GREE Gets Games from Gameloft, Ubisoft for Global Gaming Platform

GREE's CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka at event in Paris (photo @cedric)

Japanese social gaming giant GREE (TYO:3632) is announcing today that is is partnering with two big game publishers on titles for its upcoming global platform. The first is Ubisoft (EPA:UBI), who the company will work with to exclusively bring a new Assassin’s Creed title to the upcoming global GREE mobile platform. This is certainly a big-name addition for the company as Assassin’s Creed is one of the best-selling game franchises in the world right now.

The game is coming in December in both English and Japanese, with other languages to follow soon after. In its announcement, GREE says that it is committed to “delivering a new and innovative social gaming experience” to the franchise. It will be interesting to see how the social element is integrated here.

Assassin's Creed Altair's Chronicles

There’s not much doubt that a title like Assassin’s Creed is a big boost for the platform for North American and European audiences. Last week when GREE announced a number of partnerships with Chinese and Korean game developers, I was a little skeptical as to how the titles announced (particularly, the many Three Kingdoms games [1]) might fare overseas. Assassin’s Creed will certainly bring GREE more attention stateside.

The other big partnership that GREE is announcing today is with Gameloft (EPA:GFT). The two companies will work together on a new social title for smartphones called Gang Domination (see images below), which will arrive in June. This will be a social card game twist on Gameloft’s Gangstar franchise, the latest installment of which – Gangstar Rio – has done well, helping the publisher to strong financial results late last year. The company’s president Michel Guillemot commented on the new project with GREE:

Social card games are considered the most popular social games in Japan. ‘Gang Domination’ will be Gameloft’s first social card game, and we’re thrilled to work on this project with a leading player in this market such as GREE.

GREE’s two announcements come just a day after the company’s domestic rival DeNA made two big announcements of its own, landing a high-profile title of its own in Infinity Blade Cross, as well as finally launching its Daum Mobage platform in Korea.