手机游戏公司ngmoco首席执行官Neil Young在最近的采访中表示，ngmoco被日本DeNA收购并非它的终点，而是它与其母公司共同打造一个亿值数十亿美元手机娱乐公司的开端，他们的核心资源Mobage和NG Core这两大技术将共同融入一个全球性的手机社交网站。

游戏邦获悉，Mobage这个日本DeNA旗下的手机社交网站将以“兴趣版图”（interest graph）为中心，连接拥有共同兴趣和爱好的用户。ngmoco将成为这个平台在西方市场的前锋，于数周后在美国发布该平台的Android版本。届时我们就可以判断，DeNA斥资4.03亿美元收购ngmoco的交易是否划算，而Young关于手机游戏行业将出现身价数十亿美元公司的预言是否将成为现实。

以下是游戏邦编译venturebeat对Neil Young的相关访谈内容：

可否介绍ngmoco归入DeNA旗下后的最新情况呢？

首先我要谈谈DeNA收购ngmoco的起源和经过。在2009年5月，我们ngmoco团队聚集到一起，回顾并思考我们的运营方向。

我们在前一年就已经调整了业务方向，从付费下载模式转型为免费模式。可以说，免费模式的项目运营很成功。我们当时计划实行一种可运营一年、两年甚至三年的模式，也想过自己可以创造多少价值。我们对公司的运营情况很满意，我们认为自己创造的收益可以达到几千万美元。

但iPhone和Android，以及平板电脑对这一行业的巨大影响，让我们开始意识到自己可能错过了什么机会。所以我们就开始观察竞争对手的情况，但在美国和西方市场，我们并没有发现自己有什么失误，同时也认为自己在免费模式市场上的表现一向很不错。至于Plus+手机社交游戏平台，我们也同样表现出色。我们在Plus+只推出高质量的软件内容，当时这个平台的注册用户大约1000万人，但现在已经接近2000万了。

经过一番观察，我们认为ngmoco的处境很乐观。尽管业内早有Zynga将进军手机游戏领域，抢走我们饭碗的说法，但他们的《FarmVille》和《Mafia Wars》手机版本的发布，却并没有对我们造成冲击。我们拥有自己独特的技术和资源优势。所以我们开始关注中国腾讯，在韩国极为成功的Nexon和NHK，以及日本DeNA和Gree等海外公司的情况。

通过这些观察，我们开始对比这些公司在海外市场获得成功的条件，以及西方市场的同等条件等因素。中国市场环境非常特殊，而韩国市场则主要以PC平台为中心，只有日本市场环境与我们最为相似。在2000年初，日本手机游戏行业的成就已相当于美国2010年的情况。日本市场的移动网络费用较低，3G网络覆盖率高，手机可用性及功能也都很强大，并且还提供无障碍计费系统，这些都是日本手机游戏繁荣发展的重要动力。

日本手机游戏行业更为领先？

没错，他们采用更直接的运营商计费系统。可以说，他们的计费系统与iTunes类似，都是一种默认的在线购物计费机制。于是我们开始密切关注DeNA与Gree，并得出我们也可以打造西方DeNA的结论。但真要这么做的话，我们就需要进行另一种投资，从一个拥有附属网站的应用开发商转变为拥有第一方及第三方开发资源的平台运营公司。

如果我们想将DeNA在日本的成功模式移植到西方市场，我们就很有必要创造一个新的技术框架，得创造一个用户聚合框架，还要生产更高层次的新产品，总之有许多难题需要解决。但我们再重新审视手头的资源时，就发现自己已经有了一些筹码。我们拥有Plus+平台，自己的第一方游戏工作室，Plus+平台的开发商关系网络，支撑这些服务的实体基础设备，以及一些内部开发技术。我们将原版应用编程界面与Javascript绑定，用Javascript创建一些原版应用程序，然后就可以用Javascript编写游戏逻辑，向不同手机平台及手机配置移植内容，我们可以快速完成这一系列过程。

我们觉得自己已经有一些解决方案了，所以就开始四处筹集资金以实现这个发展愿景。我们与不同的投资者商打过交道，有不少人有意投资让我们完成这种战略转型。我们就是想创建一个价值数十亿美元的西方DeNA公司。但当我们开始行动进行融资时，又想到了一个问题：“我们能实现全球化运营吗？”从总体上来说，日本及亚洲是一个巨大而充满活动的市场。我们还是有可能有效地执行这种发展战略。

