Zynga has confirmed it has purchased Japanese social games specialist Unoh, with the aim of bringing its titles to that country's already thriving social scene.
Rumoured to have cost around $12 million, Unoh which has enjoyed significant success in Japan with the likes of Machitsuku!, Band Yarouyo!, and Kaizoku Chronicle on DeNA's Moba-ge-Town platform will now take charge of converting Zynga's output for the Japanese market.
"Zynga is delighted to welcome the Unoh team, one of the pioneer Japanese social game developers, to the Zynga family," said Zynga CEO and founder Mark Pincus.
"They have a great track record of producing innovative, successful games and are a perfect complement to the top-notch team we have already begun to assemble in Japan."
Jumping on Japan
As a result of the firm's Japanese assault, Zynga's veep of business operations Robert Goldberg will take up office as chief executive of Zynga Japan, with Goldberg claiming the company is now in a position to bring a lot of resources to bear in the market.
However, Zynga is also set to maintain Unoh's current operations, with the developer's own titles continuing to see a release on portals such as mixi, Moba-ge-town, and GREE.
"We're very excited to join Zynga to help extend its reach to Japanese consumers," said Unoh founder and CEO Shintaro Yamada.
"We're looking forward to being an integral part of Zynga Japans leadership and growth, and are happy to support bringing the best social games to Japan's cutting edge mobile and web technologies.
Zynga Japan is just one element of a wider Asian expansion by Zynga, formed as a result of a joint venture with Japanese telecommunications giant SoftBank, which recently invested around $150 million in the firm.
Back in May, Zynga also acquired Beijing-based social games studio XPD Media for an undisclosed fee.
News
With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font.
Related Articles
News
Feb 13th, 2024
Mobile revenue exceeds Take-Two’s expectations, making over $2 billion in nine months
Top Stories
Feature
5 hours, 2 minutes ago
Mobile Mavens: What do developers think of the Epic Games Store coming to mobile?
Feature
Mar 25th, 2024
5 takeaways from GDC 2024: The games industry reckons with key challenges, Godot competes with Unity, and AI was the big trend without the big announcements
Events
Mobidictum Network Lisbon April 2024 | Europe | Apr 16th |
HIT Games Conference Istanbul 2024 | Apr 18th | |
App Promotion Summit London | Europe | Apr 25th |
Dubai GameExpo Summit 2024 | Middle East | May 1st |
Mobidictum Meetup Berlin May 2024 | Europe | May 7th |
Mobidictum Meetup Tallinn May 2024 | Europe | May 21st |
Israel Mobile Summit 2024 | Middle East | Jun 6th |
Mobidictum Meetup Barcelona September 2024 | Europe | Sep 1st |
Popular Stories
Feature
Mar 25th, 2024