Puzzle & Dragons developer GungHo Online Entertainment's share price (3765:JP) has jumped 55 percent in the last three days, causing its market cap to swell to more than $10 billion.
The studio, which has made headlines around the globe in recent months, now boasts a market cap well in excess of Japanese giants such as DeNA on around $4.3 billion and GREE, whch sits just shy of $3 billion.
Western social gaming giant Zynga also now sits in GungHo's shadow, with a market cap of $2.6 billion.
Cause and effect
The surge seems to have been prompted by a number of GungHo announcements regarding new Puzzle & Dragons games, including a DS port and a Japan-only spin-off for iOS and Android Puzzle & Dragons Challenge.
GungHo has also just launched an English language version of Puzzle & Dragons for Android, although it is still not available in key territories such as the UK.
Despite its limited worldwide availability, however, Puzzle & Dragons is still a likely contender for the most lucrative mobile game in the world.
Puzzling
In February alone, GungHo Online grossed roughly $106 million.
Tokyo-based mobile gaming consultant Dr Serkan Toto estimates that Puzzle & Dragons generated somewhere between $62 million and $86 million of that total.
GungHo Online CEO Kazuki Morishita
And the game is attracting new players at a remarkable rate, too, reliably adding one million new users every couple of weeks. At last count, Puzzle & Dragons had more than 12 million players.
[source: Serkan Toto]
Top Stories
News
Apr 27th, 2024
PocketGamer.biz Podcast Week in Views E09 - Supercell's Squad Busters goes global, Embracer Group splits, and Apple's Vision Pro flops
News
Apr 26th, 2024
Week in Views - Squads busted, Apple crushed, War zoned and Snoozin' with the Snorlax…
Feature
Apr 26th, 2024
Speaker Spotlight: Dubai Future Foundation's Faisal Kazim on leading Dubai's gaming charge
Events
Esports Future Summit | Middle East | Apr 27th |
Dubai GameExpo Summit 2024 | Middle East | May 1st |
The MENA Games Industry Awards 2024 | Middle East | May 2nd |
GameDev Atlantic 2024 | May 4th | |
Mobidictum Meetup Berlin May 2024 | Europe | May 7th |
Mobidictum Meetup Tallinn May 2024 | Europe | May 21st |
Israel Mobile Summit 2024 | Middle East | Jun 6th |
DevGAMM Vilnius 2024 | Europe | Jun 14th |
Popular Stories
News
Apr 23rd, 2024
Supercell’s Squad Busters soft launches today with over 100,000 Google Play downloads
Feature
Apr 24th, 2024