我们原来想在日本创建一个堪比DeNA的运营项目，也考虑与一些亚洲公司共同合作，也许可以通过用技术作为交换条件，或者找到一个战略投资者来实现这一目标，所以我们与这些地区的竞争对手进行了接触。

你们早就认识DeNA的管理层？

是的，当我们再次与南场智子（游戏邦注：Tomoko Namba，DeNA首席执行官，如上图）会面时，她说他们也有相同的想法，她认为ngmoco的技术框架有助于DeNA实现从功能性手机到智能手机的本土业务转型。

南场智子认为DeNA在西方还不是特别有影响力，很有必要继续扩大它的势力范围。她表示可以向我们投资但也会考虑收购ngmoco。在随后几周时间里，我们终于达成了收购协议，然后在去年11月份，我们就开始整合两家公司的业务。

我们在发展蓝图、技术和运营框架上共同合作，以便将Mobage-town（游戏邦注：DeNA的手机社交游戏网站，现已更名为Mobage）打入全球智能手机市场。在12月15日，我们宣布面向一些首航合作伙伴推出了这个平台的软件开发工具包，大约40家美国和日本开发商参与了这项技术的内部测试。我们也宣布了这个平台与三星手机的预装合作项目，相信随着时间的发展，这也将成为我们推介的一项服务。

在3月份，我们还会向日本开发商开放这个平台的沙盒；在4月份会开放Mobage在日本智能手机、苹果手机平台的服务，在今年第二季度还会向世界其他地区开发商发布沙盒，并向西方市场开放Mobage平台服务。这是我们创建一个娱乐网络的总体计划情况。

可否详细介绍Mobage的相关情况？

它是一个全球性的平台，主要通过社交游戏服务创造收益。它在日本的每日手机游戏用户多达数百万人，另外还有一些PC用户。

Mobage还只是一个全球化平台运营的草图，它的未来发展潜力很大，它对这一代手机用户的影响，堪比MTV对上一代摇滚乐队粉丝的影响。它可以形成一种文化联系，它提供的并不只是一种独立的用户体验，而是一种社交体验。我认为未来十年的大公司，应该是那种真正关注“兴趣版图”的企业。如果说Facebook的社交版图就是一张好友关系网，地理定位版图就是用户所知地点的网络，那么兴趣版图则代表大家想做的事情。

游戏和娱乐正是多数人真正想做的事情，所以DeNA对日本市场的了解，加上我们对西方市场的观察，这会是一个完美的组合。

NG Core是一个服务于开发商的技术框架。我们已经快推出NG Core的1.0版本了。

Mobage平台有哪些功能？是不是有类似于积分排行榜、成就追踪、好友邀请和多人模式挑战之类的功能？

这些功能我们已经都有了，Plus+就已经具备你所描述的以上功能。我们要做的是，在这些功能的基础上添加新内容，打造一个真正的社交网络。在这个平台上，你可以交朋友，获得粉丝、积分排行榜、奖励，以及信息系统、搜寻好友、参与挑战、个性化的虚拟形象等功能。如果具备了所有的这些条件，那就等于找到了10%的解题答案。

除此之外，你还要提供一些玩家社区的服务，比如玩家卡片功能（玩家身份），应用内置信息交流系统。我们认为，每个游戏都要有自己的用户交际网络，然后构成更大的平台用户交际网络，形成一个与真实世界相对应的虚拟版图，这一点对平台的发展来说十分关键，这种功能可支持用户在自己感兴趣的游戏群体中找到新朋友。另外，你还得建立银行货币管理系统，虚拟商品以及物品供应系统。

你不只是给Plus+重新贴个标签就上线，所以你们实际上是在原来的基础上创建了大量新功能？

是的，其中有许多是DeNA已为Mobage日本用户创建的功能，还有许多功能和我们现在创建的内容相同。Plus+及其他一切东西都会重新命名为Mobage，其中有些服务是向西方用户开放，有些则不然。

Mobage对DeNA的运营来说有多重要？

Mobage是吸引用户重返DeNA旗下游戏的重要因素，它本身就是一个技术框架，也是游戏的交流、内容传递及交易的整体配套服务。这个平台还提供了名人博客，可以吸引大量用户使用其中的多项功能。它是绑定这种社交娱乐网站框架的一个综合体。

