The Japanese mobile game market is a lucrative one, capable of making game publishers the world over salivate. But it is rarely an easy space to break into. Finland’s Supercell has managed to find a loophole of sorts though, collaborating with GungHo Entertainment to make Clash of Clans a hit. And now, just after news of $1.5 billion in investment from SoftBank and GungHo, the company’s other prominent title Hay Day is finding success in Japan, becoming as the top free app last Friday (see chart below) after the Japanese version hit the App Store. Hay Day has also been spotlighted in the ‘featured’ section of the Japanese App Store, and it has been heavily promoted by the folks over at Japanese app review site AppBank as well. Readers may recall that Supercell also credited part of the success of Clash of Clans to AppBank’s promotional efforts as well. The GungHo/Supercell partnership is intended to be a two-way street, so it will be interesting to see how Supercell can help promote GungHo’s game titles in European and North American markets. Puzzle & Dragons just launched in the UK market on October 16, so lets wait and see what kind of…
The Japanese mobile game market is a lucrative one, capable of making game publishers the world over salivate. But it is rarely an easy space to break into.
Finland’s Supercell has managed to find a loophole of sorts though, collaborating with GungHo Entertainment to make Clash of Clansa hit. And now, just after news of $1.5 billion in investment from SoftBank and GungHo, the company’s other prominent title Hay Day is finding success in Japan, becoming as the top free app last Friday (see chart below) after the Japanese version hit the App Store.
Hay Day has also been spotlighted in the ‘featured’ section of the Japanese App Store, and it has been heavily promoted by the folks over at Japanese app review site AppBank as well. Readers may recall that Supercell also credited part of the success of Clash of Clans to AppBank’s promotional efforts as well.
The GungHo/Supercell partnership is intended to be a two-way street, so it will be interesting to see how Supercell can help promote GungHo’s game titles in European and North American markets. Puzzle & Dragons just launched in the UK market on October 16, so lets wait and see what kind of assistance Supercell can provide, and how it is received by gamers there.
While Japanese gaming publisher GungHo Entertainment has made huge headlines based merely on the performance of its smash hit Puzzle & Dragons, we shouldn’t forget that the company has another popular title for mobile in Japan called Princess Punt Sweets. Originally released back in late 2012, the game has surpassed the six million downloads milestone as of June 9, a significant achievement for the company. It took less than six months to reach this target, putting the game on roughly the same million-downloads-per-month pace that Puzzle & Dragons has kept up for so long. Of course the title is nowhere near the money maker that Puzzle & Dragons is, but in fairness, that’s an incredibly tough act to follow. Princess Punt Sweets has fared respectably well on the top grossing charts for both iOS and Android, with at 36th and 18th for those stores respectively. Of course the big question is, how well can GungHo’s games perform in markets outside Japan? Personally, I like both games [1] and I think they both have global appeal, P&D because its just a brilliantly executed game on every level, and Princess just because it’s cute, and the aiming (kicking) mechanism is similar to…
While Japanese gaming publisher GungHo Entertainment has made huge headlines based merely on the performance of its smash hit Puzzle & Dragons, we shouldn’t forget that the company has another popular title for mobile in Japan called Princess Punt Sweets.
Originally released back in late 2012, the game has surpassed the six million downloads milestone as of June 9, a significant achievement for the company. It took less than six months to reach this target, putting the game on roughly the same million-downloads-per-month pace that Puzzle & Dragons has kept up for so long.
Of course the title is nowhere near the money maker that Puzzle & Dragons is, but in fairness, that’s an incredibly tough act to follow. Princess Punt Sweets has fared respectably well on the top grossing charts for both iOS and Android, with at 36th and 18th for those stores respectively.
Of course the big question is, how well can GungHo’s games perform in markets outside Japan? Personally, I like both games [1] and I think they both have global appeal, P&D because its just a brilliantly executed game on every level, and Princess just because it’s cute, and the aiming (kicking) mechanism is similar to that of Angry Birds[2].
