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DeNA’s Manga Box sees 2M downloads in just over a month

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Rick Martin 2014.02.03

Back in December, Japan’s DeNA launched its comic book app Manga Box. Since then it has fared remarkably well on both iOS and Android with over 2 million downloads as of January 7th. In Japan in particular, Manga Box has ranked high in the Books category on iOS (currently third), and is the top Comics app on Google Play. But it still has room to grow beyond its home market, and considering that most of the manga are available in both Japanese and English, it should be a must-have for English-speaking comics fans. I’ve been using the app for a few weeks and I found that it had a surprising use as a language learning too. For example, I can try reading an issue in Japanese (a language I’m studying), and then I can switch the app to English to clarify any difficult parts that I may not have understood. Similarly, I think Japanese students of English could do the same by first reading in English. The app takes the form of a weekly digital magazine, with about 20 episodes of various comics included. It’s a pretty simple application to use with granular push notifications that let you select which…

Back in December, Japan’s DeNA launched its comic book app Manga Box. Since then it has fared remarkably well on both iOS and Android with over 2 million downloads as of January 7th. In Japan in particular, Manga Box has ranked high in the Books category on iOS (currently third), and is the top Comics app on Google Play. But it still has room to grow beyond its home market, and considering that most of the manga are available in both Japanese and English, it should be a must-have for English-speaking comics fans.

I’ve been using the app for a few weeks and I found that it had a surprising use as a language learning too. For example, I can try reading an issue in Japanese (a language I’m studying), and then I can switch the app to English to clarify any difficult parts that I may not have understood. Similarly, I think Japanese students of English could do the same by first reading in English.

The app takes the form of a weekly digital magazine, with about 20 episodes of various comics included. It’s a pretty simple application to use with granular push notifications that let you select which new issues you want to be notified about. You’ll be told when there are new comics you like, but for those you don’t like, the app won’t bother you.

I confess, I’ve never been a big manga fan but I’ve been enjoying Manga Box so far. I’m especially glad to see DeNA take a global approach to releasing its app, perhaps aware the enthusiastic market for Japanese manga abroad. When Line Manga launched in April of last year, it was for the Japanese market only, and to my knowledge the company hasn’t expanded to other languages since then. But on the other hand, Line Manga is Japan’s top grossing iOS app in the Books category, and the top grossing Comics category app on Google Play. So from a business point of view, maybe Line doesn’t need to expand Line Manga just yet.

So how will DeNA monetize its Manga Box app? I’m told that the company’s model is to sell stand-alone books, both digital and printed. So a user could buy the first volume of a title after all its episodes have been published. For the time being, users can also gain access to new episodes though social sharing via Twitter for example.

It’s good to see more companies involved in the promotion of Japanese culture online. Companies like Tokyo Otaku Mode, for example, have shown that the West has an appetite for anime and manga, so it is encouraging to see a service like Manga Box that helps fans around the world consume it.

If you’d like to download Manga Box, you can get it for free on iOS of Google Play.

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DeNA lets you enjoy live performances of Japanese stars on mobile

DeNA

Masaru Ikeda 2013.11.13

Japanese internet giant DeNA recently announced that it will launch a new app that allows users to enjoy live performances with media personalities and stars. It is called Showroom, and its desktop version will be live in the middle of this month, with iOS and Android versions to follow soon. In partnership with multiple talent agencies in Japan, the company will be broadcasting about 100 programs every day, from 5pm to 2am (JST). Users can send comments or gifts to any of the performers over the internet, almost as if you’ve thrown something onto the stage in real life. The service is available for free, but you will need to pay a fee when sending the gift. This will be likely be the main revenue stream for the service. As some of our readers may know, Japanese pop super-group AKB48 was born from the concept of making a pop idol girl group, with its own theater and daily performances. But the DeNA service takes the idea one step further, so you can join such performances from the comfort of home. For talent agencies, the service will create more opportunities to showcase up upcoming stars as well. In the near future,…

Japanese internet giant DeNA recently announced that it will launch a new app that allows users to enjoy live performances with media personalities and stars. It is called Showroom, and its desktop version will be live in the middle of this month, with iOS and Android versions to follow soon.

