Since the early 2000’s Asia has been at the forefront of leading the way for the constant evolution of the F2P space. Japan is no exception and as the market gets more saturated, new business models are born.
Developing and operating a social mobile games usually requires the development team to shift into 2 different mind sets. Development and Live Operations phase. The shift requires the development team to prioritize their development strategy as everything and anything they do is scrutinized by the end user.
The monthly revenue forecast is the make or break data that determines the fate of the game. As the Japanese market reaches a saturation point and the major publishers corners the UA space, many games fall due to the inability to filter new users into their game to meet revenue expectations.
Because of this market squeeze, a secondary market has emerged from Japan, Social mobile Servicing Service
Social Mobile Servicing Service
”One Man’s Trash is another Man’s Treasure”
With so many games shutting down in Japan, companies are taking a second look at these ‘once’ great apps and approaching these companies to buy out the source code and assets straight out and or provide a service to operate these games with a revenue share split.
The idea behind this strategy is for companies to purchase a game that had X system and the infrastructure already built out versus building all these system from scratch. These companies positioned themselves as extremely cost efficient game operators and have a marketing team that find the most effective users to filter into the game that is completely ROI and KPI driven.
Mynet founded on February 2006, currently listed in the on the Toushou Mothers Stock market, is one of the industry leaders in this new Servicing market as they buy out games that were once successful and companies looking for an exit for these games to move their dev team to work on the next best thing.
With a market cap over $220 Million, with over 300 Employees Mynet has effectively positioned itself as a company that provides an exit strategy for currently existing games to pivot to a new game all while ‘not’ completely shutting down their current revenue flow with their current game.
This is a very attractive product offering for many developers as the running cost to operate a game is extremely costly and alleviating a company of this cost, all while still seeing returns from these games is something every company would consider when they look to pivot their company.
Size of Market
This secondary market is new and a growing market, and as long as the smartphone market continues to grow this market will follow suit. Japan alone is considered to be an annual $10 Billion market and Digital InFact has reported that, this new Secondary market has already grown to take atleast 10% of this market share. ($1 Billion marketshare)
What’s going on in the West.
The only company that is known for doing this in the West is Rockyou games where they provide a service to ‘just’ entirely service ‘your’ game. The social mobile market has not completely reached full saturation and many major publishers are finally jumping into the social mobile market.