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Candy Crush Saga is the top iPhone game in Japan thanks to TV commercial

Rick Martin Rick Martin
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The undisputed king of puzzle games here in Japan is, of course, Puzzle & Dragons. Hitting the Apple App Store back in February of 2012, it has gone on to become Japan’s most popular and profitable mobile game [1]. But a new global challenger has just thrown its hat in the ring. That company is King.com Ltd, and the game is – of course – Candy Crush Saga. Currently Candy Crush Saga is the number one overall app on the Japanese App Store, thanks to a new TV commercial promoting the game in the country. It’s really interesting to see a foreign game dive into the Japanese market so emphatically like this. Serkan Toto notes over on his blog that King is the first foreign mobile game maker to do so. Recently we have seen games like Supercell’s Clash of Clans and Hay Day enter the market with some success, but that came via a different approach, tying up with Puzzle & Dragons on a cross promotion. Incidentally, heavy rotation on TV commercials really helped P&D achieve the success that it did here in Japan. Other titles have gone on to do the same, including Colopl’s hit Quiz RPG a…

candy-crush-wide

The undisputed king of puzzle games here in Japan is, of course, Puzzle & Dragons. Hitting the Apple App Store back in February of 2012, it has gone on to become Japan’s most popular and profitable mobile game [1]. But a new global challenger has just thrown its hat in the ring. That company is King.com Ltd, and the game is – of course – Candy Crush Saga.

Currently Candy Crush Saga is the number one overall app on the Japanese App Store, thanks to a new TV commercial promoting the game in the country. It’s really interesting to see a foreign game dive into the Japanese market so emphatically like this. Serkan Toto notes over on his blog that King is the first foreign mobile game maker to do so. Recently we have seen games like Supercell’s Clash of Clans and Hay Day enter the market with some success, but that came via a different approach, tying up with Puzzle & Dragons on a cross promotion.

Incidentally, heavy rotation on TV commercials really helped P&D achieve the success that it did here in Japan. Other titles have gone on to do the same, including Colopl’s hit Quiz RPG a few months back.

If you’d like to check out the Japanese commercial for Candy Crush, you can view it below. And if you haven’t tried the game yet, you can download it for free over on the App Store or on Google Play.

  1. I’m personally a huge fan of *P&D, as I’ve previously explained.  ↩

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Now with 200M game downloads, Line Corporation adds MapleStory title

Rick Martin Rick Martin
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Line Corporation made some headlines earlier today when it announced that its games lineup had surpassed 200 million downloads [1]. There are more than 230 million registered users for its Line chat platform, and many of them are spending time with the company’s many casual game titles to date. What’s most interesting to me about Line’s gaming success so far is that it has all been with relatively unremarkable IP. Its biggest game to date in terms of downloads has been Line Pop with over 32 million, followed by Line Bubble with 25 million. But I’m expecting even bigger figures when Sonic Dash comes to Line this fall. Nexon’s Maple Story celebrated its tenth anniversary this year In addition to announcing its lofty downloads milestone, the company also rolled out Line MapleStory Village today. This is a farm/town-building game from the successful Maple Story franchise by Nexon, which celebrated its tenth anniversary this year. Line MapleStory Village is currently available in Japanese, English, and traditional Chinese, and is available worldwide with the exceptions of China and South Korea. This game should fare well around the Asia region even without those big markets [2]. If you’d like to give it a…

LINE MapleStory Village

Line Corporation made some headlines earlier today when it announced that its games lineup had surpassed 200 million downloads [1]. There are more than 230 million registered users for its Line chat platform, and many of them are spending time with the company’s many casual game titles to date.

What’s most interesting to me about Line’s gaming success so far is that it has all been with relatively unremarkable IP. Its biggest game to date in terms of downloads has been Line Pop with over 32 million, followed by Line Bubble with 25 million. But I’m expecting even bigger figures when Sonic Dash comes to Line this fall.

Nexon’s Maple Story celebrated its tenth anniversary this year

In addition to announcing its lofty downloads milestone, the company also rolled out Line MapleStory Village today. This is a farm/town-building game from the successful Maple Story franchise by Nexon, which celebrated its tenth anniversary this year.

Line MapleStory Village is currently available in Japanese, English, and traditional Chinese, and is available worldwide with the exceptions of China and South Korea. This game should fare well around the Asia region even without those big markets [2].