In partnership with multiple talent agencies in Japan, the company will be broadcasting about 100 programs every day, from 5pm to 2am (JST). Users can send comments or gifts to any of the performers over the internet, almost as if you’ve thrown something onto the stage in real life. The service is available for free, but you will need to pay a fee when sending the gift. This will be likely be the main revenue stream for the service.

As some of our readers may know, Japanese pop super-group AKB48 was born from the concept of making a pop idol girl group, with its own theater and daily performances. But the DeNA service takes the idea one step further, so you can join such performances from the comfort of home. For talent agencies, the service will create more opportunities to showcase up upcoming stars as well.

In the near future, the company expects to provide this service in multiple languages, serving global fans of Japanese pop and entertainment scene.

(Thanks to Junya Mori for this news update.)

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The problems and opportunities in the Japanese social gaming space [Panel]

Rick Martin 2013.10.07

This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Osaka 2013. On day one of B Dash Camp Osaka, we heard from a stacked panel from the world of social gaming, including Gumi CEO Hironao Kunimitsu, inBlue CEO Tomohiro Ootomi, Mobcast director and general manager Takeshi Sato. The moderator was DeNA chief game strategy officer Kenji Kobayashi. Any panel including Gumi’s jovial CEO Kunimitsu-san is naturally going to be an easy-going one. But despite the lighthearted tone, the discussion kept coming back to the many problems that exist for Japanese game developers these days. Kobayashi said that games in the app space are obviously growing at a great pace [1], with titles like Puzzle & Dragons, Candy Crush, and Clash of Clans doing incredibly well. Even console makers are trying to replicate their success, says Kobayashi. But he also pointed out the many games that go unfound on the app store, and that that the environment can be quite harsh if you don’t have a runaway hit. Kunimitsu compared the gaming sector to a gold rush, and pointed out that if you dig relentlessly for gold, you will probably die. If you want to do well in gaming,…

bdash-camp-osaka-gaming — Takeshi Sato, Mobcast; Tomohiro Ootomi, InBlue; Hironao Kunimitsu, Gumi

This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Osaka 2013.

On day one of B Dash Camp Osaka, we heard from a stacked panel from the world of social gaming, including Gumi CEO Hironao Kunimitsu, inBlue CEO Tomohiro Ootomi, Mobcast director and general manager Takeshi Sato. The moderator was DeNA chief game strategy officer Kenji Kobayashi.

Any panel including Gumi’s jovial CEO Kunimitsu-san is naturally going to be an easy-going one. But despite the lighthearted tone, the discussion kept coming back to the many problems that exist for Japanese game developers these days.

Kobayashi said that games in the app space are obviously growing at a great pace [1], with titles like Puzzle & Dragons, Candy Crush, and Clash of Clans doing incredibly well. Even console makers are trying to replicate their success, says Kobayashi. But he also pointed out the many games that go unfound on the app store, and that that the environment can be quite harsh if you don’t have a runaway hit.

Kunimitsu compared the gaming sector to a gold rush, and pointed out that if you dig relentlessly for gold, you will probably die. If you want to do well in gaming, it’s hard work.

“I wouldn’t recommend it for my kids,” he explained. Globalizing is much more complex, he adds:

I think many developers create and app, put it in English, press ‘launch’ (so to speak) and expect it to do well. But it’s necessary to localize. When the competition was not intense, or the market was not mature, it was not so bad. But now localization/regionization is important.

Kunimitsu-san said that his own company, Gumi, has launched and expanded globally. They struggled initially, but their games in Singapore are doing particularly well right now.

Sato from Mobcast mentioned that the problems facing game creators today can potentially distract them from their goal if they aren’t careful:

For game creators that need to deal with so many issues, I don’t think this is really their main role, or what they should be focusing their efforts on.

Sato also spoke a little about the challenge of finding new game creators:

But it is very hard to motivate creators, but our CEO (Koki Yabu) has a good feel for this. I think we should stick with good creators and encourage (and nurture) them, rather than search out new ones.

