Launching a successful game in Japan’s mature and highly competitive mobile games market is difficult enough for publishers within the country, and it’s even harder for developers outside it.
There aren’t many successes at the top of the charts from developers based outside of Japan, particularly when it comes to Western studios.
Japanese players have their own gaming tastes that can differ significantly from people in European countries and the US, making it difficult to create a game with truly global appeal that will also do well in Japan. And the same applies vice-versa.
Feature analysis
To give you an idea of what Japanese players look for, here you’ll find a rundown of the top five features developers should consider to improve the chances of success in Japan.
The data comes from GameRefinery, which lets developers identify winning features, calculate the revenue potential of feature sets and get inspiration for innovative features from games and markets. It analyses 180+ features across the top 200 grossing games as well as hundreds of titles outside those rankings.
Of course, the following doesn’t guarantee success, but should be used as an indicator of Japanese trends and what your chances of success may be based on your game’s design.
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