Japan, the country of Nintendo, Sony and Sega, doesn’t have a decent casual gaming site anymore (Hangame is big but doesn’t really count in this area). That’s what Timo Meyer, fellow German and founder of Tokyo-based gaming portal Wazap, told me recently (Wazap has recently launched their own casual gaming section).
The reason: On January 31, Shockwave Japan closed, a hub for casual games and a subsidiary of Shockwave, a company owned by Viacom in the US. The Japanese site was majority owned by Tokyo-based Transcosmos and established as early as July 2000. It boasted 3.1 unique visitors and 55 million page views monthly in April 2008.
No official reasons were given for the move on the Japanese site. A banner on the site simply says Shockwave Japan ceased to exist. But there are rumors about weak ad sales and an investment in a game that missed expectations.
Click on the link at the very bottom of the Shockwave Japan top page to view a short (and sad) animation on the company’s history (Japanese only).
Via Wazap Blog
Serkan Toto
Shockwave Japan was majority owned by Transcosmos, not by Viacom:
http://www.transcosmos.com/TCIBDPDF.pdf
Thank you for the pointer, fixed!