Gaming is an important part of the Line equation, and one that the company believes can be a real differentiator. "Back in the day with online games you had these ranking systems but it was just someone’s ID, and you had no real familiarity with this person," says Idezawa. "The thing that’s different with Line and really makes it stand out is that these are the families, friends, and people in your lives that are inside your contact list on your phone that you see every day." In other words, Line can build an automatic Xbox Live-style friends list made up of people you know because each account is tied to a phone number. The games, which are all free to play and backed by in-app purchases, loop these contacts into leaderboards so you can compete with your friends across the platform. It’s a similar idea to Apple’s Game Center, which has never made much cultural impact beyond frantic Flappy Bird competition, but is simpler to use with a list of Line friends.
If games are going to be Line's beachhead in the US, it may have to open up its platform. The company enforces a strict curation policy that only allows a select few partners. "Having a few dozen games, most of which are made by Asian companies, for a user base of over 500 million isn't enough," according to Toto, the games consultant. "I think that Disney Tsum Tsum is a well-executed game, but at the end of the day, it's just a casual puzzle game powered by Disney, and nothing that will acquire a critical mass of users for them." This week Line announced a $100 million fund to help Japanese developers bring their games to international markets, but that’s unlikely to do much in terms of producing more globally appealing content. Toto cites Kakao Talk as an example to follow — it has hundreds of games next to Line’s handful and brings in serious revenue.
Line has its work cut out for success in the US
Line has its work cut out for US success, then, particularly when you consider that no Japanese software business has ever really made it big in North America. "There are software companies like Nintendo that are famous," says Idezawa when I put this idea to him. "As for internet software companies, though, there hasn’t really been one as far as I know. But we want to be that company."
Whether this comes to pass or not, Line could be the first with a claim to credibility — it’s built a service that its users love, with no small amount of innovation along the way. The cross-platform support is more appealing than iMessage. Stickers have proven compelling and lucrative enough for Facebook and Path to rip off. And Yo’s plan to become a universal middle man for notifications? Japanese brands have been using Line that way for years. If the company can get over entrenched competition and some not insignificant cultural barriers, there’s no reason why America couldn’t get hooked on Line.
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