Princess is a fun game though, and if you’d like to check it out, you can get it over on the App Store or on Google Play. GungHo’s promotional video is below. (Via Gamebiz.jp)
I confess I’m especially hooked on Puzzle & Dragons, as I have explained before. ↩
I should note that a previous version of Princess was released for markets outside Japan, with what could be described as only very limited success in a few markets around Asia. ↩
Japan’s hit mobile game Puzzle & Dragons has surpassed the 13 million downloads milestone as of yesterday, just 19 days after it passed the 12 million mark. This continues its previous pace of about a million downloads every three weeks or so, a trajectory the game has had since last November. The timing is fortuitous as Gung Ho Entertainment (3765:JASDAQ) held a fan event today at the Tokyo Dome. During the event, it was announced that there would be a Puzzle & Dragons x Evangelion collaboration coming at the end of May [1]. From my own point of view, the best metric of how well P&D is doing is whether or not I’m still playing it. And I’m still coming back to play it on close to a daily basis. The game has managed to hit a sweet spot between very, very casual, but yet still very engaging with a lot of depth. It’s hard to put down, but yet, at the same time, it isn’t — just close the app at any time during gameplay, and pick it up again whenever you’re ready. If you have yet to try the game, check out our video introduction to Puzzle &…
Japan’s hit mobile game Puzzle & Dragons has surpassed the 13 million downloads milestone as of yesterday, just 19 days after it passed the 12 million mark. This continues its previous pace of about a million downloads every three weeks or so, a trajectory the game has had since last November.
The timing is fortuitous as Gung Ho Entertainment (3765:JASDAQ) held a fan event today at the Tokyo Dome. During the event, it was announced that there would be a Puzzle & Dragons x Evangelion collaboration coming at the end of May [1].
From my own point of view, the best metric of how well P&D is doing is whether or not I’m still playing it. And I’m still coming back to play it on close to a daily basis. The game has managed to hit a sweet spot between very, very casual, but yet still very engaging with a lot of depth. It’s hard to put down, but yet, at the same time, it isn’t — just close the app at any time during gameplay, and pick it up again whenever you’re ready.
I started playing Puzzle & Dragons a few months back. Or at least, that was my first serious look at it [1]. Prior to that, I had picked it up for a few plays only to put it down just as fast. It’s a game that takes a little bit of time to get into, and in the English version the help menu isn’t really an adequate primer for what the game has in store. And while I’ve come to really love the game, I think it can be tricky for newcomers. What follows is a short explanation of what I’ve learned about the game so far, as well as what I wish I knew when I first picked it up. The mechanics of the puzzle is not immediately apparent to start. If you haven’t tried the game yet, I’ve included a short video explainer above to help you get the gist of how to recognize basic orb patterns that can quickly be solved, and once you master those, you can move on to more advanced techniques [2]. Looking ahead to possible combinations makes the game feel somewhat chess-like sometimes, in that you need to plan ahead to execute your…
I started playing Puzzle & Dragons a few months back. Or at least, that was my first serious look at it [1]. Prior to that, I had picked it up for a few plays only to put it down just as fast. It’s a game that takes a little bit of time to get into, and in the English version the help menu isn’t really an adequate primer for what the game has in store. And while I’ve come to really love the game, I think it can be tricky for newcomers. What follows is a short explanation of what I’ve learned about the game so far, as well as what I wish I knew when I first picked it up.
The mechanics of the puzzle is not immediately apparent to start. If you haven’t tried the game yet, I’ve included a short video explainer above to help you get the gist of how to recognize basic orb patterns that can quickly be solved, and once you master those, you can move on to more advanced techniques [2]. Looking ahead to possible combinations makes the game feel somewhat chess-like sometimes, in that you need to plan ahead to execute your moves within the limited time you have. I used to be a chess fanatic, and perhaps that’s why this game appeals to me so much.
