Attention Japanese developers: San Francisco startup Kabam wants to help bring your games to American and European markets.
Kabam announced today that it set up a $50 million fund designed specifically to bring Japanese mobile games to those large markets, according to the Wall Street Journal. Under the deal, Kabam will pay for localization, marketing, and distribution in exchange for a percentage of the revenue.
Kabam CEO Kevin Chou told the Journal that he believes Japanese developers can double their revenue if they work with his company.
This initiative will have Kabam butting heads with Japanese companies Gree and DeNA over the same pool of developers.
Japan is a hotspot for mobile game development. The free-to-play movement has caught on in a major way in that market and is sparking games like Gung Ho Online Entertainment’s Puzzle & Dragons, which is on its way to generating $1 billion in revenue.
Kabam also has expertise in the free-to-play sector with world-sim games Kingdoms of Camelot and The Hobbit: Kingdoms.