InBlue’s Ootomi also agreed that the challenges facing game developers are indeed a problem. But he also pointed out the opportunity that exists for supporting services that solve problems:

I founded the company alone, and we used external services like Github, or some GMO services, or Mixi’s DeployGate (which is very convenient). We think there’s much room for these kind of services to enter.

Kunimitsu ended the panel on a high note, saying the he hopes that if we meet again next year that they can speak on some more positive things. You never know who will have a winning idea, he concluded.

In comparison to browser games which are relatively stable in Japan, not growing nearly as much. ↩

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DeNA and Docomo joint venture empowers amateur comic and novel creators

Rick Martin 2013.08.02

Everystar is a joint venture between DeNA and NTT Docomo that allows people to publish and distribute their own comics and novels for consumption on mobile devices [1]. While most of the content is available for free, some of it is paid as well, with those who sell their works collecting 40% of royalties from published works. Normally those publishers are professionals, but today it was announced that Everystar will be allowing all users to publish and collect 80% of their royalties for a limited time campaign. The promotion will run until December 31, 2013, during which time if any user wishes to sell their content on the Everystar platform, they can opt to do so. To date there are more than two million works listed on the site, with some notable success stories. For example, the King Game keitai novel saw great success on the platform, and even went on to publish on Amazon, subsequently selling 4.6 million physical books and comic books. The Everystar service sees over one million daily unique users, which makes it a valuable outlet for aspiring creators to reach an audience. Having originally launched back in 2010, it’s already a profitable business for its…

Everystar is a joint venture between DeNA and NTT Docomo that allows people to publish and distribute their own comics and novels for consumption on mobile devices [1]. While most of the content is available for free, some of it is paid as well, with those who sell their works collecting 40% of royalties from published works.

Normally those publishers are professionals, but today it was announced that Everystar will be allowing all users to publish and collect 80% of their royalties for a limited time campaign.

The promotion will run until December 31, 2013, during which time if any user wishes to sell their content on the Everystar platform, they can opt to do so.

To date there are more than two million works listed on the site, with some notable success stories. For example, the King Game keitai novel saw great success on the platform, and even went on to publish on Amazon, subsequently selling 4.6 million physical books and comic books. The Everystar service sees over one million daily unique users, which makes it a valuable outlet for aspiring creators to reach an audience. Having originally launched back in 2010, it’s already a profitable business for its operators.

Over the past few years I’ve developed the habit of referring to DeNA as just a mobile gaming company. And while gaming is still its bread and butter business, it’s interesting to see that company actually has diverse internet offerings, with services like DeNA Shopping, its Groovy music app, and its social network for seniors called Shumito Club.

The venture is 70% owned by DeNA and 30% by Docomo. ↩

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DeNA may have cut back operations on its Comm messaging app [Report]

Takeshi Hirano 2013.06.26

See the original story in Japanese. Nikkei Business reported today that DeNA has cut back operations for its Comm messaging app, and is planning to cease further user acquisition efforts. The report says: The Comm app was introduced by DeNA to compete against Line. We recently learned the company has cut back operations for this messaging app. At its peak, the team for the app had almost 70 engineers, but this seems to have decreased to just several team members earlier this month. The company intends to cease promotional activities for acquiring new users. We also heard from a source that they might have cut back operations earlier this month. Some of our readers may have read Serkan Toto’s report that Comm integrated casino games into the messaging app. But it looks to have made no impact in terms of user acquisition. We have reached out to DeNA this morning for comment on the report, but have not yet received a reply. Update: The company says that the size of the Comm team is always changing, and will continue to do so. A representative notes that they “naturally needed to operate in a big group at launch” but has been…

See the original story in Japanese.

Nikkei Business reported today that DeNA has cut back operations for its Comm messaging app, and is planning to cease further user acquisition efforts. The report says:

The Comm app was introduced by DeNA to compete against Line. We recently learned the company has cut back operations for this messaging app. At its peak, the team for the app had almost 70 engineers, but this seems to have decreased to just several team members earlier this month. The company intends to cease promotional activities for acquiring new users.