It’s also not at all obvious for a beginner how to best power up and evolve your monsters. While it’s important to save magic stones to try to get rare eggs from the machine, you’ll find in later levels that in order to acquire evolution material for specific cards, you need to find out in which dungeons you can acquire it. You could keep playing until you stumble across it, or you could check one of online databases for the game that are out there.
I still don’t fully understand evolving monsters and building teams, and there are lots of other resources out there that you might want to check out to learn more about that. But I do like that the depth of the game and the fact that I’ve been casually playing for months and there’s still so much more to learn.
Everybody must get stones
Spend a magic stone to continue?
Why Puzzle & Dragons has been such a money-maker for GungHo Entertainment? It’s all about the magic stones, the games currency. You’re occasionally awarded a stone, or simply given one as a gift upon login – but no matter how you get them, you probably ought to save them to either expand your monster box (in early stages especially) or to take a shot at the rare egg machine.
But the game draws on the same money-making principle of video game arcades back in the 70s and 80s: insert coin to continue. And sometimes after you’ve played a long round only to lose to a tough boss, you’ll be tempted to spend a magic stone to continue. Or, if you have no magic stones, you’ll be very tempted to buy one.
As a personal rule, I try not to spend any money on any virtual goods in games [3], and I’m really glad that the game isn’t crippled as a result. Game play isn’t really hampered at all, in fact. I don’t think I’m a hardcore fan of the game, but I do pick up the game daily, which is more frequent than any other mobile game.
What day is it, anyway?
Puzzle & Dragons has special dungeons available on certain days of the week. On the weekend for example, you earn more coins than usual, which can then be used to pay for power ups later on. Thursday is a fun day for me as it awards wood monsters, and I’m working on building a wood team. But this pattern of recurring in-game events is a pretty brilliant strategy from GungHo. Gamers look forward to the weekend when they can rack up lots of coins, or to special events during the week when there might be an increased chance of finding a rare monster. There are events on special occasions too, like a recent easter event, or the current spring event which just started.
No doubt gamers who take Puzzles & Dragons more seriously may find the information above somewhat trivial or obvious. But I think since the English version of the game still hasn’t come close to being popular on the US app charts, I thought I’d pass on a little information about why I like it so much. Besides the fun of the puzzles alone, there’s a lot of enjoyment to be had in collecting rare monsters and building a team. I enjoy the card battle genre, and P&D has all the right elements of that, I think.
Anyway, if you’d like to learn more about the game, I’ve included some more resources below. Some of them are deeper than you’ll need starting out, but keep them on hand for when you start to get hooked. If you have any advice to give I’d be delighted to hear it, so don’t hesitate to leave a comment below.
Note that I’m referring to the US/English version of Puzzle & Dragons, as opposed to the Japanese version. ↩
Some of the tutorials that exist on the net seem to indicate tactics that are far more complex than my simple video demo. I look forward to diving deeper and learning more. ↩
The money I spend in the Apple Store is usually on text editors or, more recently, on the very expensive Dragon Dictate, which I used to write this post. ↩
Japanese mobile carrier Softbank Mobile announced today it would tender an offer of social gaming giant Gungho Online Entertainment. Softbank (TSE:9984) was founded by Masayoshi Son, and Gungho was founded by Masayoshi’s young brother Taizo Son who is also a serial entrepreneur and now running a tech startup incubator called Movida Japan. Gungho has been getting lots of attention from investors because of its hugely popular titles Puzzle & Dragons and Ragnarok Online, making the company’s stock price five times what it was at the beginning of this year. By partnering with the gaming company, Softbank Mobile expects to expand the sales of online and smartphone game titles using the company’s global business. Softbank’s announcement can be found over on its website in English and in Japanese (PDFs) GungHo’s Puzzle & Dragons recently surpassed the 10 million downloads milestone on March 9th, but perhaps its biggest accomplishment to date has been its longevity on the top grossing apps charts, and is reportedly has a market cap of about $4.6 billion [1]. The company’s success to date has primarily been limited to Japan. It has a US subsidiary, but it remains to be seen if global users will get behind the…
Japanese mobile carrier Softbank Mobile announced today it would tender an offer of social gaming giant Gungho Online Entertainment. Softbank (TSE:9984) was founded by Masayoshi Son, and Gungho was founded by Masayoshi’s young brother Taizo Son who is also a serial entrepreneur and now running a tech startup incubator called Movida Japan.
