10.18.2013

Disney Japan cooperates with LINE for the appeal of Japan-limited goods



Now, you must cooperate with LINE if you want to get popularity in Japan. Disney Japan announced that they cooperated with LINE for the appeal of Japan-limited goods.

Disney Japan starts sale of Japanese original products series "TSUM TSUM" from today.

"Tsumu" means "Pile up" in Japanese. Cute deformation!

LINE releases game apps for smartphones which reproduced this in this winter. Originally Disney Japan was active in virtual business. They cooperated with every virtual worlds and social games. Probably there will be more examples of virtual goods offered to the Japanese by the Disney Japan than the U.S. headquarter. In addition, They donated LINE stickers of many Disney characters. They go step further, and going to profit from the games.

Social Good: Social game for iOS which can contribute stationery to Cambodian children "Social Angel"


This is one of social good examples. The Japanese and Cambodian entrepreneurs released social game apps for iOS "Social Angel" which could contribute stationery to Cambodian children. Facebook page is here.


Social Angel is a fantasy card battle of the Japanese style. But there is no Gacha. On the other hand, players contribute art supplies and summon angel cards, and the contributions are contributed to Cambodian children. This can be called gamification of the contribution.



Cambodian children drew the illustration of cards. The kinds of cards are more than 200. Players can check the profile of children who drew an illustration from cards. Birthday, future dream, character, what kind of life do they usually live?

Japanese entrepreneur Hidetaka Nakamura and Cambodian entrepreneur Cleomora Momz planned this. They raise development funds in Japanese crowd funding platform Campfire, but The game development was completed before arriving at the aim amount of money. Cambodian engineers performed all development. We can watch photos of them and children in a page of Campfire.

Paul McCartney cooperates with LINE in promotion

Japanese messaging application LINE has about 260 million users. However, they still have areas of non-conquest. They are North America, Russia, Europe. Therefore they cooperated with Paul McCartney in promotion.



They opened a official account of Paul McCartney in regions of 20 countries. The countries are Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Turkey, Thailand, Philippine, Vietnam, Mexico, Italy, US, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Spain, Germany, France, UK, Brazil, India and Russia. Furthermore, they offer the sticker of the comics taste of Paul McCartney for  users from October 29 ~ November 26. The design of stickers are 8 kinds, and these are available to users free for 180 days.

LINE released stickers of various artists and celebrities so far. However, this time is big name!

10.15.2013

Poker+Collection+Card Battle+Famous Anime "Fujiko Mine: Battle Poker"

In Japan, it is popular to add something to card battle social games. They are puzzles, poker and a rhythm game etc... After a hit of Puzzle & Dragons, this tendency was strengthened. Japanese animation production company TMS ENTERTAINMENT was carried on this fashion , and released Web browser game for PCs "Fujiko Mine -battle poker-" in Yahoo! Mobage.

 This is a Poker battle RPG about their cool anime "Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine"(Wikipedia[En]). It is experimental anime released last year, and got a lot of best values.





Players steal into various halls with Fujiko Mine(She is a skilled thief), and steal treasure. It resembles an RPG having an adventure in dungeon. In addition, such thief game was popular with the Japanese social games dawns(ex: DeNA's Kaito Royale :怪盗ロワイヤル).

And players fight against enemies with poker. This resembles a card battle, but players need the knowledge of poker hands.

Players can get new cards whenever they play the scene. Whenever cards increase, it becomes easy to take out a good poker hand.

Furthermore, there is the element collecting treasure. The collection is the element which is important in Japanese social games.

In addition, naturally there is Gacha and...

There is the synthetic and reinforcement of the card, too.

Players can do other players and poker battle.

All of characteristic and elements of Japanese social games are packed this with. However, it is not complicated. Furthermore, BGM is very cool!(Naruyoshi Kikuchi of the jazz musician is in charge of it) However, unfortunately this is only Japanese support.


10.14.2013

Kochi aims at economic activation by social games

This is not only Japan, but the economic conditions of the current local government are the worst. Some towns and villages fail. On the other hand, there are the local governments aiming at economic activation with IT power. Kochi Prefecture is one of them. They hold a social game development contest for people of the prefecture and releases winning prize works in GREE. They already extend to 5 works. Kochi and GREE perform the pre-registration acceptance of the latest mobile social game "Cross Fantasia".


The interesting point of the social game development contest of Kochi Prefecture is that there is no restriction. Amateur, indies, elderly people, Kids, etc... anyone can apply for it. How about coding knowledge? Not necessary. They can apply only by artwork and a scenario. The scenario which a junior high student wrote has been really adopted. Based on those fragmentary winning prize works, Kochi orders game development from local companies. Well, this is a local economy activity policy.


Originally Kochi was the prefecture that produced many Manga artists and musicians. This social game development contest will be the policy that not only the economy but also the personnel training put in the field of vision. If own works is adopted for a social game at the time of a junior high student? The kids will continue making works all the time.