In Japan, Games Business Pairs Reward and Risk
As a Japanese government investigation questions the legality of mobile videogames like those from Gree Inc. and DeNA Co., a snapshot is emerging of both the promise and risk of the nascent social-network games business, an industry that offers a new model of success for Japan’s flagging technology sector.
Gree Chief Executive Yoshikazu Tanaka, Asia’s youngest self-made billionaire, said the mobile-videogame company’s revenue and net profit nearly tripled from a year earlier in the fiscal third quarter ended in March, growth unheard of in today’s Japanese consumer-electronics industry, which is plagued by the strong yen and cheaper overseas competition.