西方市场可有类似的产品或服务？

我认为没有。与它最为接近的是《魔兽世界》的虚拟版图，它拥有自己的经济模式，支持用户与拥有共同兴趣爱好的好友互动。

所以你们把它引进西方市场的时候，会将它称为社交网站？

它当然是一个社交网站，一个社交娱乐网站。

那么它就会成为一个iPhone平台所缺乏的一项服务，就像Facebook本身是个社交网站一样，如果iPhone平台也形成了一个这种网络，那么人们在iPhone平台上的活动应该会更为丰富和频繁。

是的，我也这么认为。我觉得不同平台有不同的标准。所以iOS平台有自己特定的商业规则和运营条件，而Android平台也有不同的商业规则和运营条件，其他手机平台也概莫能外，在网页平台则有其他不同情况。

所以，当我们打算创建这种类型的网站时，我们在一定程度上就得适应多个平台的需求和标准。我认为最重要的是人性化服务，我们得让用户掌握这些服务，但在此之前，我们得先搭建好这些平台。

你们打算把Mobage完整地植入iOS平台，还是只引进Android平台？

Android可能是我们可以完整植入Mobage的平台。因为我们在Android平台可以创建一个一站式的应用程序，将所有的独立应用绑定在一起。这些独立应用可以调动整个应用程序的强大功能。

但在iOS平台上，你虽然也可以拥有出色的服务体验，但这种体验是分散性的，你只能安装独立的游戏。如果要实现综合型的应用体验，我们就得选择以用户为中心的服务，而不是以分销渠道为主的服务。

所以我们得想法将用户聚集起来，让他们觉得自己是一个丰富而快乐体系中的一员，这样他们才会经常回来瞧瞧。在独立游戏中，我们已经可以创建久经时间考验的用户社区，下一步就是创建整个服务的用户社区，让用户更能体会到Mobage提供的贴心服务，也因此更加贴近这个社区中的其他成员。

你们如何通过这项服务创造收益？

我们创收的方式有很多种。第一种就是第一方产品，即我们自己的游戏。第二种是与加入这个平台的开发商进行营收分成，最后就是广告赞助。这是Mobage平台最基本的营收解决方案。

你们是否会像Facebook和苹果一样，针对开发商收抽30%的营收分成？

我可以告诉你，我们运营第一年关注的重点是整合所有的技术框架，吸引开发商加入这个平台。我们希望他们在这个平台上投放自己的原创游戏或其他娱乐产品，我们会善待开发商群体。开发商最关心的还是争取用户和解决营收问题。

我们认为这个平台可以让他们获取更多全球用户，这一行已经是个产值达数十亿美元的产业，我们希望帮助开发商获取更多用户，提高创收能力。我们致力于让开发商付出有所回报，他们每流失的一点营收份额，都会带来更多用户。

你们是否会提供一些用户分析和游戏推荐服务，会帮助开发商和用户解决搜索内容的问题吗？

当然会。

这是不是很像“按参与度提供奖励”（pay-per-engagement）的方法，就好像银行为一项可带来一名终身用户的服务提供雇金一样？

是的。我认为这种模式非常强大，也可以提高eCPM（平均每用户广告收益）水平，因为这类广告比普通广告更有效果。我们还会每月密切观察客户端反馈的用户数据，分析用户的消费习惯，以及他们重返游戏的概率。

这些服务对广告商来说很有价值，虽然我们现在也会保护用户的隐私权，但认为如果能向用户推荐合适的产品，那对所有人来说都是一种多赢的结果。

你们这样做只是先探探路，还是会继续开发这种服务？

当然，我们在发布之初就会提供丰富的分析工具，让开发商充分了解自己产品的市场表现。我们也会与广告伙伴合作，获得最理想的eCPM。ngmoco在游戏中提供广告服务已有些时间了，我们很了解如何优化eCPM。

我们还创造了新型广告模式，即激励广告模式，很有助于品牌广告商获得大量用户，比如说让用户观看广告视频，然后向他们提供免费的虚拟货币。

你们会同时在iPhone和Android发布Mobage吗？还是一次仅限一个平台？

我们可能会先向Andorid平台推出聚合型的Mobage服务。独立的应用程序可以同时在两个平台发布，但我们的目标并不是为两个平台创造同一款应用，而是迅速利用各个平台的硬件特点创造应用。

