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Japan's fastest-growing game publisher isn't who you'd think
Sony's PlayStation Vita may still be brand new, and Nintendo's Wii U has yet to even hit store shelves, but Japanese developer/publisher/social platform GREE doesn't need a new console. Or any console, for that matter. Its platform is virtual, and its growth strategy is extremely aggressive. "We're hiring more than 30 people a month," GREE's US CEO (and international CFO) Naoki Aoyagi told us in an E3 2012 interview.Those "more than 30 people a month" are filling not only GREE's 1,000-person-plus Japanese offices, but also its "almost 400 people" San Francisco-based office. "And we already also have some people in China (around 50 people). And 50 people in South Korea," Aoyagi said. That kind of growth is rare, especially during an international economic downturn. And it comes at a time when both Nintendo and Sony are seeing year-over-year revenue declines – even while new hardware from both manufacturers heads to market."Nintendo, they ship 200 or 300 million [units] for each platform. But I think it's gonna be more than double or triple in terms of the market size," Aoyagi told us. He spoke to the difference between GREE's focus on "smartphones, tablets, probably in the future Android TV or Apple TV" versus that of Nintendo and Sony. "On smartphones we can have access to South America, or East Asia, or the African market, or the Russian market. So it's gonna be much bigger than the consoles."
E3 2012: not quite ready to go mobile
Perhaps E3 2012 will be remembered as the year that even Nintendo acknowledged the existence of smartphone gaming -- if only begrudgingly so, dragged kicking and screaming into the early '10s. It's a brave new world here, a strange one in which everyone and their grandmother has become a gamer by default, carrying high powered portable computers in their pockets at all times. But even as all the major players took time out to give a nod to the ever enlarging juggernaut that is mobile gaming, its an element that still feels like a bit of a redheaded stepchild inside the Los Angeles Convention Center, where console gaming is still far and away the dominant force -- it's a presence relegated to brief mentions in larger press events and pushed to the sides of the convention floor. It comes as no surprise, of course, that Nintendo didn't dwell on the matter during its show opening keynote on Tuesday. The mere fact that company president Satoru Iwata made reference at all to mobile operating systems is something of a sea change for an executive who has thus far stubbornly refused to even "consider" developing for the Androids and iOSes of the world. And the news from Sunday doesn't do much to shake that stance. While mobile operating systems were name checked, it was only in reference to users' ability to access social information from the Wii U on their browser.
Regulation rumors drop GREE founder's shares by $700m
GREE founder Yoshikazu Tanaka lost about $700 million over the past two days when shares of GREE plunged 23.3 percent on Monday, then another 0.1 percent today. The rapid decline was caused by a Yomiuri report stating that Japan's Consumer Affairs Agency was considering regulating the Japanese social games industry.The aspect of Japanese social games that the agency is rumored to disapprove of is the "complete gacha" style of microtransaction, in which players pay for randomized items, earning additional in-game rewards for completing a set. This could be construed as a form of lottery, which is illegal as a sales incentive in Japan.GREE officially declined to comment to the Wall Street Journal about the potential impact of a ban on these microtransactions, noting that there were other ways to build revenue. However, we suspect Tanaka himself has a different view on the potential financial impact, having already seen it happen. GREE and other social gaming companies have announced plans to self-regulate their games, creating industry guidelines and imposing spending caps.This (what's the opposite of a windfall?) happened just a week after GREE announced its purchase of Funzio, developer of social games including Crime City.
GREE picks up Funzio for $210 million
You might remember GREE as the Japanese social network that picked up OpenFeint around this time last year. Since then, the company has been, like Zynga, Mobage, and a few other giant social networks, looking to pick up social and iPhone/mobile developers to make games for its millions of users to play. And GREE's latest target is Funzio. The developer of Kingdom Age and Crime City on the iPhone has reportedly been acquired for the sum of US$210 million. The name of the game here is users. GREE has earned tons of them, both in Japan and overseas, and needs content and games to keep them interested and growing. So Eastern companies like GREE are turning to Western devs like Funzio (which is based in San Francisco) to make content for them. We're right in the middle of this trend, so we can expect to see more big purchases like this, from GREE and other networks, yet to come.
