a big challenge, especially for Japan-based game makers. And now GREE announced they have partnered up with a total of 6 companies to assist providers of social games in this process. These developers can expect help with localizing games...
Japan’s Consumer Affairs Agency issued a “recommendation” to Groupon Japan on Tuesday, basically telling the company to reconsider the way deals are presented to customers. A spokesman for the agency said they consider the complaints from Japanese customers about Groupon as...
Rakuten today announced that its US company Buy.com (acquired in May last year) launched a special site that makes it possible for the 2,500 merchants registered on Buy.com to ship goods to Japanese customers. Users with a Rakuten ID can buy products on Buy.com, from the US, using the same ID as in...
GREE today announced the launch of a new potential hit game: “Ryuu Ga Gotoku Mobile” is the name of the social game version of Ryuu Ga Gotoku, a famous action-adventure series that started in 2005 on the Sony PS2. The video game version is known as “Yakuza” in the US and...
Just a few weeks ago, Groupon Japan took a serious beating when the company disappointed customers with a botched deal during the New Year. The incident made its way into Japanese mass media (including TV), made Groupon CEO Andrew Mason apologize to his customers in Japan and caused a dent in the...
It took a while, but Rakuten finally released an iPhone app (for Rakuten Ichiba, its online mall) yesterday. It’s available for free in the Japanese App Store and makes it easier for iPhone users to browse through the 70 million items currently listed in Rakuten Ichiba. It’s a good...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry