DeNA

History

DeNA was founded in 1999 in Tokyo, Japan. The same year, it launched the online auction site Bidders. In 2004, it partnered with Index Corporation to launch the mobile auction site Mobaoku. A year later, the company listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

In 2006, DeNA established the subsidiary Mobakore and launched the mobile gaming site Mobage Town as well as the mobile shopping site AU Shopping Mall. In 2009, DeNA saw $517 million in revenue, an increase of 28%. Among its biggest hits were Pirate Treasure, Hoshi-tsuku, and Kaito Royal. DeNA opened Mobage Town to third-party developers at the beginning of 2010, adding 59 partners and 148 game titles. It also partnered with Yahoo! Japan to launch a branded PC-based social game platform. By October 2010, Mobage had 20.5 million users and boasted 48 billion yen in sales of digital goods.

Despite the company's success in Japan, it had yet to make an impact on the global market. DeNA attempted to enter the Western market by acquiring a 20% share of the social gaming platform OpenFeint in 2009. In May 2010, it introduced MiniNation, a social games app consisting of four mini-games for iPhones and iPods, powered by OpenFeint. In October, it acquired the American game developer ngmoco for $400 million. Six months later, DeNA announced its intention to launch Mobage in the United States. A year later, it consolidated the latter's Plus+ with Mobage Town, which became known as Mobage. It also signed a deal with Samsung to be the default social network app on its mobile devices beginning in 2011.

In 2011, the Japan Fair Trade Commission issued a cease and desist order against DeNA, finding that it had violated Article 19 of the Antimonopoly Act by pressuring or forcing game developers to release titles only for the Mobage platform. GREE and KDDI subsequently filed suits against the company. In May, CEO and founder Tomoko Namba announced that she would step down in order to take care of her sick husband. In July, the company announced it would be working with industry legends Keiji Inafune, Suda 51, Yuji Naka, Noritaka Funamizu, and Yoshifumi Hashimoto to develop games for its Mobage platform.

During the 2010s, DeNA expanded as a global company. It brought Mobage to China in 2011, releasing it on Android in July and iOS in November. The platform had 20 games to start. The company entered into deals with Alibaba, Baidu, and Huawei to get Mobage on their mobile devices.