6.12.2013

New quarrel of social game in Japan: Social game developer gloops brought an action against Grani

I wrote suit confrontation of Japanese social game developer Grani and gumi before.

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Another social game quarrel in Japan: Grani warned gumi in an intellectual property theft

Grani appealed for gumi in an intellectual property theft. However, gloops appealed for Grani in an intellectual property theft this time.


gloops is one of the representative social game developer in Japan. They contribute various social games to platform such as Mobage, mixi, Ameba, Hangame, iOS, Facebook.
According to the press release of gloops, game system, direction and images look of Grani's social RPG "Shingoku no Valhalla Gate(神獄のヴァルハラゲート)" just resembles gloops' social games "Dairenkei!! Odin Battle(大連携!!オーディンバトル)" and "Daisenran!! Battle of Records of the Three Kingdoms(大戦乱!!三国志バトル)" closely very much.


An important point of this suit is that Grani CEO Mr.Tani was a former project manager of gloops. Mr.Tani was a project manager and a director of "Dairenkei!! Odin Battle" and "Daisenran!! Battle of Records of the Three Kingdoms". He resigned from gloops in September, 2012 and established Grani afterwards. And they released "Shingoku no Valhalla Gate" on January 25, this year.

When I compile their claim, Grani imitated the social game of gloops, and gumi imitated the social game of Grani. It's a three‐cornered battle. Whose property is the idea of the game? Person? or company? The Tech industry has intense movement of talented people. This suit will produce new arguments in the Tech industry of Japan.

Japanese game company Index is raided on the suspicion of window-dressing


Japanese public broadcasting NHK reported shocking news this morning. According to it, a compulsory investigation into Japanese game company Index was conducted due to their reverse fraudulent accounting. Index announced the press release and accepted a raid.

Index is one of the Japanese famous game companies. They are parent companies of game brand Atlus and known for the mobile social game recently. However, unfortunately their recent achievements were bad.

They deny a fact of the window-dressing. According to them, the release schedule of latest games is not changed.

Local super hero plants rice and scatters popularity on the Internet

"What?! Rice-transplanting machine is stuck in mud? Wait, and I go to help you immediately!"---The local super hero of Akita Prefecture, plants rice and scatters popularity on the Internet in Japan.

His name is Chōjin Neiger(超神ネイガー: Super-God Neiger). He is a local super hero made by Tamotsu Ebina of an entrepreneur living in Nikaho city, Akita Prefecture. Ebina made Chōjin Neiger as a motif in tokusatsu heros such as Kamen Rider. However, his big characteristic is to be specialized in "local". The motifs of his design, finisher, and weapons are local specialty and the place name of Akita. His image source is Namahage of traditional folklore of Akita. And he always talks in a dialect of Akita(his Twitter is no exception, too).
It is the same in the business side. His show is held only in Akita, goods are sold only in Akita and TV CM where he appears is broadcasted only in Akita. Well, His fans must go to Akita to meet him. Ebina continued this business for 8 years, and it became the topic in all over the Japan as well as Akita. The local hero like him exists now in the all over Japan.

The character setting of Chōjin Neiger is that...
He is a young man of the farmer of Nikaho City, Akita. As for his family, ancestors are farmers from generation to generation, and he lives with a grandmother now. His favorite foods are rice and candied fig. Even if they are enemy, he does not attack women by the education of his grandmother.
He said in Twitter, "My name is Chōjin Neiger. I am the Guardian keeping peace of Akita. I am sorry, but am too busy now. The reason, as you see. But let's rush if there is a crying kids. I love your smile. See you." To see this photo, Japanese netizens understood the meaning. The rice-transplanting is a serious event for farmers.

He post continues doing a photos of the farming in Twitter. They are very funny! That a super hero works on a farm! :D It was shared in an instant in Japanese Internet world. Particularly, his photos were retweeted more than 4,000 times in Twitter. It was an opportunity to appeal to many people for agriculture. At last, the many newspapers reported his farming.





He has many suggestions about local business. Now, Japanese economy is the worst now. Furthermore, Japanese local economy is the worst. In Akita, the decline advances fastest in Japan. The sick people continue increasing, children are not born, the economy is lowest, the lands goes to ruin, and the people commit suicide. Can you imagine the living of farmers under such situation? It is the really WORST. However, the entrepreneur appears under such situation and can bring about interesting business and contents. And the social media can distribute them among Japan. We can study from him.

Please check his Twitter if you are interested in him. There are more photos there. You may not understand his posts, but most Japanese are the same as you, too. Because he talks in a dialect of Akita even in Twitter.

6.11.2013

DeNA founder and former CEO Tomoko Namba published an essay book

Tomoko Namba is a Japanese entrepreneur and known as former CEO of DeNA. She founded DeNA in 1999 -Surprisingly it was not a mobile game company in those days!- and opened Mobage Town(Mobage) in February, 2006. Now, DeNA became the one of the largest mobile social network and mobile game companies in Japan. She came to be known as the most successful woman entrepreneur in Japan. However, she stepped down in 2011 for the nursing of her husband of illness.


Then two years passed. In a happy thing, her and her husband is fine! She wrote an essay besides nursing, and it was released today. The title is "Unshapely management - Challenge of team DeNA (不格好経営―チームDeNAの挑戦)". This has many epusodes of DeNA and Mobage. This is the first time that she shows it about management of DeNA at the time of the establishment of a business. According to her, she did a "full-course of the failure". She said, "It was unexpected that I who advised managers as a consultant of McKinsey had trouble with management so much. The management is so unshapely. However, therefore it is really exciting!".
Unfortunately, this is only Japanese. It is sold for 1,680 yen in Amazon.co.jp.

6.10.2013

Puzzle & Dragons becomes the snacks at last


GungHo's popular smartphone game Puzzle & Dragons has already become various goods. Furthermore, this becomes the snacks. Candy Division of BANDAI releases a wafer of Puzzle & Dragons on June 18. It is 105 yen(about 1USD) each.


However, the true leading role of this is a "card". A card is in this as freebee and characters of Puzzle & Dragons are drawn on it.


Those cards do not have the privilege such as virtual goods. They are simple collection items. Puzzle & Dragons seems to be shifting to character business.