3.14.2013

Japan overflows with "milestone" news

This week, Japan has a lot of big news of the social game.

Social RPG for smartphones "Puzzle & Dragons" of Gungho online entertainment broke through 10 million downloading at last. Because this made a hit, their stock prices rise. The stock prices of Gungho are more expensive now than GREE and Mobage.

Virtual world "LINE Play" of the japanese popular messaging apps for smartphones LINE broke through 6 million users. They released a global version at the end of last month. Then they got 2 million new users in two weeks.
See Also:
Virtual world of messaging apps LINE "LINE Play" broke through 4M users

And NHN Japan announced that the total downloading number of game apps offering on a game platform of LINE "LINE GAME" exceeded 100 million. It is the 7th month in this month since LINE GAME starts. Game apps of LINE GAME are always located in the high rank of the free game ranking of JP App Store. It is LINE POP to be the most popular.

3.13.2013

The tie-up apps of Domino's Pizza Japan and Hatsune Miku makes a hit, and the business is brisk

I wrote about Domino's Pizza Japan tie-up with Hatsune Miku.

See Also:
Domino's Pizza Japan cooperated with Hatsune Miku and released AR apps for iOS

According to ITmedia, it gets big success.


The apps became the reputation, and pizzas sold at their greater-than-expected speed. Therefore the stock of packages of the  Hatsune Miku are short. The packages of the pizza function as AR marker. However, there were a lot of fans who collected them because illustrations were cute. Domino's Pizza Japan increases packages of the pizza at full speed now.

Tie-up special site

3.11.2013

Earthquake, radioactivity and Nameko mushroom

Today, March 11 is the day that big earthquake and tsunami attacked Tohoku, Japan. 2 years passed from that. However, unfortunately only some restoration advance. The big reason is radioactive contamination.

I do agriculture with a family now in Akita(There is a part of Tohoku). Last week, I heard an interesting story by a seminar of the farm products processing. After 2011 Aftermath of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, the farm products, the fish, meat of Tohoku were not able to sell at all. Of course the reason is radioactivity. Actually, those most were harmless, but  the people were confused and had fear. Therefore, the economy of Tohoku was delayed. However, only the sales of the Nameko mushroom were restored by awful force in a short term.


What happened in Nameko mushroom? Well, Nameko Saibai Kit(Mushroom Garden a.k.a. Funghi Gardening Kit) was released in June, 2011.


It becomes popular in an instant, and it becomes the most popular mobile game now in Japan. And the people bought the real Nameko mushroom with Nameko goods(The Nameko mushroom is used as an ingredient of the miso soup).

Most of farming families of Tohoku are elderly people, so they do not know a lot about smartphone apps. They wondered it why only the sales of the Nameko mushroom were restored. However, they noticed it because popularity of Nameko spread among Japan and their grandchildren bought Nameko goods.

This is a small event in agriculture of Tohoku, but this has big significance. The game may occasionally save people.

3.10.2013

What is the today's gadget of Doraemon? Let's tell it in Facebook!

The new movie of Doraemon "Doraemon; Nobita's Museum of Secret Gadget" is showing now in Japan.



Doraemon is a Japanese SF manga/anime series created by Fujiko. F. Fujio.   Doraemon is the cat like robot which came over from 22nd century in 20~21 century. He is a baby-sitter robot and helps primary schoolchild Nobita with various gadgets. The anime is broadcasted on every Friday, and the movies are shown every year. "Doraemon; Nobita's Museum of Secret Gadget" is 33rd movie.

Apps for promotion of this movie was released late last week in Facebook. This is "Secret Gadget Today!!!".




This is simple diagnosis apps. We access this and can tell Doraemon's secret gadget appropriate for ourself at that time, and share this in Facebook.


We can tell in this 3 times in 1day.


An album can collect the gadgets which appeared.


When we gather all the gadgets, we can apply for the prize of the T-shirts.

Unfortunately this supports only Japanese. However, this is appropriate if you want to share something of cute in Facebook.

Japanese mobile geolocation social game helps local economy

Japanese Mapion did cool announcement this week. They held a event with mall of Sumida-ku and Minato-ku using their mobile geolocation social game "Keitai Kunitori Gassen(ケータイ国盗り合戦)" in January 17 - February 18. And they mobilized 130,000 or more and achieved sales more than 40 million yen(about 420000USD) during the period.


The theme of Keitai Kunitori Gassen is Japanese Warring States Period (Keitai=Mobile, Kunitori=Territory cquisition, Gassen=Battle). Users becomes a warrior and acquires the territory by "check-in" at various places and aims at the Japan control. Furthermore, it has a cute avatar function, town sim function and time-limited events.


This event was held for the purpose of the pulling in customers to the local mall. Users scanned QR cords at 57 spots in the town and join in digital stamp rally(It promotes sightseeing). In addition, when they did shopping more than 500 yen in shops of the town, they were able to get cards called "Kunifuda(くにふだ)". The serial cord which could obtain the virtual item that users could push forward an event in Kunifuda profitably was placed. In other words, users were able to push forward an event profitably so as to get it if they got many Kunifuda.



They anticipated 10,000 event participants at first. However, this was a big misplacement. Participants broke through 100,000 people four weeks after since an event started. And the products of shops of the mall were selling like hot cakes. Furthermore, the unexpected effect appeared, too. Users flocked from the distant place(example; Hokkaido and Osaka) to participate in an event. They took advantage of the rental cycle of the local government to participate in an event efficiently. The shops made products of 500 yen and came to open on a regular holiday voluntarily. As a result, malls regained vigor.



The sales of 40 million yen are the numbers that are wonderful for a local mall. Now, the regional economy in Japan is the worst. Local mom and pop shops are critical condition because of the recession and advance of large stores. However, mobile geolocation social game has power to help them. By the way, different mobile geolocation social game Colopl always performs this measure and have many examples and know-how.


Noboru Yamada, Sumida-ku mall alliance society's chairperson said, "Our conventional event had the demerit that sales were concentrated only in the good place of the convenience to transportation. However, the sales of all areas improved in this event. It is difficult to understand the structure of the mobile game for old people like us. However, we have only to present a card to visitors at every shopping more than 500 yen. It is very simple. So event administration was possible smoothly. The lifestyle of consumers changes with the change of the times, and the size of the market reduces for declining birthrate more. We thought that it was necessary to do a new challenge in response to the change of the times through this event. "