If you’d like to give it a try, you can get it now as a free download for iOS and Android. Check out the trailer below for a preview.

For more information on the growth of Line and its vast repertoire of games, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011.

  1. The milestone was reached on September 6th, according to the company.  ↩

  2. And even though it is a stupid farm/town-building game…  ↩

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Can GungHo replicate Puzzle & Dragons’ success with more TV ads?

Rick Martin Rick Martin
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While Japanese game publisher GungHo is most famous for its Puzzle & Dragons game, its other well-known title Princess Punt Sweets surpassed 6 million downloads earlier this summer. And now it looks like GungHo is ready to give Princess a boost, with a TV commercial set to air beginning this Saturday, August 10th, according to Gamebiz.jp. As Serkan Toto points out, Puzzle & Dragons’ meteoric growth in Japan didn’t really kick in until October of 2012 when its first television ad campaign began: So assuming that the Princess campaign has a similar effect, it would not be unreasonable for the game to hit at least 10 million downloads before year’s end if things go well. I don’t foresee P&D-like success, but there’s certainly lots of potential here. The commercial is just as delightful as the game itself, with the kick-happy princess interrupting some kids in a park by kicking their can sky high. Check out the fun 30-second ad spot above. Princess Punts Sweets is still only available in Japan and Korea, although a previous title in the franchise is available in English if you’d like to give it a try.

While Japanese game publisher GungHo is most famous for its Puzzle & Dragons game, its other well-known title Princess Punt Sweets surpassed 6 million downloads earlier this summer. And now it looks like GungHo is ready to give Princess a boost, with a TV commercial set to air beginning this Saturday, August 10th, according to Gamebiz.jp.

As Serkan Toto points out, Puzzle & Dragons’ meteoric growth in Japan didn’t really kick in until October of 2012 when its first television ad campaign began:

serkan-toto-pazudora

So assuming that the Princess campaign has a similar effect, it would not be unreasonable for the game to hit at least 10 million downloads before year’s end if things go well. I don’t foresee P&D-like success, but there’s certainly lots of potential here.

The commercial is just as delightful as the game itself, with the kick-happy princess interrupting some kids in a park by kicking their can sky high. Check out the fun 30-second ad spot above.

Princess Punts Sweets is still only available in Japan and Korea, although a previous title in the franchise is available in English if you’d like to give it a try.

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Because plants can’t swing a sword: Shinobi vs Zombie for iPhone

Rick Martin Rick Martin
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Thanks to the folks over at Axel Games for pointing out this gem. I thought I had enough of the ‘____ vs Zombies’ game genre. But then a small Japanese developer had to go and make Shinobi vs Zombie for iPhone – so I guess I can try one more! In terms of controls, this is a super simple game. It makes use of your accelerometer, as you tilt your handset in whatever direction you wish your ninja to run. He will automatically attack a zombie whenever there is one in his path, but he’s vulnerable from the sides and the back, so you need to make sure to keep the zombies in front. If your life runs low, you can replenish it by collecting pink orbs which emerge when you knock off a zombie. There are also green, yellow, red, and blue orbs to collect, each of which represents a different type of ninjitsu or special skill. When the fighting gets a little tight, you can activate these using the menu on the bottom. If you’d like to learn more, you can check out our short ideo demo above. Or go download the game for free (it’s ad supported)…

Thanks to the folks over at Axel Games for pointing out this gem. I thought I had enough of the ‘____ vs Zombies’ game genre. But then a small Japanese developer had to go and make Shinobi vs Zombie for iPhone – so I guess I can try one more!

In terms of controls, this is a super simple game. It makes use of your accelerometer, as you tilt your handset in whatever direction you wish your ninja to run. He will automatically attack a zombie whenever there is one in his path, but he’s vulnerable from the sides and the back, so you need to make sure to keep the zombies in front.

If your life runs low, you can replenish it by collecting pink orbs which emerge when you knock off a zombie. There are also green, yellow, red, and blue orbs to collect, each of which represents a different type of ninjitsu or special skill. When the fighting gets a little tight, you can activate these using the menu on the bottom.

If you’d like to learn more, you can check out our short ideo demo above. Or go download the game for free (it’s ad supported) over on the App Store.

shinobi-vs-zombie-2 shinobi-vs-zombie-1

shinobi zombie

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