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The Role of Dual Institutional- and Technological Entrepreneurship in the Formation of the Japanese Social-Game Industry

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Global Game Industries and Cultural Policy

Part of the book series: Palgrave Global Media Policy and Business ((GMPB))

Abstract

Ernkvist argues that entrepreneurial agency from outside the dominating video-game industry in Japan enables the emerging social-game sector to break with established institutional structures and experiment with new, contested alternatives. The chapter explicates a dual entrepreneurship function involving both technological entrepreneurship to introduce new game platforms and institutional entrepreneurship to proactively change the institutional environment. It also identifies four contested key issues in the formation of the social-game industry, which provides the perspective of western understanding of game marketing and development, a new alternative business model in Asia.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The virtual graph was also claimed to have the marketing advantages of expanding the user base of an SG more aggressively though invitations that did not involve real-life social identities (DeNA, 2011, pp. 20–21). Since 2012, this distinct Japanese model of the virtual graph became less clear as players in DeNA increasingly were connected to Facebook and Twitter.

  2. 2.

    Statistical data on amusement video games in Japan only exist since 1995. The data describes a dramatic decline with the number of outstanding amusement video-game units decreasing by two-thirds over the decade, 1995–2004 (JAMMA, 1996–2006).

  3. 3.

    Data based on author’s database of Japanese developers active in the video game sector (n = 289) and smartphone SG development (n = 256) in January 2012. The data contain companies having developed games during the last 3 years. Due to limitations in the availability of data from SG platform holders, the data for the SG companies is limited to smartphone platforms. While this excludes companies that have only released SG on PC and feature phone platforms, most SG developers are pursuing a multiplatform strategy.

  4. 4.

    These were based on a survey of 2000 players during September 2011 through an online panel survey of individuals 15–59 playing SG more than a few times a week (Enterbrain, 2011). The demographic user data from the major platform holders GREE and DeNA makes a more limited set of variables available, but provides a similar depiction of gender and age usage.

  5. 5.

    53.9 percent of SG players responded that SG had reduced their time playing video games. At the same time, 23 percent of SG respondents were not video-game users, with non-video-game players being at the majority of both male and female SG players in their 40s and 50s (Enterbrain, 2011).

  6. 6.

    By the end of 2012 around half of the revenues in DeNA’s SG platforms were derived from third-party developers, but in terms of number of titles there was a clear dominance with 94 % (n = 1613) of all game titles (n = 1716) developed by external developers (DeNA, 2013). These numbers are for DeNA Mobage social games on feature phones, PC, smartphone (browser and app-based). The two dominating platforms in terms of total number of titles at the end of 2012 were feature phones (n = 892) and browser-based smartphones (n = 525).

  7. 7.

    As the incumbent video-game platform holder, Nintendo was initially wary of the social game market and then subsequently decided to enter social network games though its own Miiverse platform.

  8. 8.

    During 2011, Nintendo’s president Satoru Iwata expressed this to the professional community of game developers during his keynote speech at GDC 2011 (Nintendo, 2011a). These views of the potential value erosion of SG were then further elaborated in relation to GREE and DeNA during the shareholders meeting the same year (Nintendo, 2011b).

  9. 9.

    These strategies involved lying about their age, buying their mobile phones in smaller, independent retail shops that did not belong to the major telecommunication operators. Although the relatively ease of circumvention made the regulation less efficient, it still provided a significant barrier for SG platforms’ growth potential among younger users.

  10. 10.

    There has never been any officially released statistics regarding the extent to which social games in Japan were dependent of the Gacha mechanism. One securities firm estimated in early 2012 that 10–30 % of total revenues of GREE and DeNA were due to Kompu Gacha (Nikkei, 2012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jan Wallander Postdoctoral Researcher, The Ratio Institute, Stockholm, Sweden

    Mirko Ernkvist

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Correspondence to Mirko Ernkvist .

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  1. School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong

    Anthony Fung

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Ernkvist, M. (2016). The Role of Dual Institutional- and Technological Entrepreneurship in the Formation of the Japanese Social-Game Industry. In: Fung, A. (eds) Global Game Industries and Cultural Policy. Palgrave Global Media Policy and Business. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40760-9_6

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