Dr. Serkan Toto is currently working as the first and only Asian-based writer for the TechCrunch network, mainly covers with Japan technology and Web companies for TechCrunch, CrunchGear and MobileCrunch. Serkan also works full-time as an independent Internet and mobile industry consultant with a focus on the Japanese market. He is Saint lingual, holds an MBA and a doctorate in economics. Serkan ... ? Read More
Whether the world is ready for mobile social gaming revolution? Apparently, the Tokyo-based Dena, a company that makes $ 1.3 billion a year just by offering mobile games for users of the Japanese cellular phone and acquired by ngmoco for $ 400 million in December to think so. DeNA/ngmoco released in English (and Chinese) version of Mobage, his successful Japanese mobile social gaming platform on Android yesterday.
Think of Mobage like Facebook and Zynga rolled into one, but
-available exclusively to mobile phones (PC version)
-the first and third-party games (DeNA/ngmoco himself makes games too)
and virtual social graph instead of real (most of your friends will probably be strangers, as in the Japanese version)
The platform is completely new, stand-alone social network with focus on mobile games and its own virtual currency MobaCoin – and now ngmoco is designed to replicate the success of the DeNA seen in Japan (where the company boasts 30 million users) at the global level.
Mobage in English ("Mobage global") originally oriented Android users in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. A Chinese version ("Mobage China") was launched through the local Office of the Corporation DeNA, as well as "Japan", she Mobage is not associated with a global platform.
On Mobage English players can choose between different items from the get-go (i.e., Pocket God, and so on we rule the Earth, the Zoo, paper toss – see the full list here), with more than 100 additional games in development at the present time.
Much like Zynga, the business model is to offer most of the games for free and money through the sale of virtual goods. As hinted at above, this model works very well for DeNA in Japan, where the company is currently listed at $ 7.6 billion capitalization (you read that right).
Future plans for DeNA ngmoco include more names, iOS version Mobage and expansion of the global market more Mobage. Competitor GREE (another power of the Tokyo-based mobile social gaming, recently acquired Openfeint for $ 104 million) is expected to make a push in the United States market soon, too (that the company opened an Office in California in January of this year).
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