Japanese Social Gaming Platforms: Chinese Developers Jonesing to Get In

[This post was written in Chinese by Netease’s journalist Snake Chen, a three-time participant at Infinity Venture Summit (IVS). He covered the start of Rekoo in China firsthand, as well as the opening of the three major platforms in Japan, the growth of GREE, and Zynga and Playfish’s entry into the market. The English post is translated by Moy Hau and Dan Ciez and published in StartupsWatch report September issue. ]

More and more Chinese social game developers are turning their sights on the Japanese internet market. It’s giant in terms of scale and space, and relatively mature. It has good users who are ready to pay for product, much more profit per user potential than the Chinese market, and it’s relatively closer to China not only geographically but also in terms of culture and user needs. We’ll be focusing on the three major Japanese online social platforms in this issue, as well as the state of Chinese teams’ entry into the fray.

After gaming and SNS became connected in Japan, we saw some amazing enterprises come to the forefront, among them the three big players: GREE, DeNA, and Mixi. DeNa currently has a market valuation of 4.121 billion USD, GREE 3.356 billion USD, and Mixi 802 million USD. The three companies are listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Together, they are close to half of the combined valuation of America’s EA and Blizzard.

What you get

Full access to all premium content and our full archives

Members'-only newsletters

Preferential access and discounts to all TechNode events

Direct access to the TechNode newsroom