Wellington mobile games company to enter Japan

Wellington mobile games company poised to enter Japan

Wellington games company Instinct has signed a deal with a Japanese investor as part of a high-level business delegation to Japan and Hong Kong. The company will launch its Game Creator software in Japan later this year.

An agreement has been signed between Wellington web and mobile phone games company Instinct Entertainment and Tokyo-based investor Terrie Lloyd to develop Instinct’s games creation and e-commerce software for the Japanese market. Lloyd will take a strategic equity stake in the company and assist in localisation, marketing and distribution.

‘Instinct has a unique understanding of the mindset of social network users, and has been able to parlay that understanding into applications that are right for the times,’ says Lloyd. ‘We believe that the mobile games platform in particular has very good prospects here in Japan and elsewhere in North Asia.’

Instinct CEO and founder Dan Milward was a member of a high-level delegation to Hong Kong earlier this month, where a memorandum of understanding was also signed between Wellington and Hong Kong.

‘Terrie has successfully built a number of software and publishing companies in Japan,’ says Milward. ‘We’re delighted to be working with his team to take our software into North Asia. It’s also great to be part of a Wellington focus on this part of the world.’

The deal was brokered by Chris Lipscombe from strategic marketing consultancy Ground Zero. Chris Lipscombe was also a member of the delegation to Hong Kong, and led Instinct’s negotiations in Japan.

‘We have been working on this deal for almost a year, and it’s very satisfying to have reached this stage,’ Lipscombe said. ‘Instinct is only a young company, but it already has some fantastic products. This new partnership will help them introduce their software to a much larger market.’

Instinct’s Game Creator software is a point-and-click web and mobile game creation engine powered by Adobe® Systems software. Instinct’s e-commerce plug-in for WordPress is a shopping cart application with over 300,000 users worldwide and Level 2 Certification from Google® Inc.

Getshopped, a full e-commerce application utilising Instinct’s successful e-commerce plug-in for WordPress, is currently available in English and Simplified Chinese, with Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Portuguese language versions under development.

ENDS