Adways: The Japanese market has changed a lot in the last 12 months

What is PuzDra Shock, why did the Japanese start developing native applications, and DeNA and GREE are no longer the main ones in the market of games of the Land of the Rising Sun? 

A curious interview appeared on Pocket Gamer today. It was taken from Ken Asakura, the executive director of the advertising company Adways Interactive. 

According to Ken, the Japanese mobile games market has changed significantly over the past 12 months. And so much so that in Adways this period is called PuzDra Shock.

As you can guess from the name of the phenomenon, the main source of change is Puzzle & Dragons from GungHo. Due to the success of the project, game developers in Japan decided to switch to developing native applications.

Why only now?

In 2006, when Mobage appeared, the Japanese mobile phone gaming market literally exploded. The platform, like a similar one, but appeared a little later from GREE, allowed to introduce functionality into games close to what Facebook offers today, for example.

But it is clear that such applications were not distinguished by beauty. As a result, Japanese users have become accustomed to poor quality games.

However, Puzzle & Dragons has changed the situation. Users saw what games can be like. Candy Crush Saga also contributed. According to Ken, there are few casual projects on the Japanese market that are comparable in quality to King’s creation.

As a result, the losers in the market were its yesterday’s leaders – GREE and DeNA. Up to this point, they were in charge of the mobile phone games market (in 2011, its size reached $3 billion, but Ken does not specify whether it is about turnover or revenue). Anyone who played on the phone had to choose a platform – either from GREE or from DeNA.

However, with the departure of such devices into history, as well as the success of GungHo already on the App Store and Google Play, it became clear that it was not necessary to contact these guys when publishing the project. As a result, their role in the Japanese market is now falling.