This article was published on August 14, 2012

Japanese gaming giant DeNA brings Twitter direct message invites to its Mobage platform


Japanese gaming giant DeNA brings Twitter direct message invites to its Mobage platform

Japan’s mobile social gaming powerhouse DeNA has announced a new collaboration with Twitter that will allow users within its Mobage social network to send each other direct message invitations to play.

The new feature is meant to help Mobage gamers find friends to play with without having to spam all of their Twitter followers. Users will log in to Twitter via Oauth and then choose from a list of people they can DM.

DeNA also said it plans to pursue deeper Twitter integration with features like posting gaming activity and history to the service. So far, the link-up appears to be just for the domestic version of the service. Mobage already supports a similar feature for rival Facebook.

To our knowledge, DeNA’s inclusion of a Twitter login is a first. Given that both companies are giants in their fields, the new tie-in should continue to establish Twitter’s foothold in Japan, one of its most active markets.

In April, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said the company was “aggressively” hiring sales staff to make inroads into Japan. The microblogging service also unveiled brand pages in the country this spring.

According to one estimate, Japan was Twitter’s third-largest market with approximately 30 million accounts as of the end of 2011.

Last week, DeNA posted impressive quarterly results of $609 million in revenue, up 37 percent year over year. The company’s Rage of Bahamut game has broken out of Japan to become an international success.

Mobage has been rapidly expanding throughout Asia. In March, DeNA announced a partnership with China’s Sina Weibo that will help the gaming platform reach the more than 300 million users of Sina’s microblog service. The company has also reached similar deals with Chinese social networks Kaixin and Renren.

A localized version of Mobage arrived in Korea earlier this year with the help of Internet giant Daum.

Image Credit

Get the TNW newsletter

Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.

Also tagged with