这有点奇怪，因为你们最初是靠iPhone平台起步的，现在却反而将Android平台作为首选，为什么？

我认为我们是两者兼顾。如果想创建一个大公司，我们就得考虑多个平台的可能性。我们当然很支持iOS，喜欢这个平台的生态系统，它的硬件质量和用户质量，以及出众的计费系统。iOS的优点实在太多了，但我们认为，如果无视Android的发展势头，那么我们就是在自毁业务发展前程。

你们能否成为西方iPhone平台上的Mobage，这其中有没有什么障碍？

唯一的障碍是我们不能在iPhone平台创建聚合型的应用。

具体是什么意思呢？

你可以在一个聚合型的服务应用中发布Mobage社交网站，提供完整的用户体验，可以从中运行一个独立的应用，也可以参与整个网站的活动。在三星的合作项目中，我们会在他们生产的智能手机及平板电脑的主界面植入一个应用程序，这个应用就是导入一个大型社交娱乐平台的切入点。

但在iOS平台你就不能植入一个聚合型的应用程序，因为它的商业规则不允许你整合所有的内容。

所以你就只能在iOS运行独立的应用，但这并不妨碍你获得丰富的用户体验，因为我们还是可以将多项服务投放到该平台。只是iOS平台确实存在许多局限性。

你的意思是说，你们开发的是一个应用程序的文件夹，而不是一个入口？

是的，你可以这么说。我是说这里面有多种考虑，我并不是想替苹果说话。我想苹果清楚自己考虑的因素是什么。但我还是希望有一天，苹果也可以像ABC电视台整合许多节目一样，支持

iPhone平台发行聚合型的应用程序。这对用户来说也是种很棒的体验，不是吗？

但这种事情非我所能控制，我只掌握得了我们自己所做的事情。我们和苹果、谷歌一样，都希望给用户创造出众的产品体验，我们相信随着市场的成熟发展，我们一定会更好地利用这些平台的功能。

Mobage是相当于Xbox Live的一种功能吗，或者其他什么平台？

不是的。我认为Mobage更像是一个聚集游戏和娱乐内容的Facebook平台。不过Facebook有多种限制性条件，如果要充分利用这个平台的发展机遇，你就得考虑创新的尺度。有时候你希望可以在匿名状态下体验游戏，或者只和一小部分好友分享内容。如果我有1600个Facebook好友，我并不想让所有人都知道我很会玩某款游戏。我只想让也在玩这款游戏的人知道这种情况。

我想我已经了解你们的战略远见，还有DeNA出高价收购ngmoco的原因了。

对一家公司的估值来说，这一点确实很重要。我认为ngmoco的估值主要受到几个因素的影响。其中之一就是NG Core技术框架；第二是我们持续在iPhone平台推出成功作品的运营纪录；第三，如果你是一家希望向全球进军的日本公司，最重要的就是立即找到一个可以快速执行任务的管理团队。最后，我们的Plus+平台在西方已经有2000万注册用户，Plus+平台产品的安装量达到1.2亿次，共形成了6000万个好友关系。我们运行的一个服务器将这些产品整合为一体，此外还拥有自主知识产权。而现在的DeNA在自己的平台上并没有太多知识产权。

对手机游戏市场来说，有一个关键的问题就是，它什么时候才能追上Facebook平台的Zynga等社交游戏公司？就目前来看，手机游戏的发展略为落后，这也正是Zynga估值如此之高的原因。手机游戏还要多久才能赶上社交游戏？

在日本，DeNA可以用比Zynga更少的用户创造13亿美元的营收。从这一点可以看出手机游戏的发展潜力非常巨大，你可以同时成为排名第一的手机游戏和社交游戏公司。但在Facebook平台，如果你不是排在前五名的社交游戏开发商，那你就没有多少影响力。你的游戏业务运营可能会略有盈余，但却供不起40至50人的团队。在这种环境下，大多数公司很难成长为营收达数十亿美元的企业。

我认为手机游戏领域在这一点上很不同，因为手机及手机操作系统最终会比Facebook游戏的覆盖率更高，这一行会形成更大的市场，创造更多发展机遇。我希望这一领域的前面一二三名公司的身价能达到数十亿美元。如果你是前10强手机游戏公司，你的业务运营就会很成功很强大。我们现在离这个目标还有多远呢？我想在2014年西方市场会出现这种拥有社交平台、身价达数十亿美元的手机游戏公司。我们希望自己有幸成为其中之一。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Ngmoco’s Neil Young foresees multibillion-dollar mobile game companies

Neil Young is the chief executive of Ngmoco, the mobile game publisher that was acquired by Japan’s DeNA for up to $403 million last fall. But Young says that wasn’t just the end point for his company and its success as a publisher of iPhone games. Rather, Young and his parent company are on a quest to create a multibillion-dollar mobile entertainment company. The centerpiece of that is Mobage and NG Core, two technologies that will be combined into a worldwide mobile social network.

