Rick Martin · · 2 min readGaming Giant DeNA Issued Cease & Desist from Japan Fair Trade Commission
The Japan Fair Trade Commission has just issued a cease and desist order to Japanese mobile gaming giant DeNA after an investigation late last year. The alleged offense is that DeNA pressured or forced social game developers to only release games on its platform exclusively.
The order states that the company violated article 19 of the Anti-monopoly Act which simply dictates that ‘no entrepreneur shall employ unfair trade practices.’ It goes on to dictate that DeNA shall stop such actions, and furthermore:
never force social game developers not to provide the games through other mobile SNS, by disconnecting the website links of the games the developers provide through Mobage-Town if the developers have provided the games through other mobile SNS.
The full text of the cease and desist order can be found below, or over on the JFTC website.
DeNA’s official response to the C & D is interesting, saying that the allegation pertains to “a transaction with a certain social game application provider,” language which sounds like an isolated (alleged) incident.
The company goes on to say that it “sincerely accepts the fact that the order was issued” (that’s odd, though this may have been a translation) “and will make company-wide efforts to strengthen its compliance management system and raise employee awareness.”
Update: DeNA tells Penn Olson this afternoon via email that “[as] a platform operator, all we can say is that we will strive to provide an attractive environment to our partners as well as expand it.”
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