Gungho has been getting lots of attention from investors because of its hugely popular titles Puzzle & Dragons and Ragnarok Online, making the company’s stock price five times what it was at the beginning of this year. By partnering with the gaming company, Softbank Mobile expects to expand the sales of online and smartphone game titles using the company’s global business. Softbank’s announcement can be found over on its website in English and in Japanese (PDFs)
GungHo’s Puzzle & Dragons recently surpassed the 10 million downloads milestone on March 9th, but perhaps its biggest accomplishment to date has been its longevity on the top grossing apps charts, and is reportedly has a market cap of about $4.6 billion[1].
The company’s success to date has primarily been limited to Japan. It has a US subsidiary, but it remains to be seen if global users will get behind the P&D phenomenon.
Gungho also recently launched its own online store for Puzzle & Dragon’s merchandise, where you can pick up plush toys, iPhone cases, and even P&D mugs. So far, it’s just for fans in Japan, but we hope to see an international version later on if the game catches on elsewhere.
If you’d like a general introduction to the wildly popular game, check out our video demo below.
As if GungHo Entertainment’s hit mobile game Puzzle and Dragons wasn’t making enough money already, now the title has its own online store where you can buy an assortment of P&D merchandise. Currently in the store you can buy a range of products including plush toys, P&D iPhone cases, and even a P&D coffee mug. Unfortunately the store only delivers to locations within Japan, so overseas fans will have to wait until the company decides to extend this initiative. Of course, supplementing a successful mobile game with brand merchandise is nothing new in the gaming industry. We recently even saw how Finnish company Rovio is pushing its plush toys with lucky draws nationwide in Japan. Puzzle & Dragons recently cracked through the 10 million downloads mark, although to date the game owes the vast majority of those downloads to its home market of Japan. It will be interesting to see if the game can catch on overseas this year after English versions launched in late 2012. For a general introduction to P&D, check out our video overview of the game below. (Via VS Media)
As if GungHo Entertainment’s hit mobile game Puzzle and Dragons wasn’t making enough money already, now the title has its own online store where you can buy an assortment of P&D merchandise.
Currently in the store you can buy a range of products including plush toys, P&D iPhone cases, and even a P&D coffee mug. Unfortunately the store only delivers to locations within Japan, so overseas fans will have to wait until the company decides to extend this initiative.
Puzzle & Dragons recently cracked through the 10 million downloads mark, although to date the game owes the vast majority of those downloads to its home market of Japan. It will be interesting to see if the game can catch on overseas this year after English versions launched in late 2012.
For a general introduction to P&D, check out our video overview of the game below. (Via VS Media)
Japanese game developer and publisher GungHo Entertainment announced today that its insanely popular Puzzle & Dragons game has finally surpassed the 10 million downloads mark (as of March 9th). It took just over a year to reach the mark, after its initial release in February of 2012. And while the games download count is not by itself a standout accomplishment, its longevity at or near the top of the Apple and Google Play top grossing app charts is incredible. Most of the game’s downloads are from its home market of Japan, where the game has been helped by television commercials. Described as a combination of a Bejeweled-ish puzzle game and an RPG, Puzzle & Dragons has yet to really catch on outside of Japan, after launching English versions late last year. I’m not certain why this is, but speaking from my own experience with the game [1], my initial encounter didn’t get me hooked. At first I didn’t quite realize how the jewels (called ‘Orbs’ in the game) could be maneuvered. But eventually I figured out you could move an orb wherever you wished – you can even move them diagonally. There are still a lot of things that I…
Japanese game developer and publisher GungHo Entertainment announced today that its insanely popular Puzzle & Dragons game has finally surpassed the 10 million downloads mark (as of March 9th). It took just over a year to reach the mark, after its initial release in February of 2012. And while the games download count is not by itself a standout accomplishment, its longevity at or near the top of the Apple and Google Play top grossing app charts is incredible.
