As well as being one of the largest mobile game markets by revenue, Japan is currently also one of the most dynamic.
It's a good opportunity, then, for PocketGamer.biz to hook up with Indie Navi, a site which is dedicated to the coverage of Japanese mobile and indie development.
Set up by two enthusiastic and experienced translators, you can find out more about the services they offer here or email info (at] indienavi.com.
Otherwise, let's get on with the show - the five most interesting stories from the Japanese mobile games industry.
Fightback against Gacha Gotcha
Gacha may rule the roost in Japan as a means of monetizing free-to-play titles, but that doesn't mean anybody likes it. After all, Gachas are essentially lotteries. Players purchase gacha chances in the hope they receive premium prizes. Instead, users usually receive mundane prizes, and sometimes no prize at all.
Well, now some players have had enough and they've finally taken the ultimate step: demanding their money back.
Players of Square Enix's Dragon Quest Monsters Super Light made a good point: the graphic used for the gacha vastly exaggerated the odds of success. App Store curators decided the people had a point, and allowed refunds. To keep the situation from getting out of hand, Square Enix agreed to change the cost of playing the gacha, and improved the odds of winning rare monsters. Square Enix even gave out refunds itself.
This will all likely just blow over, but it is interesting to see the disdain many players have for gacha systems reach the point that a company had to take measures to address it.
DeNA posts disappointing Q3 figures
DeNA (TYO:2432) reported its Q3 sales revenue fell to 41.7 billion yen ($417 million), a 20 percent decline from the same period last year, and its operating profits fell to 11.4 billion yen ($114 million; down 42 percent).
DeNA attributes the decline to professional baseball being in its off-season (they own a majority stake in the Yokohama BayStars team) and poor performance of its Mobage brand.
Drecom posts first quarter-on-quarter improvement in a year
Drecom (TYO:3793) reported Q3 sales of 1.7 billion yen ($17 million). This is the first quarter-on-quarter rise in sales for Drecom in four financial quarters. Although Drecom reported an operating loss of 91 million yen ($0.9 million), this was a marked improvement from its previous quarter operating loss of 232 million yen ($2.3 million).
Drecom reports its efforts to reign in expenditures have been a success, and that losses from its browser-based titles have bottomed out and stabilized.
Drecom's January iOS release of Furubokko Heroes (February for Android) was also a success, thanks to a clever pre-registration campaign that gave users more chances at winning powerful in-game items for tweeting about the game.
GungHo releases earnings for its financial year, announces share buyback plan
GungHo (TYO:3765) reported sales of 163 billion yen ($1.6 billion) for its financial year ending in December 2013 - 6 times its previous year. GungHo also reported operating profits of 91.2 billion yen ($912 million), which is a remarkable 10 times the operating profits for the year just one year prior.
Most of the cash (about $1.5 billion) comes from the Puzzle & Dragons franchise. As of December, the smartphone version of Puzzle & Dragons had surpassed 22 million downloads in Japan alone.
Puzzle & Dragons Z for the Nintendo 3DS is also performing well after moving a million copies within 8 days of its release in December.
Flush with success, GungHo intends to repurchase up to 4.3 million shares of outstanding stock (about 0.37 percent of total outstanding shares), spending up to 3 billion yen ($30 million) to do so. The repurchase is planned for the interval between 6 March and 30 April.
GungHo teases Puzzle & Dragons expansion
Given how much the franchise has contributed to GungHo's bottom line, it's unsurprising GungHo's president Kazuyoshi Morishita followed up earnings reports with news that the company is working on a significant expansion for the two-year-old smartphone title.
Morishita stated that details on the new game additions, will be announced this month, and that users could look forward to an experience a bit different from what Puzzle & Dragons has been up till now.
The update - which GungHo is calling "large-scale" - is planned for this spring.
