Mobage’s Kaito Royale Has Over 10 Million Gamers

Japan, a country where lots of people still own and enjoy flip-phones, simply loves mobile games. Unlike what’s happening in the U.S, most mobile games in Japan are accessible through feature phones. Just like Mafia Wars and Farmville, Japan’s mobile games are usually pretty easy to play.

One of DeNA’s mobile games, Kaito Royale, is huge in Japan. It runs on Mobage (pronounced as mo-bah-geh), a mobile social gaming network operated under DeNA and can be accessed with any mobile web browser. For those who don’t speak the language, Kaito means “gentleman thief” in Japanese.

To date, Mobage has about 27 million users with more than 1,000 game titles. And we just heard from a DeNA spokesperson that the number of Kaito Royale gamers has surpassed the 10 million milestone. The company has also informed us that the monthly sales from Kaito Royale is well beyond 1 billion yen (approximately US$12.5 million).

“Each of our Royale series is in the similar format, namely Gundam Royale (with the Bandai giant robots) and Sengoku Royale (with shoguns in 15 – 16 century Japan), has exceeded 1 billion yen in monthly sales,” said DeNA’s spokesperson.

How Kaito Royale Works

Kaito Royale characters

In the realm of Kaito Royale players have to choose one type of character – the macho type, intelligent type or sexy type. These characters have a rock-paper-scissor relationship where (to put it as simple as I can) macho is weaker than sexy is weaker than intelligent is weaker than macho.

In the game, you lead a group of thieves to fight against the evils of society. It’s a little similar to Robin Hood but with more company. These thieves take time to “replenish,” each one requiring about 3 minutes to reload. If a player is sick of waiting, he can purchase a “regain all thieves” virtual item with 100 Moba-coins (1 Moba-coin = 1 yen).

Users can also gain Moba-coins by introducing a friend to the game, thus earning 1,500 Moba-coins. A gamer can add additional thieves after completing missions. This makes his group stronger but it also takes more time for each thief to reload.

Kaito Royale treasure collection

With a group of thieves, the player is expected to seek treasures. Each series of treasure usually consists of seven items — pretty similar to Dragon Ball. To complete the series collection, players can battle against other Kaito Royale players to rob their treasure or earn them by completing missions. These treasures cannot be purchased with in-game points or money.

Users have the freedom to choose who to battle but it is recommended, in general, to fight against someone who is on a similar level. If a gamer battles with someone who is far lower than his level, chances are, the “police” would impose a penalty by extending his thieves reloading timing.

While stealing from others is important, it is equally crucial to have allies on your side. At the end of each level, the player must fight against a CPU boss (11). The battle is as simple as pressing the enter button.