GREE wants midcore games for the Japanese market

Back in October, GREE announced a partnership with mobile phone carrier KDDI that would develop, publish, and localize games for the Japanese market. We were able to speak with Yasutaka Hori, the VP at GREE leading the project, for more details on just what sort of games the company is now looking for.

Something different, something new

GREE is interested in anything new, especially stuff that goes against the grain of what’s already available in Japan, says Hori. Surprise, surprise! When did Japanese gamers start enjoying anything other than Monster Strike and Puzzle & Dragons?

He adds that Japan is like that “eccentric, older sister among mobile game markets,” having already gone through a long phase of browser-based games for feature phones. “We want to get well away from card-battle RPGs or other niches that Japanese developers are historically strong in,” explains Hori. He says that GREE is keen to work with developers who can replicate the experience of a massive online PC game combined with high-quality 3D graphics or action-based gameplay, citing the South Korean market as a great example of what GREE is looking for.

See: 9 awesome indie mobile games we saw at G-Star 2014

Hori explains:

What excites us most of all, of course, is the idea of discovering truly trailblazing game models that no one has even thought of yet, games that break the mold of what’s available in any market.

Midcore, midcore, midcore

An example of a midcore game. This is Saving Fairytale from Korea’s Funwiz studio.

Japanese mobile gamers have typically been the ones holding single-handedly onto the handrails of trains, with their other free hand tapping away on a mobile phone. Hori says that there’s still a lot of truth to this analogy, and games geared toward shorter sessions tend to work best. However, he adds that there’s a “growing demand” in the country for more mid to hardcore elements in games.

“A lot of Japan’s recent growth has been in very casual games, but we think it’s getting to a tipping point now where we’re going to see growth in demand for greater depth in gameplay and a broadening in mobile game genres, particularly around the midcore,” explains Hori.