Mobage, as the social network will be known, is based on DeNA’s Japanese mobile social network and centers around an “interest graph,” or an organization of people based on what their interests are. Ngmoco is spearheading the creation of this platform and will launch it in the coming weeks in the U.S. on Android phones. Once it does so, we’ll learn more about whether DeNA got its money’s worth when it bought Ngmoco and whether Young’s prediction about multibillion-dollar mobile social gaming companies will come true.

We got the chance to interview Young recently about where the Ngmoco is headed under its new parent company and what we can expect from Mobage:

VB: Can you gives us an update on Ngmoco under DeNA?

NY: Let me back up and give you the history that led to the acquisition and then talk about where we are, and where we are headed. In May, 2009, our management team at Ngmoco sat down and we contemplated what trajectory were on.

We had done that the prior year, when we made the shift from paid downloads to free-to-play games. The free-to-play business was good. As we projected where we thought business would be, one, two, or three years away, we thought about the value that we could create. We were quite happy with the trajectory the company was on. We saw we could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues.

But given the impact that the iPhone and Android were making on the market place, and the impact of tablets, we felt maybe we were missing something. Maybe there was a bigger opportunity out there. And so we sort of started looking at what our competitors were doing. In the U.S. and in the West, we didn’t really see anything that made us feel like we were missing out. We felt that in the free-to-play market, we were doing a really good job. And with the Plus+ social network, we felt we were doing a good job. We had a very different approach to it where we focused only on the highest quality software. At the time, we had about 10 million registered customers, and now it’s closer to 20 million.

We looked at the landscape and felt like we were in a pretty good position. We had been hearing for a year that Zynga was going to come in and eat our lunch. We had survived the launch of their FarmVille and we had survived their launch of Mafia Wars. We had unique skills and knowledge. We started looking outside of the U.S. and Western markets at companies like Tencent in China, which was succeeding with its QQ service. We also saw the success of Nexon and NHN in Korea and the success of DeNA and Gree in Japan.

And as we looked at all of these different markets and companies, we asked ourselves what the similarity was between the conditions on the ground in those markets that enabled those companies to succeed versus the conditions on the ground in the West. The conditions on the ground in China were fairly unique. In Korea, the market was very PC-centric. But the conditions in Japan were really similar to ours. In the early 2000s, Japan had already done what was happening in the U.S. in 2010. They had low-cost or unlimited data plans, 3G penetration, and critical levels of usability and functions. They had frictionless payment systems. That was all driving huge usage patterns.

VB: They were way ahead?

NY: Yes. They had direct carrier billing in those markets. Basically, they had the equivalent of iTunes as a default billing mechanism for online purchases. We started studying DeNA and Gree more closely and we reached the conclusion that there was an opportunity to essentially create the Western DeNA. That would require us to do another kind of investment in our company and go from being an application developer with an affiliate network to a platform company with great first-party and third-party development.

If we wanted to replicate the model that DeNA had pioneered in Japan but adapted for the Western markets, it was going to be essential for us to make a new technology framework. We had to create a customer aggregation framework. And we had to produce new levels of hit products. There are a lot of moving pieces to this puzzle. But when we looked to the assets that we had, we saw we had the pieces of a puzzle. We had the Plus+ network, our first-party game studios, the network of developers or affiliates we had on the Plus+ network, the physical infrastructure we built to support those things, and some internal technology. We could offer native-quality applications in Javascript by binding our native applications programming interfaces to Javascript so that you can write game logic in Javascript and move your content very quickly across different devices and device configurations. We could do that with fast iteration speeds. The analogy is that it was like editing an app rather than submitting changes to the App Store.

We felt like we had the pieces of a puzzle. So we went out and we started raising money against that vision. We talked to a lot of different financial investors and we got great interest to raise a big round that would help us fund that transition. We wanted to go off and build a multibillion dollar company in that space, the Western DeNA. As we were doing that and putting together that financing, we sort of asked ourselves a question. [Can we do this globally?] Japan, and Asia in general, is a very big and vibrant market. But realistically, we would be able to execute that effectively.

