StreetsAhead said: I thought it was crazy how much advertising there was for mobile games when I was last in Tokyo. Certainly, much more than for mobile games on the train than for traditional games. Click to expand...

Vic said: But really, mobile games in Japan has been a thing way earlier than elsewhere in the world, long before Android/iPhone devices came to life, so to see the market maturing to this level isn't that surprising. Japan-GAF can attest to that, yes? Click to expand...

If you saw the kind of numbers with how much these companies pull in such as Gree & Mobage, its not surprising how they can afford these types of advertisements in prime locations / magazines which are insanely expensive. Have had to deal with magazine advertisements in the past here and its CRAZY how much it costs just for a single issue price jumps depending on where in said magazine / use of color / page space etc.Its a lot bigger now that smartphones for the most part offer a far more complete entertainment experience than what previous phones did. On top of that a lot less models to have to deal with when it comes to having various versions of the same / similar applications which was part of the huge mess with mobile application development in the past. These days too there are 2 major portals which people use to get most of the popular apps being Gree and Mobage. In the past it was a bit more of a pain in the ass having to make accounts everywhere and all of them worked off of different payment plans and whatnots. Lets not even go into the huge problem of trying to deactivate ones account back then too.The ease of use with smartphones and graphical interface is what really made the market blow up in a positive way.