Shortly after the Japanese mobile gaming giant DeNA acquired Ngmoco for $403 million, CEO Tomoko Namba told Inside Social Games that she hoped to quickly quadruple the revenue of her company in about four years, which already tops $1 billion yearly. As unlikely as that ambition sounds, the details of the plan are now emerging.
DeNA’s profit center in Japan is Mobage Town, a mobile gaming network with 22 million members. With Ngmoco’s Plus+ network as a starting point, DeNA will take Mobage to the international market. Samsung will be an initial equipment partner, with its Android smartphones, while developers like PlayFirst, SGN, Square Enix and Take-Two have also signed up.
The Mobage social gaming platform will soon be integrated in the majority of Samsung Android smartphones in due time, where Mobage will enable gamers to connect with other gamers and track their status amongst others.
Social gaming follows closely in the steps of social networking, and it doesn’t look set to stop or slow down anytime soon since this is one snowball effect that is set to continue growing at phenomenal rates.
The international market is both large and lucrative enough to merit a serious push. Both companies and venture capitalists believe that 2011 will be the year that market size will converge with platform innovation to create a coherent market with real leaders. For now, DeNA may be pouring more resources than any other player into becoming the dominant player.
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