Free iOS game 'Zombie Jombie' is GREE's first original American game
GREE's new San Francisco studio has released its first game, and if you just got used to the word "GREE," get ready for another doozy. The free-to-play iOS card game Zombie Jombie gives you a deck of cards representing your very own undead army, which you use to fight "tough human bosses" and conduct missions.You can also use your mysterious, eerie "Jombie" powers to fuse zombie cards, and trade them with friends, or you can battle to determine the superior "Jombie." The game is free to download, so there's not much risk if it turns out to be less entertaining than the word "Jombie."%Gallery-150828%
GREE explains what GREE is
Here's about the limit of our knowledge regarding GREE: it's 1) a Japanese company that 2) does something with cell phone games and 3) has a ton of money. Beyond that, details get a little fuzzy.So I asked Eros Resmini, SVP of Marketing and Developer Relations at GREE's new American branch, what exactly the company is, and what it does. Basically, it's an expanded take on OpenFeint's existing social platform, plus a new game development studio.
New Assassin's Creed game, Gameloft's 'Gang Domination' coming to GREE platform
A new Assassin's Creed mobile game will launch in December of this year for English and Japanese audiences. The title is being developed by Ubisoft and GREE. In the same breath, GREE is teaming up with Gameloft on Gang Domination, which will be available on various smartphone devices this coming June.So, what's GREE? Beyond being a company with way too much money, it's a mobile publisher/platform that's huge in Japan and is moving into the global marketplace, launching the GREE Platform in the second quarter of 2012. The company bought mobile social network OpenFeint last year and has offices in Tokyo, San Francisco, London, Beijing, Sao Paulo and Dubai. The company states: "GREE will continue to aggressively expand worldwide.""GREE will continue to focus on building relationships with third party game developers and publishers as it moves towards releasing its new platform."So, if GREE wasn't on your radar before, it appears to be a company you're going to be hearing about a lot in the near future.
Inafune's 'The Island of Dr. Momo' launches via GREE
The first game from Keiji Inafune's 'Comcept' studio -- the first Inafune game since Capcom, in other words -- is now available in Japan, and it's pretty dang cute. 'The Island of Dr. Momo' is a social game for smartphones, published by gigantic mobile game company GREE. It was released on Android yesterday with an iOS version incoming. In this (we'll warn you again: it's cute) game, you collect eggs from different creatures, and "fuse" them in an attempt to create the cutest "Kawaiimon" animal in the world. You can trade the results with friends to increase your menagerie, or get new Kawaiimon out of a capsule machine. Inafune's other game is also pretty adorable: Intercept's Kaio: King of Pirates will be out on 3DS sometime next year.
Tour GREE's massive TGS booth
The biggest booth on the TGS show floor, as far as we can figure, isn't Sony's or Capcom's -- it's the one occupied by mobile social game service GREE. GREE offers games from major publishers, including Sega, Capcom, and Square Enix, in major franchises, for phones. And we're not talking iOS or Android experiences, specifically -- we saw mostly regular cell phone games. But it's working, since GREE had the money to splash out on this big booth experience -- including capsule toy machines that are used for a labyrinthine swag process. First you play a game, then you get a "medal" which you're directed to put into one of the machines. The capsules have numbered slips of paper, which you then bring to a desk to exchange for a prize. I got a notepad.%Gallery-134153%
OpenFeint hires new CEO, Jason Citron leaves
It's the end of an era for one of iOS' biggest ventures -- OpenFeint has hired a new CEO, Naoki Aoyagi, which means company founder Jason Citron is leaving the company to head elsewhere. OpenFeint, you'll remember, has its roots in an iPhone game called Aurora Feint, which Citron developed a few years ago with co-founder Danielle Cassley (who left the company fairly early on). After that early title saw some success, the venture was transformed instead into a free platform for developers to share friends' lists and other social networking features across apps, even before Apple's own Game Center was announced. Despite the introduction of that official service, OpenFeint has remained popular, and has expanded out into Android and elsewhere. The company was bought by Japanese social network GREE earlier this year, and it's from that company that Aoyagi comes (he was the 10th employee), taking over Citron's role. Aoyagi reportedly plans to combine the US operations of both GREE and OpenFeint, so it's unclear what this will all mean for developers using the service now. As for Citron, he confirms on Twitter that it's "time for something new." He and his team at OpenFeint did an incredible job of building up that company and network piece by piece, so it'll be interesting to see what he takes on next, as well as what OpenFeint ends up becoming without its founder.
