Japan's FTC Raids DeNA On Antitrust Suspicions

Japan's Fair Trade Commission raided the offices of DeNA (Mobage-town), one of the world's largest mobile social portal operators and game developers, due to antitrust suspicions. The FTC accused Tokyo-based DeNA of seeking to prevent developers from working with rival mobile social portal operator Gree, threatening to cancel deals with studios that partnered with Gree, and blocking Mobage-town users from playing games created by the developers that collaborated with Gree. According to a report from The Japan Times, the FTC claims DeNA's actions violated local anti-monopoly laws and imposed unfair restrictions on its partners. A DeNA spokesperson confirmed the Japanese government's investigation but declined to provide any further comments about the matter. Founded in 1999, DeNA is best known for its Japanese mobile social network Mobage-town, which currently has over 20.5 million registered users. Gree, which was established in 2004 and is also based in Tokyo, has over 22 million users in its mobile social network. DeNA has made several moves to expand its international reach in the past year, buying up U.S. social game developers like Gameview and investing in firms like mobile social network operator Aurora Feint. Most recently, it purchased Rolando publisher Ngmoco for $400 million. Since reports of the FTC's raid emerged last night, DeNA's shares in Nikkei 225 index have dropped by more than 10 percent.