We also heard from a source that they might have cut back operations earlier this month. Some of our readers may have read Serkan Toto’s report that Comm integrated casino games into the messaging app. But it looks to have made no impact in terms of user acquisition. We have reached out to DeNA this morning for comment on the report, ~~but have not yet received a reply.~~ Update: The company says that the size of the Comm team is always changing, and will continue to do so. A representative notes that they “naturally needed to operate in a big group at launch” but has been “flexibly changing the team structure.” (RM)

Nikkei Business points to Kakao Talk and CyberAgent’s Decolink as competitors to Line in Japan. GREE has also launched a messaging app back in December of 2012, but it is still not promoted much and is only available in Australia and some other countries. It was rebranded as Tellit back in March.

When we look at messaging apps in the Asian region, WeChat (from Tencent) has been showing good numbers. They have acquired more than 50 million users outside China, in addition to its existing 300 million users in its home market of China.

In contrast with the success of Line and WeChat, some players in the Asia region may be in for tough times ahead.

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Reps from GREE, DeNA, and Gumi discuss how to win in global gaming

Rick Martin 2013.05.23

This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Sapporo, Japan. You can read more of our reports from this event here. The late afternoon session of the Infinity Ventures Summit featured a panel on mobile gaming, highlighting the efforts of Japanese game companies to win over the global market. Panelists included GREE International’s SVP Eiji Araki, DeNA’s chief platform strategy officer Junichi Akagawa, and Gumi’s president and CEO Hironao Kunimitsu. The discussion was moderated by Taisei Tanaka, the CEO of Geisha Tokyo Entertainment. Araki-san explained that the US and Japan are very different markets, noting that they have had successes and failures in the US. He cited Modern War, Crime City, and Zombie Jombie as a couple of their success stories. He noted that at GREE International (in San Francisco), they work differently than they do in Japan. In the US, they have a very systemized approach across pre-production, production, beta, and general availability phases. And after every stage, there is a check point to reflect on if the game has potential to be a top 5 title. If they aren’t happy with a progress, they may cancel the game mid-way. DeNA’s Akagawa explained that…

This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Sapporo, Japan. You can read more of our reports from this event here.

The late afternoon session of the Infinity Ventures Summit featured a panel on mobile gaming, highlighting the efforts of Japanese game companies to win over the global market. Panelists included GREE International’s SVP Eiji Araki, DeNA’s chief platform strategy officer Junichi Akagawa, and Gumi’s president and CEO Hironao Kunimitsu. The discussion was moderated by Taisei Tanaka, the CEO of Geisha Tokyo Entertainment.

Araki-san explained that the US and Japan are very different markets, noting that they have had successes and failures in the US. He cited Modern War, Crime City, and Zombie Jombie as a couple of their success stories. He noted that at GREE International (in San Francisco), they work differently than they do in Japan. In the US, they have a very systemized approach across pre-production, production, beta, and general availability phases. And after every stage, there is a check point to reflect on if the game has potential to be a top 5 title. If they aren’t happy with a progress, they may cancel the game mid-way.

DeNA’s Akagawa explained that the biggest challenges for his company in expanding abroad is ensuring that there is a consistency of management principles as well as a synchronization of corporate philosophies across regions. Building trust and communication across different cultures is difficult, and without trust you can’t really do anything. If a game doesn’t meet it’s goal, does the fault lie with the US or Japan office? This is when good communication comes into play. He notes with a laugh that ‘nom-unication’ (a Japanese portmanteau to describe communication through drinking parties together) is a word they throw around a lot.

Solving the puzzle

In terms of developing a successful game, Akagawa made the comparison to baseball, noting that if you want a hit you need to swing many times. But interestingly, Japan’s most popular mobile game, GungHo’s Puzzle & Dragon’s is somewhat of an exception to this rule.

Kunimitsu questioned whether or not the money GungHo is making with P&D can be sustained. Akagawa expressed confidence that it can continue at least for a while longer. But it was also noted that many investors overseas don’t know about GungHo, and once they learn about them, there might be some investment coming – resulting in another boost for the company.

But to continue the baseball analogy, if you are swinging and not hitting, then you need to adjust your swing. Akagawa noted that in each market, a publisher needs to figure out what is most likely to resonate in that particular area:

If you want to develop globally, in order to have a game in the top ranking, you need to localize to make sure your game is accepted. At the same time some games are not accepted by the mass public, but if you have core users you can still succeed.

