Bank data: Half of Japan studios are unprofitable

Only about 55 per cent of Japan game development studios are returning a profit, according to consolidated financial data disclosed in a new study.

Using statistics provided by two corporate financial databases, the study found that nearly half of 289 Japan games firms studied had lost money in the past two years.

Many but not all Japan game studios had participated in the research.

University of Gothenburg researcher Mirko Ernkvist, who conducted the paper, found that the mean profit margin for game studios was minus 2.6 per cent; an overall loss for Japan’s game development fleet.

The data was provided to Ernkvist by Tokyo Shoko Research and Teikoku Databank, with other data in the report (pdf here) gathered by a survey of about 75 CEOs.

Providing a macroeconomic context to his report, Ernkvist had republished data from a white paper that found a dramatic loss in Japan’s game export rates (see below)