We would have to build a successful Japanese operation that could compete with DeNA. We considered a partnership with one of these Asian companies. Maybe we could do a technology swap. Maybe we could find a strategic investor. And so we approached the players in those territories.

VB: You already knew DeNA’s management?

NY: Yes. When we met again with Tomoko Namba (CEO of DeNA, pictured right), she said they share the same vision. She said they believe that the market is going to grow the same way, and she said Ngmoco’s technology framework will help DeNA manage a transition in its local market from feature phones to smartphones.

She said DeNA hadn’t been successful in the West yet and needed to be to continue its expansion as a company. She said she could invest in Ngmoco but wanted to explore the idea of acquiring the company. Over the course of the next weeks, we came to an agreement on an acquisition. That closed in November and we have been working on integrating the companies.

We are working on the roadmap, technology, and business frameworks to bring Mobage-town (DeNA’s mobile social network, which will be known as Mobage in the future) to the global market with a focus on smartphones. On Dec. 15, we announced the roadmap for a Japanese release of our software development kit with a limited set of launch partners. About 40 companies from the U.S. and Japan are participating in a private beta test. We also announced our partnership with Samsung where Mobage will power Samsung’s devices. It will be preloaded on all Samsung Android devices around the world. Over time, it will evolve into a service that we are going to introduce.

So, fast forward to today, and in March we will open the sandbox for developers in Japan. In April we will launch the Mobage smartphone service in Japan, the Apple smartphone service in Japan. Later in the second quarter, we will release the sandbox for the rest of the world and the Mobage service for the Western markets. That’s the overview of our opportunity to build a future entertainment network.

VB: Tell us more about Mobage?

NY: It’s basically got a world-class network when it comes to monetization of a social games service. And it is used by millions of people every day to play games in consumer entertainment on their cell phones and, to a lesser degree, on PCs in Japan.

And it is a rough blueprint for what you can accomplish in the rest of the world. There is an opportunity to build something that will impact this mobile generation in the way that MTV impacted rock-and-roll fans a generation ago. It can be something that is culturally relevant, something that you know isn’t just linear programming.

It’s interactive programming that you know isn’t just a solo experience but a social experience. I think the really big companies of the next decade are going to be companies that are focused on some of the “interest graph.” If Facebook’s social graph is about your friends and the location graph is about some places you know, the interest graph is about what people want to do.

Games and entertainment is a really big piece of what people want to do. And so the learning and the knowledge from DeNA’s implementation in Japan, when combined with our view of the Western market, will be a perfect combination.

NG Core is a technology framework that is available to developers today. We are almost at the 1.0 version of the release of NG Core.

VB: What are some of the features? Are they things like the leaderboards, achievements, friend requests, and multiplayer challenges?

NY: No. We have all of those things. To put it to perspective, the Plus+ functionality is what you described. We need on top of that the functionality to build a true social network. You’ve got friends, followers, leader boards, awards, something like messaging, match making or challenges, personalizing avatars. When you have all of those things, that’s about 10 percent of the puzzle.

You also need community services, you need gamer card (identity) functionality, the ability to get a message inside an application. For a game to have its own graph that’s part of a larger graph, a virtual graph versus a real graph, we think that is a really important piece of this puzzle. That allows you to meet new friends based on who you meet inside the interest group, or inside the game. Then you also have to have bank currency management, virtual goods, provisioning systems.

VB: You can’t just sort of take Plus+ and relabel it. You are actually building a bunch of stuff on top of it?

NY: On top of that yes. A lot of that is what DeNA has built with Mobage in Japan. A lot of that will be common with what we are building here. Plus+ and everything else is all being rebranded as Mobage. Some of it will work in the West. Some parts will not.

VB: How key is Mobage to how well DeNA is doing?

NY: Mobage is perceived as and understood as the essential glue that keeps people coming back to DeNA’s games. And Mobage itself is the technology framework, but it’s also a whole set of services that sit on top of the games both for communication and content delivery or commerce. There are things like celebrity blogs, which attract a lot of people and get them to use a lot of features. It’s all tied together through this kind of social entertainment network framework.

VB: And is there an analogy for it in the West?

NY: I don’t think so. The closest thing is the virtual graphs that exist in World of Warcraft, [the biggest massively multiplayer online game]. It has its own economy and way for allowing you to communicate with people who have the same interests as you.

VB: So when you introduce it here, you’ll call it a social network?

NY: It absolutely is a social network. It is a social entertainment network.