But of course, then there are games that are popular the world over like Angry Birds. But Araki noted that trying to develop such a wide-appealing game can be a gamble. GREE uses a lot of data trying to figure out what will work. Gumi’s Kunimitsu-san pointed to another problem, saying that “content is a zero sum game” and even if your game is popular, but another is more popular – then you still lose.

DeNA's Junichi Akagawa — DeNA’s Junichi Akagawa

Akagawa closed out the session by saying that DeNA has a now or never approach, and that they have to move fast. This is a sentiment that we heard before among some of the country’s more successful internet companies (most notably, Line).

It will be interesting to see how quick all three of these gaming companies can move in the near future, in their efforts to win over global gamers.

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In Japan, internet companies make weddings more affordable

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Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.05.16

It can be hard to make Japanese weddings unique or special, since so many of them are held in the same kind of reception rooms in hotels or typical wedding venues. It’s not uncommon for couples about to be married to flip through wedding magazines like Recruit’s Zexy agonizing over the details of their ceremony. But recently we’re seeing newcomers who challenge the conventional ways of organizing weddings. Amazon just opened up its own sort of wedding store, which can be helpful for couples who might have little time to prepare for a wedding. Rakukon operated by Best Bridal, where couples can pay only 200,000 yen for their wedding in advance (about $1,957) and then pay the rest with congratulatory gift money (Goshuugi). This way, couples do not have to pay out of their own pocket. Rakukon’s pricing is unconventional considering that on average couples spend over 3 million yen on a wedding (about $29,355). Making it affordable Perhaps the biggest game changer in the wedding industry is Minna no Wedding (roughly be translated as ‘Everyone’s Wedding’) which launched back in Feburary of 2008. The service was originally a DeNA offering, but it was split from that company in October of 2010….

minna-no-wedding — *Minna no Wedding* has made weddings affordable for many in Japan

It can be hard to make Japanese weddings unique or special, since so many of them are held in the same kind of reception rooms in hotels or typical wedding venues. It’s not uncommon for couples about to be married to flip through wedding magazines like Recruit’s Zexy agonizing over the details of their ceremony.

But recently we’re seeing newcomers who challenge the conventional ways of organizing weddings. Amazon just opened up its own sort of wedding store, which can be helpful for couples who might have little time to prepare for a wedding. Rakukon operated by Best Bridal, where couples can pay only 200,000 yen for their wedding in advance (about $1,957) and then pay the rest with congratulatory gift money (Goshuugi). This way, couples do not have to pay out of their own pocket. Rakukon’s pricing is unconventional considering that on average couples spend over 3 million yen on a wedding (about $29,355).

Making it affordable

Perhaps the biggest game changer in the wedding industry is Minna no Wedding (roughly be translated as ‘Everyone’s Wedding’) which launched back in Feburary of 2008. The service was originally a DeNA offering, but it was split from that company in October of 2010. The site has about one million unique users and 10 million page views per month. This count is very impressive considering that visitors to the site are limited to couples planning to marry.

Minna no Wedding’s killer content — and what differentiates it from competitors — are the wedding venue reviews posted by couples after they marry. Previously, all wedding-related information was pretty favorable when describing venues, since the venues were the ones paying to be published. People post reviews for many reasons, but many do so share the excitement (or disappointment in some cases) of their wedding. There is also an incentive system called Goshuugi points where posting three reviews can be rewarded with over 1,000 yen (about $10) worth of points.

By reading genuine opinions and reviews about venues, the likelihood of a successful wedding is obviously much higher. Reviews must be detailed, though, and are required to be more than 300 characters.

Another interesting feature of Minna no Wedding is the bill statement. Couples are sometimes surprised by the difference in the initial estimate and the final cost as venues try to recommend additional options in the preparatory process. Since the actual statements are online, it helps to remove some anxiety for couples.

