The Japan Online Game Association (JOGA) recently released their annual survey of the online and mobile game market in Japan. According to the report, Japanese online game revenues totalled 142.09 billion JPY in 2012, a year on year increase of 101 percent. JOGA noted that the number of online game developers as well as titles released both imports and domestic, all rose for the year.
F2P with the sale in-game items was the dominant business model for online titles in Japan. The core user profile was male age 23-29, with social game players slightly older. Online social titles were played by a higher percentage of women (38.4 per cent), though the ratio of male users rose in 2012.
Mobile game earnings also grew to 128.5 billion JPY in 2012. The mobile market doubled in the last three quarters of the year, with smartphone penetration also increasing rapidly year on year. Paid downloads outsold F2P games on smartphones for the first half of 2012, but the trend reversed in the later half, with F2P games dominating the smartphone market by the end of the year.
