Mobile game outbreak of global enclosure War: The rise of Japanese manufacturers

The mobile field is becoming the next target for global gaming company Racing

Introduction: Foreign media wrote today that with the booming smartphone and tablet computers, the mobile gaming market has also launched a rodeo war.

The following is the full text of the article:

Scramble for turf.

The gaming industry is fighting a rodeo, but this time it is irrelevant to Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony.

One side of the war is Gree and Dena, the other is Zynga, and the battlefield is smartphones. Even Apple and Google may be involved. While Gree and Dena are among the most profitable players in the mobile gaming industry, they are hardly household names outside of Japan.

Zynga has built up a huge user base with Facebook games like "Farmville" and "Words with Friends", but it's a rookie in the mobile gaming market.

Gree and Dena have attracted millions of Japanese players, whose games are free and open, but can generate revenue through game-buying businesses. The two companies have developed hundreds of games, but the most famous are recreational cars and fishing games.

Gree and Dena, however, have little to do outside Japan, and expanding overseas markets has become their biggest challenge, like the arrogant Japanese electronics giants.

"Gree, Dena and Zynga are vying for the same turf. Said David Gibson, senior analyst at Macquarie Securities in Tokyo, David Gibson.

This hostility has also begun to heat up as the fragmented mobile gaming market is becoming more integrated. Gree bought Funzio 210 million dollars last month, gaining popular games such as Modern Warfare (Xiandai War) and the City of Crime (Crime). Zynga spent $183 million in March to buy the developer Omgpop of the Draw something.

Mode change

Zynga's pay-for-user conversion rate is lower than that of Japanese manufacturers. According to Macquarie Securities, players who play gree games at least once a month contribute 11.21 dollars per month to the company, Dena about 6.50 dollars. While Zynga has 292 million active users, its monthly income contribution is only 0.33 dollars.

Zynga declined to comment. The company launched a social gaming platform for third party developers this year, though the focus is on PCs and web games, but Zynga executives say the platform will eventually move into the mobile arena.

The rapid expansion of smartphones and tablets in recent years, as well as the speed of cellular networks, are changing the business model of mobile gaming. In the past, "one-time" sales have become obsolete, and "free Value Added" (freemium) is gaining popularity around the world-users can download games for free, but for new weapons and virtual goods, pay extra.

Gree, DeNA, Zynga and others are scrambling to integrate the mobile gaming market and connect players with social networks.

The network allows players to send messages, play against each other, or cooperate against a common enemy. This approach also helps to promote other games, helping players earn virtual money to buy virtual goods in other games on the same platform.

Because platform operators can take 30% of the game-buying transactions, they are able to enjoy a steady income in the fickle gaming market. Japanese game developers believe the platform can also help them increase user viscosity. Not only that, but it also lowers the cost of attracting new users compared with hiring intermediaries.