According to Nikkei, the number of marriages in Japan was about 700,000 in 2010, which is 36% lower than back in 1972 when we experienced the second wave of baby boom. Among those who get married, only 300,000 to 350,000 couples celebrate by having a wedding ceremony. For the rest of the couples who opt to skip the ceremony, Minna no Wedding offers an attractive service that might change their minds.

To see how the website works, check out the video below.

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Transformers Legends hits iOS, another mobile card battle game for Western markets [Video]

Rick Martin 2013.05.10

When Japan’s DeNA initially teamed up with Hasbro to bring the Transformers franchise to mobile games, I was pretty pleased. Like most kids of the 80s, I’m a big fan [1]. Transformers Legends has been out on Android for a while now, and the title was just released for iOS as well, so I’ve been testing it out over the past few days. The game comes from DeNA subsidiary ngmoco, but like most games from the card battle genre, Western audiences might need a little more hand holding than folks in Japan — especially casual mobile gamers. Thankfully, the folks over at Kotaku have published a brief guide on the basic principles of Legends, so I encourage you to check it out. As for me, I enjoyed the familiar characters, as well as the act of collecting and upgrading cards. Finding new cards using the ‘space bridge’ is sort of fun, as is enlisting the help of other gamers in your battles. Legends also features real-time events which last (from what I can tell) for several days, and if you do well during those events, you’ll be rewarded with a variety of items. Given that DeNA has already managed to…

When Japan’s DeNA initially teamed up with Hasbro to bring the Transformers franchise to mobile games, I was pretty pleased. Like most kids of the 80s, I’m a big fan [1]. Transformers Legends has been out on Android for a while now, and the title was just released for iOS as well, so I’ve been testing it out over the past few days.

The game comes from DeNA subsidiary ngmoco, but like most games from the card battle genre, Western audiences might need a little more hand holding than folks in Japan — especially casual mobile gamers. Thankfully, the folks over at Kotaku have published a brief guide on the basic principles of Legends, so I encourage you to check it out.

As for me, I enjoyed the familiar characters, as well as the act of collecting and upgrading cards. Finding new cards using the ‘space bridge’ is sort of fun, as is enlisting the help of other gamers in your battles. Legends also features real-time events which last (from what I can tell) for several days, and if you do well during those events, you’ll be rewarded with a variety of items.

Given that DeNA has already managed to pull off a card battle hit in the US market with Rage of Bahamut (we previously talked with them and developer Cygames about it here), ostensibly they know what it takes for Legends to become a hit as well.

But unlike Bahamut, there’s not a referral code system for Legends, so I’m quite not sure how the game will be promoted. The Transformers brand is certainly strong and should attract a number of fans like me. And so far it seems to be performing respectably on the app charts in English-speaking markets like the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and Singapore.

I have a short demo video of the game above if you’d like to learn more. Again, as with many card battle games, it may take a little bit of time to grow on you. But I’m looking forward to playing some more, and digging a little deeper.

If DeNA wants a big marketing push for Legends, the company certainly has the cash to do so. It was just announced that the company’s revenue for the fiscal year 2012 amounted to over $2 billion, with $775 million in operating profit.

In fact, I still closely follow the careers of my favorite Transformers to see where they are today. ↩

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B Dash Panel: The next stage in social games

Rick Martin 2013.04.23

This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Fukuoka 2013. On day two of B Dash Camp 2013 in Fukuoka, we had a chance to hear from panel of high profile speakers from the social gaming space. Participating speakers included: Naoki Aoyagi, SVP, global operations, GREE Inc. Kenji Kobayashi, the chief game strategy officer, member of the board, DeNA Co. Ltd. Andrew Sheppard, president, Kabam Game Studios Takeshi Sato, director and general manager, platform business division, Mobcast Hironao Kunimitsu, founder and CEO, Gumi Inc. The following are our preliminary live notes from the session. Much of the talk ended up being surprisinly reflective, but there were some notes where speakers looked ahead to the future. 14:28 – Andrew Sheppard says Kabam has 600 employees, 7 offices, been in business three years. Last year they had the top grossing iOS app, top gorrsing iOS game in 50 countries. They were a top 10 mobile gamng comaoaany, with 11 million users. They have $55M in the bank, so doing well! 14:29 – Andrews says that North Amercian is largely an iOS market, and that Asia and Europe are more and more Android. But what’s exciting is that gaming is…

This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Fukuoka 2013.

