Japan Mobile Games Market: Tips and Tricks for Creative User Acquisition Campaigns to Succeed in 2025

Japan Market-entry Trends and Creative Insights

The Japanese gaming market is predominantly driven by character-based businesses. A significant contributor to this trend is the popularity of gacha (loot box) systems, which offer in-game rewards and collectibles that resonate strongly with Japanese consumers. These insights are crucial for understanding Japan mobile games market trends.

• Market Dynamics: Japan’s mobile gaming market is known for its strong emphasis on immersive storytelling and high-quality graphics, which continue to be key drivers of success.
• Vertical Video Ads: Japan’s Ad Cap favors vertical video formats. Creating 15-30 second vertical video ads is highly recommended for effective promotion, especially through video reward ads, highlighting the impact of Japan mobile games market trends.
• UGC Limitations: UGC is not typically effective for game marketing in Japan, especially for genres that don’t align well with user-generated content.
• Influencer Marketing: On the other hand, influencer marketing can be highly beneficial. Engaging micro-influencers who play casual games can help build an audience. Initially, focus on testing Japanese-localized creatives to understand how they resonate with the audience before launching a larger-scale influencer campaign, effectively leveraging Japan mobile games market trends.
• Accurate Localization: Your app store must be fully localized for the Japanese market, both in terms of copy and design. Even minor localization errors, such as a misplaced line break, or an inappropriate font can signal to users that the game is a foreign product, leading to drop-offs.

Characteristics of Japanese Creative

Symbolism and Storytelling: Ads in Japan tend to avoid direct messaging. Instead, they rely on symbolism, humor, entertainment, and rich storytelling.

Visual Appeal: Japanese consumers love cute characters and mascots, and they appreciate delicate, artistic ads.

Trust Building: Ads often feature testimonials from celebrities, influencers, or ordinary consumers. This approach builds trust and is essential for establishing the legitimacy of your game in Japan.

Media Platforms for App Promotion

• Global Platforms: The most effective global platforms for app advertising in Japan include Google, X (formerly Twitter), Meta, and TikTok.
• Local Ad Networks: Supplementary local networks such as UNICORN, AMoAd, and i-mobile are useful for enhancing campaign reach.
• Platforms Not Suited for App Promotion: While LINE and Yahoo Japan are dominant players in web advertising, they are not ideal for app promotion. Their strengths are similar to global platforms like Criteo, which excels in web ads but underperforms in app and game campaigns.

Ad Testing Strategy

For a new game entering the Japanese market, it is standard to run 3-5 creative tests. This is similar to practices in the US and ensures that the creative resonates with the audience before scaling up the campaign. It is a vital part of understanding Japan mobile games market trends.

Western Counterparts

Japan mobile games market trends also include featuing people playing the game, whether that is regular people or celebrities. It helps the viewers to understand what they would experience or feel like when playing the game. Ads should also show gameplay to demonstrate the experience they could encounter.

Japanese game ads are featured in both traditional and digital mediums, especially if it is a very famous IP, whether it’s newspaper, magazine, website, editorials, OOH, public transportation etc.
Overall, most Japanese media tends to lean on the information-heavy side, often including as much text as possible to fully describe a product or service, reflecting Japan mobile games market trends.

Avoiding Misleading Ads

Ads that show people playing the game or directly reflect in-game experiences perform well in Japan.  However, Japanese consumers are particularly sensitive to misleading ads. They expect ads to accurately represent the gameplay experience. Discrepancies between ad content and actual game features can lead to dissatisfaction and rapid uninstallation. This sensitivity is partly because Japanese gamers invest considerable time and money in games, they deem valuable and trustworthy. Avoid misleading creative elements to prevent losing credibility with your audience.

Leveraging Cultural and Seasonal Events in Japan

Seasonal events hold great importance in Japan and are valuable opportunities to align your campaigns with local culture.

Focus on Japan-specific holidays like Shōgatsu (New Year’s Day), White Day, Golden Week, Bunka no Hi (Culture Day), as well as summer vacation, and spring break seasons. These long holidays are ideal for running special promotions and limited-time events.

Event Strategy

To boost engagement and revenue, consider running limited-time events that are tailored to these key dates. Implementing event-driven content can help you increase revenue by up to 30% during these peak periods. SuperFaction can assist by providing:

• Any type of creative assets for advertising and in-game sales
• Pricing consultation for in-app purchases
• Localized social media posts tailored for the Japanese market

What’s Next?

By adhering to these recommendations and focusing on cultural alignment, creative testing, and localized advertising strategies, game marketers can significantly optimize their user acquisition efforts in Japan’s highly lucrative mobile games market.

With a local presence, we’ve successfully helped numerous games enter the Japanese market and expand their reach, thriving in this challenging yet highly rewarding gaming landscape, guided by Japan mobile games market trends.