GREE’s investment in eBuddy hasn’t gotten much press attention compared to its other acquisitions. But within our newsroom we suspected GREE’s long-term strategy has got something to do with messaging, which could possibly be aligned with its future strategy in mobile game distribution.
We were right. As my colleague Rick wrote about GREE Messenger’s secret/test launch earlier today, I wondered if this involves eBuddy. And the answer turns out to be a yes. A GREE representative told us:
Yes, we have released a chat app in India, Australia, and New Zealand, but it’s only a test version. And we have been developing it with eBuddy.
It is not clear if GREE Messenger will ride on eBuddy’s 250 million worldwide users. But I would speculate that it’s likely. eBuddy’s messaging platform works like Apple’s iMessage or NHN’s Line, allowing users to text on mobile and desktop interchangeably. In other words, the social graph extends to both mobile and desktop which might just bring in the possibility for GREE to launch desktop games in the future. I’m not suggesting that it will, but there’s a possibility for this too.
And given that eBuddy is working so closely with GREE on launching a customized messaging platform for its investor, it seems like the relationship isn’t just that of a mere minority investor. It is perhaps very likely that GREE could acquire the entire eBuddy team to focus on mobile chat if GREE Messenger works out well.
So social gaming rival DeNA, with its new Comm app, isn’t the only one working on mobile messaging in 2013. We’re in for another mobile chat app war between these two Japanese gaming companies.
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