By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Japan already has a solid number of social game developers that are listed at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and now CNET Japan is reporting that there will be another one coming soon. According to the report, Tokyo-based mobcast will go IPO at the Mothers market (“Market of the High-Growth and...
As I have been saying repeatedly, the “kompu gacha” shock in Japan’s social gaming industry is far from over, at least as far as the aftershocks are concerned. A new report suggests that the main players in the sector are continuing to work on ways to prevent the government from...
Last year, I identified a total of 7 “Japan-only” social game genres, one of which are social hostess club simulations (or host club simulations). This is how Wikipedia explains these establishments: Hostess clubs are a common feature in the night-time entertainment industry...
Tokyo-based (and listed) social game maker Voltage is famous in Japan for covering a very specific genre: social dating simulations. In these games, players are supposed to “date” virtual characters in various settings, usually embedded in a narrative that guides users from one...
Japanese social gaming industry blog “Social Game Info” posted an interesting chart today. The overview sheds a light on the financial performance of Japan’s six listed third-party social game developers on a quarter-on-quarter basis. The companies are: Voltage (focuses on social...
The “kompu gacha” (complete gacha) shock has come to a temporary “official” close today: Japan’s National Consumer Affairs Agency declared [PDF] that the mechanic found in many social games on GREE and DeNA‘s Mobage platform is illegal. I am not a legal expert...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry