Category:DoJa games

DoJa was a J2ME software specification designed by NTT DoCoMo, the most popular mobile operator in Japan, for use on mobile phones distributed by them. Ordinarily, when someone says "Java games", they're probably referring to games for phones that supported the MIDP spec, which was finished shortly after and took precedence almost everywhere outside of DoCoMo's and Verizon's reach.

However, DoJa as a platform (sometimes also known as i-Mode after DoCoMo's internet service, or i-appli after how the Japanese phones refer to individual apps) was widespread for portable gaming in Japan thanks to DoCoMo's popularity, and upon the shutdown of the i-Mode software storefronts in November 2021, it only began to become increasingly more famous in gaming communities for quality games from the likes of Square Enix, Capcom and Hudson Soft (who weren't as invested in phone gaming outside of Japan), as well as DoJa providing better capabilities for more powerful games in some ways. With it, came the preservation struggle of the mid-2020s (when some interested people showed up) - many of the phones used obscure proprietary hardware with seemingly no associated servicing software existing, and the tight copyright laws in Japan (which prevented any game backups appearing up until that point) didn't exactly help.

It should also be mentioned that DoJa games were available in Europe for a short time span in the 2000s from several mobile operators offering i-Mode as a paid option, but these attempts to bring it overseas were short-lived and unsuccessful, which could be related to higher mobile internet costs in various countries at the time - Japanese games (not only for DoJa, but for MIDP as well) often downloaded content into the save data in the middle of the game to bypass storage limitations (which, of course, is another preservation hurdle).