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 Mobile App Developers | |
| Available in | Japanese |
|---|---|
| Owner | DeNA |
| URL | mbga |
| Launched | 7 February 2006; 18 years ago (2006-02-07) (as Mobage Town) 28 March 2011; 13 years ago (2011-03-28) (as Mobage) |
| Current status | Active |
Mobage (モバゲー, Mobagē, "Mobile Game") is a portal and social network for games owned by the Japanese company DeNA. It derives its name from the Japanese slang word for mobile games.
History
In 2011, as part of a strategy to unify its services, DeNA rebranded Mobage Town as Mobage (sometimes called Mobage East) for use in Japan, while the Plus+ network operated by ngmoco, a subsidiary of DeNA, was also rebranded as Mobage (sometimes called Mobage West), for use in the West.
On 19 December 2014, ngmoco announced the rebranding of Mobage West to DeNA. The Japanese site continued to operate under the Mobage name.
On August 9, 2018, the English website was reportedly shut down for unknown reasons.
Reception
The service was described as highly successful in academic research. In July 2011, it was reported the service had 30 million users, who largely played on feature phones.
References
- Jordan, Jon (15 December 2010). "Ngmoco launches JavaScript-based ngCore Game Tech framework for iOS and Android". wpocketgamer.com. Retrieved 1 March 2024.
- "モバゲータウンが「Mobage」に サービス名・ロゴ一新して世界展開加速". Archived from the original on 6 December 2014. Retrieved 24 June 2016.
- "Mobage is now pronounced DeNA (D-N-A)!".
- "DeNA drops Mobage branding". 2 October 2014.
- "Mobage".
- Yamakami, Toshihiko (June 2011). "A Four-Layer Success Factor View Model of Mobile Social Games: Analysis of Mobage Success in Japan". 2011 10th International Conference on Mobile Business. pp. 114–118. doi:10.1109/ICMB.2011.36. ISBN 978-1-4577-0497-0. S2CID 28809987.
- "DeNA and Ngmoco launch Mobage mobile social network across globe". venturebeat.com. 26 July 2011.