On day two of B Dash Camp 2013 in Fukuoka, we had a chance to hear from panel of high profile speakers from the social gaming space. Participating speakers included:

Naoki Aoyagi, SVP, global operations, GREE Inc.
Kenji Kobayashi, the chief game strategy officer, member of the board, DeNA Co. Ltd.
Andrew Sheppard, president, Kabam Game Studios
Takeshi Sato, director and general manager, platform business division, Mobcast
Hironao Kunimitsu, founder and CEO, Gumi Inc.

The following are our preliminary live notes from the session. Much of the talk ended up being surprisinly reflective, but there were some notes where speakers looked ahead to the future.

14:28 – Andrew Sheppard says Kabam has 600 employees, 7 offices, been in business three years. Last year they had the top grossing iOS app, top gorrsing iOS game in 50 countries. They were a top 10 mobile gamng comaoaany, with 11 million users. They have $55M in the bank, so doing well!

14:29 – Andrews says that North Amercian is largely an iOS market, and that Asia and Europe are more and more Android. But what’s exciting is that gaming is the rare content on mobile that indexes high in terms of reach, engagement, and monetization.

14:31 – Kabam’s game Kings of Camelot was a top 5 grossing worldwide game in 2012, at number 4.

14:32 – Andrew reminds us of their recent announcement of a $50M fund for developers. Apologizes for the reminder with a smile.

14:33 – Mobcast’s Sato: The focus on sports games, now open to foreign partners. From yesterday they opened their development partner site. They also have ‘Mobcast Girls’ for promotion.

14:35 – Both Aoyagi of GREE and Kobayashi of DeNA say they are doing well, but things could be better. Kobayashi sounds slightly more optimistic in tone than Aoyagi.

14:36 – Aoyagi: In terms of sales growth the US shows the best performance, so I’m based there. But sometimes my boss calls for me to help out on Tokyo projects. […] So yes, I’m back here quite a bit. Some people create rumors that I’m here in Japan, but there are not many doing well here besides Gungho. If you look at the top titles from makers like Supercell, they’re in the US. When you think about revenue and profit, the US is taking off finally. I think in Japan there was a peak of funding about two years ago […] but I think right now its kind of declining or shrinking.

14:37 – Kobayashi: Basically I’m supervising on a global level, especially on smartphones. Before it was about execution, but now its more about which fields you compete it.

14:39 – Now speaking about Puzzle & Dragons: Andrew says he’s played a bit, says it has not succeed in US yet. Is a very smart game. Because of the mechanic its great for Asian markets, almost like calligraphy. But Americans are slow and not very smart, so maybe it’s difficult (jokingly).

14:41 – Sato: They have TV commercials and that adds to their users. They did all the basics well, and that’s why they have a hit.

14:42 – Kobayashi: The quality when they started was so high. When they started the commercials it was around mid October, and after that it was a really significant increase, and word of mouth and influences really helped. I think they had the right timing.

14:46 – Kobayashi on what’s next? In different countries, different things work. So you can really make whatever you want. But quality is very important. And if you just try to emulate Puzzle & Dragon’s then you will fail.

14:49 – Aoyagi says that the tablet market is something huge, and tablet first is a phrase we’re hearing. If you’re targeting hardcore gamers, the tablet is something you need to look at, especially in the US market. Sato, as you might expect, says they think sports have potential, sand notes the world cup might result in popular soccer games next year.

14:54 – Andrew says he joined when Kabam created KoC, he was very impressed by their CEO, who he describes as a young person but an ‘old soul’. Right from the beginning he put much trust in him, and that’s why he enjoys his job.

14:56 – Sato mentions that he had very good chemistry with his president as well.

15:03 – Andrew notes they have opened an office in Korea to being their Asia push, and they are very exciting about this.

15:04 – I want to focus on foreign markets, and when we listed I was wondering about where we should head. We have the world cup next year, and our president wants to have a global approach, and maybe we can have some kind of global competition among users, and I think that will be intriguing.