Most of the game’s downloads are from its home market of Japan, where the game has been helped by television commercials. Described as a combination of a Bejeweled-ish puzzle game and an RPG, Puzzle & Dragons has yet to really catch on outside of Japan, after launching English versions late last year. I’m not certain why this is, but speaking from my own experience with the game [1], my initial encounter didn’t get me hooked.
At first I didn’t quite realize how the jewels (called ‘Orbs’ in the game) could be maneuvered. But eventually I figured out you could move an orb wherever you wished – you can even move them diagonally. There are still a lot of things that I have yet to learn about the game, like which monsters in your collection are best used to evolve other monsters, or strategies relating to the various types of monsters when attacking.
But nevertheless I enjoy the game immensely, and part of the reason is because of the game’s depth. There’s still a lot that I have yet to figure out. If you’re new to the game, I recommend you check out some of the many video demos on YouTube (including my own demo, which you can see above). There’s also a subreddit dedicated to the game, which you might want to watch as well.
If you have any tips for how to excel in the game, I’d love to hear, so don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments below. [Via Gamebiz.jp]
Among the Japanese mobile gaming companies that have made regular international headlines in recent years (most notably GREE and DeNA), Gungho Entertainment is perhaps the one that has yet to make a really significant splash overseas. But its hit game Puzzles & Dragons, commonly described as a sort of Pokemon/Bejeweled hybrid, now has over 9 million users, the majority of those from its home market – although GungHo’s U.S. arm is doing its best to change that. P&D has been a mainstay at or near the top of grossing charts for iOS and Android (practically) since its launch [1], and I don’t expect its popularity to wane anytime soon. Interestingly Gungho plans to launch an online store for P&D merchandise on March 15, and in April it will be holding an event for fans at the Tokyo Dome. You can check out a TV ad for P&D below, and the importance of that continued marketing push – as Serkan Toto points out – cannot be understated. Nevertheless, global users have yet to really warm to the English version of the game (iOS, Android), and it will be interesting to see if the company can change that this year. GungHo also…
Online shop coming soon at pazudoraya.com
Among the Japanese mobile gaming companies that have made regular international headlines in recent years (most notably GREE and DeNA), Gungho Entertainment is perhaps the one that has yet to make a really significant splash overseas. But its hit game Puzzles & Dragons, commonly described as a sort of Pokemon/Bejeweled hybrid, now has over 9 million users, the majority of those from its home market – although GungHo’s U.S. arm is doing its best to change that.
P&D has been a mainstay at or near the top of grossing charts for iOS and Android (practically) since its launch [1], and I don’t expect its popularity to wane anytime soon. Interestingly Gungho plans to launch an online store for P&D merchandise on March 15, and in April it will be holding an event for fans at the Tokyo Dome.
You can check out a TV ad for P&D below, and the importance of that continued marketing push – as Serkan Toto points out – cannot be understated. Nevertheless, global users have yet to really warm to the English version of the game (iOS, Android), and it will be interesting to see if the company can change that this year. GungHo also recently acquired standout game developer Grasshopper Manufacture, so I expect that will surely help its efforts in all markets.
More recently, GungHo also has a hit in Princess Punt Sweets, as the game just surpassed the 2 million user mark since its release back in November. That title still hasn’t been released for global gamers, although I expect that we’ll an English version sometime soon.
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