GREE optimizes costs

A drop in revenue in the first quarter of fiscal 2013 forced GREE to undertake restructuring. The OpenFeint team was the first to fall under the knife. 

Expansion into the international market has cost the Japanese GREE dearly. The company’s net profit for Q1 2013 decreased by 26.3% compared to the previous period. The prohibition of kompu gacha in the homeland of GREE also played a role in the drop in revenue (this monetization scheme brought up to 50% of profits to some Japanese publishers).

Kingdom Age is one of the most successful projects published by GREE in the WestThe company decided to deal with high costs in radical ways: part of the team responsible for the development of the GREE gaming platform will return from San Francisco to Tokyo.

25 employees of the company will lose their jobs: the layoffs are related to the closure of OpenFeint, which we recently wrote about.

Also, to solve financial problems, the Japanese have created two structures. The first department (for publishing and cooperation) will take on third-party projects, the second department (for growth and revenue) will focus on working with internal developments. 

Despite the unsuccessful quarter, GREE itself feels fine so far: its value at the moment is $3.9 billion.