Japan’s Mixi was an also-ran social network that fell to Facebook — until Monster Strike. Now the game, which Mixi developed and published to smartphones, is raking in $3.8 million dollars a day, and the company’s sales are up 829 percent year-over-year, VentureBeat reports.
This data comes from the company’s recent financial results, which clearly paint a picture of what a major mobile hit can net you. It’s Puzzle & Dragons all over again.
Japanese mobile game industry expert Serkan Toto told VentureBeat that there’s still room for the game to grow in popularity: “… at the moment, the Mixi app has ‘just’ 25 million downloads worldwide, while Puzzle & Dragons passed 35 million [in Japan].”
Not clear on what Monster Strike is? It’s like air hockey meets Pokemon, sort of: You smash enemies in action battles, and then manage and raise your monster team.
While the game hasn’t substantially caught on in the U.S., it’s proving a hit in China, VentureBeat reports: “… China increased the number of players by a staggering amount. The original Japanese launch still accounts for over 70 percent of the install base, but the growth rate of Chinese players suggests it could overtake the home market within a year,” says VB Insight analyst Stewart Rogers.
For more on Monster Strike, check out our interview with design lead Yoshiki Okamoto, the former head of Capcom’s R&D studio and producer of Street Fighter II.