DeNA and NetDragon form joint venture to push Mobage China

The Chinese market is notorious for its stringent regulations and the difficulties of cultural relevance, but Japanese firm DeNA is looking to the expertise and distribution reach of NetDragon to tap into the country's massive population.

The Japanese social gaming platform, and NetDragon Websoft, which operates MMOGs and has its own mobile marketplace, are joining forces to develop and operate mobile games in the Chinese market.

The joint venture will be formally established in Q1 2012, with an initial staff of 30 people funded by a paid-in capital of $6 million.

You scratch my back

Initially it will be populated by DeNA's existing first and third party social smartphone games, which will be localised by the new team, then made available on DeNA's Mobage China platform.

Distribution will be be pushed on NetDragon's mobile marketplace, which has more than 40 million users.

Looking towards the future, the new company also plans to develop original in-house titles, including massively multiplayer online role-playing games for global deployment on Mobage.

These aren't the first steps DeNa has taken into China either, having already struck a deal with cloud-based OS Aliyun through Alibaba.

[source: DeNA]