By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
Tokyo-based (and listed) KLab has announced it acquired Pikkle, a social gaming company established in 2005. Pikkle was led by Englishman David “DC” Collier who joins KLab to accelerate its international business. In 2009, Pikkle raised money from Mixi, CyberAgent, and a few other...
How big is the social gaming industry players like GREE, DeNA with Mobage, or Mixi are operating in? Tokyo-based designer Francesco Romano has used data I put together to create a flashy infographic that tries to answer this question, based on numbers coming from various sources. The infographic...
Puzzle & Dragons, developed by Tokyo-based GungHo, is holding its No. 1 position among the top grossing apps in the Japanese App Store. After a short drop a few days back, the social game is back on the spot it has now been occupying for the last 8 weeks. Puzzle & Dragons is a social game...
FIFA World Class Soccer, the social card game launched by Electronic Arts and Tokyo-based gumi in mid-November last year, finally hit 2 million users on GREE. The title just 25 days to reach 1 million users and another 123 days or so to rack up the next million. To celebrate the milestone, EA/gumi...
Social games in Japan are usually being played on mobile devices, on Mobage, GREE, Mixi, or Hangame. The mobile web has “historically” been larger than the fixed web, which is why PC-based social gaming platforms don’t play a big role over here. Japanese users usually visit Yahoo...
It’s a mini trend: social games on smartphones that are not embedded in Mobage or GREE – but do pretty well anyway. Following Puzzle & Dragons from GungHo, it’s Square Enix newest title that sees success with this strategy. “Diffusion Million Arthur”, a great...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry