Candy Crush Saga developer King has opened an office in Tokyo, Japan in order to localize King mobile games for the Japanese market.
The news comes courtesy of a
blog post published by industry veteran Dr. Serkan Toto.
Toto cites a CNet Japan
interview with Ken Edahiro, the new general manager of King Japan, in which Edahiro claims that King's Japan office -- its 10th so far -- exists to localize King games for the
lucrative Japanese mobile market and potentially develop new games specifically for the Japanese market down the line.
This is the first new office King has opened since its
anemic IPO last month.
King isn't the first foreign game developer to make major inroads on the Japanese mobile market -- Supercell
launched Clash of Clans in Japan last summer alongside cross-promotion from
Puzzle & Dragons developer GungHo, which later
purchased a majority stake in Supercell.
Toto also points out that Japan is one of the few places in the world where mobile games are advertised on television, and King is taking pains to fit in by running what Toto describes as "cool, funny and dark" TV ads for the Japanese version of
Candy Crush Saga featuring contemporary Japanese celebrities. We've taken the liberty of embedding one of the most recent ads -- starring actor Kenichi Endo and V6 boy band member Junichi Okada -- above.
Image courtesy of Gamasutra EIC Kris Graft