15:05 – Kobayashi: foreign markets are really growing so we want to follow and exceed the trend.

15:06 – Aoyagi: Jokes that they plan to acquire Gumi in the future. Says they want to hit good results abroad, thinks that in the past it has been one hit that really changes the world, and he thinks in the future it will also be a sort of trigger like this.

news

Shumito Club: DeNA’s social network for seniors in Japan

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.04.03

The Japanese goverment expects that by the year 2035, one in three people will be over the age of 65, accounting for 33.4% of the country’s total population. DeNA (TYO:2432), a company we typically associate with the mobile gaming industry, made a pretty smart move back in 2007 when it launched a social network targeted at this so called ‘silver’ segment. It’s called Shumito Club, which roughly translated means ‘Hobby Club’. Shumito Club began as a joint business between DeNA and Club Tourism International, the latter of which has over 3 million members. The 290,000 members of the social network are in their 40s and 50s but the site has 920,000 monthly unique users, and monthly pageviews exceeds 260 million. The site provides standard social networking features such as blogging, messaging, photo albums, and communities. It also supports the creation of events, and over 2,000 events are created each month. Atsushi Masuda who leads the team behind Shumito Club explained why DeNA launched the website in the first place: Before Shumito Club was launched in 2007, DeNA had a good service portfolio for people in their 20s and 30s such as Mobage and DeNA Shopping (known as Bidders back then),…

The Japanese goverment expects that by the year 2035, one in three people will be over the age of 65, accounting for 33.4% of the country’s total population. DeNA (TYO:2432), a company we typically associate with the mobile gaming industry, made a pretty smart move back in 2007 when it launched a social network targeted at this so called ‘silver’ segment. It’s called Shumito Club, which roughly translated means ‘Hobby Club’.

Shumito Club began as a joint business between DeNA and Club Tourism International, the latter of which has over 3 million members. The 290,000 members of the social network are in their 40s and 50s but the site has 920,000 monthly unique users, and monthly pageviews exceeds 260 million. The site provides standard social networking features such as blogging, messaging, photo albums, and communities. It also supports the creation of events, and over 2,000 events are created each month.

Atsushi Masuda who leads the team behind Shumito Club explained why DeNA launched the website in the first place:

Before Shumito Club was launched in 2007, DeNA had a good service portfolio for people in their 20s and 30s such as Mobage and DeNA Shopping (known as Bidders back then), but not for people older than that. As we expected the market would eventually grow, we wanted to leverage on our social network and e-commerce expertise for the unexplored market segment.

Masuda describes the users of its hobby-based social network as people over 50 who see a clear distinction between themselves and those who are generally considered ‘seniors’, a term that can often mean people over 70 in Japan. Once when the site displayed a photograph of an old person on its front page, it offended some of its users.

In terms of user interface (UI), we should not treat them too special. People ask me if we make the fonts bigger but that would be a bad idea. Many Shumito Club users are highly intellectual and read a lot of books and newspapers, so big buttons with big fonts would simply look like we are dumbing it down.

Of course, considering that the service’s provider is DeNA, the site has games as well. Shukaku Village, which can be translated as ‘Harvest Village’, lets users plant, water, and harvest virtual vegetables and flowers in their garden. The game is designed to foster communication between members to help each other in the game. Surprisingly, 20 to 25% of active members between the ages of 50 to 59 enjoy play the game.

Here are some interesting metrics about the network’s members.

Gender distribution is 41% female and 59% male.
Over 40% of all members go on trips within Japan more than five times a year.
Almost half of all members go on trips outside Japan every year.
25% of members shop online once a month, and 18% shop twice a month.
The average purchasing amount is 3,000 to 5,000 yen (about $32 to $52).
43% own financial assets worth over 10 million yen (about $105,000).

In short, the audience is older people who are relatively well-off, but with some time on their hands. Shumito Club is one of the best place for businesses targeting the older generation to advertise, and that seems to be how the social network makes its money. These days the younger generation can be seen migrating from Mixi to Facebook as they begin their careers, and in the not so distant future, they could very well be moving on from Facebook to Shumito Club.

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