Acquisitions of western studios such as App Ant as well as its continued drive to open up in-house developers across both North America and Europe will go some way to helping achieve that goal, however.
We caught up with GREE CEO Naoki Aoyagi to find out just what integrating App Ant into its operations will bring to the party.
Pocket Gamer: What brought about the App Ant acquisition?
Naoki Aoyagi: We have always been impressed by App Ant Studio's talented team and high-quality work, but most importantly, its passion and commitment to social mobile gaming was a perfect fit for GREE.
We believe the acquisition will enable us to achieve our goal of creating a leading mobile gaming platform, in addition to robust gaming experiences, for users around the world to enjoy.
Will the studio's staff be integrated with your existing San Francisco studio? Were you tempted to operate the studio independently?
All members of the App Ant Studios team will be moving into our San Francisco studio.
App Ant worked with GREE on Dino Life
This has been the plan from the very beginning as we think it is crucial for the teams to be fully integrated.
What impact will the buyout have on your overall plans in the west?
We certainly think the acquisition will have a positive impact on our western business given the new expertise we will have on our team, as well as the innovative content we have planned in our pipeline.
Our goal is to create robust mobile gaming experiences for users around the world, and we hope this acquisition will enable us to do so by strengthening our US studio's performance and industry experience.
Back in August, you said you were aiming for 10 percent of your revenue to come outside of Japan. How is your growth in the US going?
We don't have any specific numbers to share at the moment, but we are still targeting 10 percent growth for our non-Japanese territories.
We will continue to work on developing great games globally, with an increased focus on our western studios, including our San Francisco one.
Thanks to Naoki for his time.