VB: And that then becomes the thing that everybody has described as what’s missing from things like the iPhone. For instance, Facebook is a social network by itself.

If there was something like that on the iPhone itself, then the amount of activity on the iPhone would go up dramatically.

NY: Yeah, I think so. I think there are specific implementations for specific platforms. So there are business rules and business conditions that exist in iOS [Apple's operating system]. There are different business rules and conditions that exist on Android and then still other rules on other mobile devices and different rules again on the web.

And so ultimately, when we are trying to build this type of network, we need to be device agnostic and operating system agnostic to some degree. I think really about humans at the end of the day. Our customers are humans and so we have to be able to get service into the hands of humans. But we have to start with the platforms.

VB: And can you implement Mobage fully on the iOS, or can you only do that on Android?

NY: Android is probably the place that we can implement it fully today completely. That is, we can create one destination application that binds many of these experiences together in conjunction with individual applications that surface on the market place. Those individual apps can then invoke the functionality of that larger service application. On iOS, you still have a great experience but your experience is a little less integrated. You can have the individual applications, the actual games. They are the fuel for the ecosystem on the iOS. To realize the full potential there, we need to think about user-centric services versus distribution point centric services.

So we need to figure out how to connect customers together, so that they feel like they are part of a really rich and vibrant ecosystem that they are committed to coming back to. And we have been able to do that in individual games, to build communities within games that persist over time. Then the next step is to build communities in services over time that actually feel an affinity to the service and affinity to others inside the service.

VB: How would you make money from this?

NY: There are a couple of ways. The first is from our own first-party products, our own games. The second is by sharing revenue with the developers that participate inside the network. Then, lastly, we can make money on advertising. Those are the basic mechanisms to monetize that framework in that platform.

VB: And will you charge a 30 percent fee for developers participating in your network, as Facebook and Apple do on their platforms?

NY: I can tell you we are in the first year going to focus on putting together frameworks that will incentivize people to come to the platform. We want them to deliver their intellectual property [games and other entertainment] on the platform and we are going to be very friendly. Developers at the end of the day need an audience and they need monetization.

And we think we can give them access to a big audience in a global market, a market certainly in Japan where they are not even present now. That’s already a multibillion-dollar industry. We would increase their opportunity to access customers and increase their ability to monetize their products. The case we have to make in a compelling way is that anything they would be losing in revenue share they will be more than making up for in volume.

VB: And then are there some interesting things you can do with the analytics and recommendation services. You can help the developers and users with the discovery of content?

NY: Yeah, certainly.

VB: So then the opportunity here is a lot like pay-per-engagement, like when a bank rewards a service that can put it in touch with someone who will be a customer for life?

NY: Absolutely. I think that’s very powerful and we have the ability to improve the eCPMs [advertising revenues per number of users] from the ads because they can be a lot more effective than ordinary ads. We are poring through terabytes of data already from our clients every single month. We process that and can infer the buying habits of a customer and how likely they are to come back.

And that’s valuable to advertisers. Now we have to be able to protect the privacy of our customers, but we think that if we are recommending the right brands or applications to our customers, that is going to be a win-win for everyone.

VB: Will you do this right out of the gate, or will this develop over time?

NY: Well, we are certainly offering a rich set of analytics at launch that will enable developers to understand the full performance profile of their products. And we will certainly be working with our ad partners to make sure that we have the very best eCPMs. Ngmoco has been serving ads in its games now for quite a long time and we’ve learned a lot about how to optimize those eCPMs.

We have also been able to produce new types of advertising units called incented ad units, which are really important to brand advertisers that want to reach our audience. We say that you can watch this video and receive free gold inside the application.

VB: Do you think you will be able to launch Mobage on iPhone at the same time you launch on Android or do you have to go one at a time?

NY: We will probably be out on Android first for the integrated service. The individual application is something that could be launched on both platforms right away.

Our goal is to not actually produce the same application on both platforms. Our goal is to quickly make use of the specific hardware that goes with each platform.

VB: Is it weird that you started as an actual iPhone shop and now, by the business path you have chosen, you have to become an Android shop?

NY: I think we are both. We have to be platform agnostic if we want to build a big company. We certainly love iOS, and we love the ecosystem, and we love the quality of the hardware and the quality of the customers and the quality of the payment mechanisms. There is a lot to love about iOS. But I think we’d be doing our business a disservice if we ignored Android given the momentum Android has.