Keiji Inafune unveils Comcept's first game: The Island of Dr. Momo
While Capcom is canceling every Keiji Inafune-originated project that isn't about Frank West, Inafune is working on new games of his own. The first game out of Inafune's company Comcept is The Island of Dr. Momo, an iOS/Android game for Japan's GREE social gaming service, to be released this fall. It will be free to play, with the option to buy in-game items. If that title reminds you of a certain other work, it's no accident. In Dr. Momo, you play a mad scientist who combines animals in order to make the cutest possible creatures. Finally, Keiji Inafune is here to give vivisection some positive spin!
OpenFeint sold for $104 million to GREE
GREE, arguably the largest social media company in Japan, has cut a check for $104 million to acquire mobile games (think iOS and Android) platform OpenFeint. The goal is to "build a global ecosystem of distribution channels for game developers" through the combined efforts of the two companies, both of which have told Develop that OpenFeint's brand and CEO will remain intact following the completion of the purchase. OpenFeint currently touts a user base of 75 million across Android and iOS, and even saw a huge spike in new users and OpenFeint-compatible game downloads over the Christmas holiday. Along with GREE's 25 million users in Japan, the two will have access to nearly 100 million people. And yes, we did that math all on our own.
GREE buys OpenFeint for $104 million
Before Game Center, OpenFeint and similar third-party platforms carried the weight of the iOS platform when it came to social networking in gaming. Even after Game Center debuted with its leaderboards and achievements, OpenFeint still saw plenty of use, including 1.4 million additional users over the Christmas holidays. With more than 5000 OpenFeint games reaching an audience of 75 million users, it's unsurprising that Japanese social network GREE has just purchased OpenFeint for US$104 million. GREE is already a well-established network in Japan, but rather than shutting OpenFeint down and incorporating it into its own brand, the Japanese network is going to pump operating capital into OpenFeint to grow the platform. According to OpenFeint CEO James Citron, "the entire OpenFeint team is staying on," and GREE's investment in the platform will lead to "faster SDK updates, awesome new products, and network improvements," plus greater global distribution of OpenFeint's services. Social networking services like OpenFeint and Game Center are an important part of the draw of gaming on iOS, so it's encouraging to see big investments being made in this area. Congratulations and good luck to the OpenFeint team.
Questionable report claims Hummer is greener than Prius
You won't have to look too hard in order to find a report or two claiming that hybrid vehicles aren't as miraculous as they are oftentimes portrayed, but when a recent article declared that Toyota's flagship hybrid was more taxing on the environment than a Hummer, you've got to wonder what's going on. Incredibly, the questionable findings from CNW Marketing stated that GM's gas guzzler only cost about $1.95 per mile to put on the road, while the Prius rang up $3.25 per mile in order to hit the pavement. Reportedly, these zany numbers include all production costs -- which supposedly run around 50-percent higher on the hybrid -- but the story started to smell fishy when we found that the per-mile statistics were based on a 100,000-mile Prius and a 300,000-mile Hummer, which seems to be a stretch in both directions. Currently, there seems to be a huge amount of skepticism surrounding the bold figures, and until the testers place both vehicles on a level playing field from the start, we doubt those discrepancies will fade anytime soon.[Via Slashdot]
