The game that saved Mixi, Japan’s Facebook rival, is coming to the US

Mixi, used to be known as the Japanese company that Facebook feared. Now, it could start to make game publishers nervous. Last Friday, the company announced it will release the smash-hit Monster Strike in the United States and South Korea (h/t to gaming industry analyst Dr. Serkan Toto).

Mixi, founded in 2004, was Japan’s social network of choice for about eight years. In 2012, after a couple of years of battling, Facebook finally topped Mixi’s user numbers. The defeat sent Mixi on a hunt for alternate revenue sources.

Monster Strike was released in September 2013 and exploded in popularity in Japan. By December, the game’s success had bolstered Mixi’s stock price to the point that the company had a multi-billion dollar valuation. The cash keeps flowing in. The latest data from market analysis firm App Annie shows that Monster Strike is now the fourth highest grossing game in the world, just one step behind Candy Crush Saga.

Until now, the game has only been exported to Taiwan. Now, the American market will have a chance to get addicted. Monster Strike’s game mechanics are relatively simple. Toto describes it as “as mix between action and RPG: players control a total of 4 monsters inside an arena in which they need to kill waves of enemies until a boss character appears at the end of the stage.”

If this international rollout is a success, Mixi’s days as a social network service could be numbered. Already, the company has significantly refocused its working force. In July 2013, 56 percent of staff were working on the social network business. By March 2014, that number was down to 43 percent.

For more Monster Strike, see a gameplay video below.