Gree boss thinks of Zynga, EA as major western competitors

Although DeNA and ngmoco might seem like Gree's obvious rivals as the Japanese mobile publisher makes a push for the west, International CEO Naoki Aoyagi has other competitors in mind.

"As a game developer or a game publisher, Zynga is going to be really aggressive with new games," Aoyagi told VentureBeat.

"I saw some article about how they’re expanding the scope of the business and they’re highly committed to building the platform out. And also EA. We saw Sims Social, and their content for iPad. They know what they’re doing.

"I think those Western developers, and also some from Asia, they’re going to be very interesting players in the market.

"I don’t think DeNA is our competitor in the Western market," he added. "In Japan, we’re always compared, but the games they do themselves. Their first-party games are not very strong yet."