VB: But can you become the Mobage of the West on the iPhone, or is there an obstacle to that?

NY: The single biggest obstacle is that we can’t build an integrated application.

VB: You said that quickly, what does that mean?

NY: In the integrated service application, you could launch Mobage, the social network, and that place would house your complete experience. Now you can come to the experience by using an individual application that is part of the overall network. You launch a game and then come to the network. You can then join the network and go directly to the network. In the case of our Samsung partnership, we have an application that is on the home page of every telephone they build on the planet and every tablet they build. It’s like a channel unto itself that leads to a great social entertainment network.

On iOS you can’t actually have that single application that houses everything because the business rules don’t allow you to aggregate content together.

So you have to have individual applications that run on iOS. Now, that doesn’t stop you from having a really rich experience. We can still deliver a lot of the pieces. But there are limitations.

VB: So on the iOS, an app has to be an app. It can’t be a portal to other things like a social network?

NY: Correct. We are at the very beginning here right now. There are going to be a lot of changes that happen. We have just seen how much the changes happen around subscriptions and publishing content, and I am sure that there will be a whole bunch of changes as the market evolves. I do trust that Apple absolutely does have the best interest of the customers at heart. They have time and time again demonstrated to me that is actually the core of their business concerns. So I believe that, as they evolve their platform, they are going to invent and allow some really progressive ways of delivering content. And this is a marathon.

VB: And you can kind of say that what you are doing is just creating a folder for applications, not a portal?

NY: Yeah, that’s certainly one way you can look at it. I mean there are lots of considerations, and I wouldn’t want to speak for Apple. I think only Apple really understands all its considerations. But I am hopeful that, over time, we will evolve to models that allow the delivery of channels. Like, for instance, ABC should be able to aggregate a lot of shows together and deliver a channel on the iPhone just as they deliver that on TV. If it’s a great experience for users, why not?

I don’t control that. I can control what we do. We share the desire of Apple and Google to deliver great experiences to customers, so we are going to focus on doing that. We trust that, as the market evolves, we will be able to take advantage of the platforms and their features.

VB: Is Mobage the equivalent of Xbox Live, or something else?

NY: No. I think it is more like a Facebook for games and entertainment. I think there is a fundamental issue for Facebook, and it sounds kind of crazy. Facebook has some limitations. You have to think on this scale of innovation if you want to take advantage of the real opportunity here. Sometimes you want an anonymous experience or to select a small group of friends to share things with. If I have 1,600 friends on Facebook, I don’t want them all to know that I just did great in a game. Only the people who care about that should know.

VB: I think I see now the connection between the broader ambition you have and the price that DeNA paid for Ngmoco, which some people said was very high.

NY: This is very important to how you value the company. The overall ambition is very large. I think the valuation of Ngmoco was driven by a few factors. One was the

NG Core technology framework. Second, we have a track record of consistently producing successful products on the iPhone platform. And third, if you are a Japanese company and you want to get a global footprint, one of the biggest challenges is getting a management team that can execute that as quickly as possible. Lastly, there is the Plus+ network, which has 20 million registrations in the West. We’ve had more than 120 million installs of Plus+ products. There are 60 million friend connections. We operate a server network that keeps it altogether. And we own all of our own intellectual property. Right now, DeNA does not own much of the intellectual property on its network.

VB: The question for the mobile gaming market is, how soon does its momentum catch up with the amazing momentum of companies like Zynga on Facebook? Right now, mobile games have lagged, and that is why Zynga’s valuation is so much higher. How far behind is the mobile industry?

NY: In Japan, DeNA is doing $1.3 billion in revenue with way fewer customers than Zynga. That shows you the tremendous opportunity in front of us. You have the No. 1 company in mobile games and the No. 1 company in social games. On Facebook, if you are not in the top five game companies, you really don’t matter. You may be a nice lifestyle game business. But you can’t support 40 or 50 people. In that environment, it will be tough for multiple companies to get into the billions of dollars in revenues.

I think the mobile game space is different. I think ultimately mobile and mobile operating systems will be more ubiquitous than Facebook games. And I think there is going to be a much bigger market and much bigger opportunity out there, so I hope there will be multibillion-dollar companies in the one, two, and three spots. If you are a top 10 company, you are going to have a great, exciting business. How far away from that are we? I think by 2014 we will see multibillion-dollar Western mobile game companies with social game platforms. We hope to be one of them.（source:venturebeat）