Zombies. People seem unable to get enough of zombies, whether in movie form (“Shaun of the Dead,” “28 Days Later,” “Resident Evil”) or games (Half-Life, Walking Dead, Left 4 Dead). This fascination has not gone overlooked by Naruatsu Baba, the 35-year-old founder, president and boss of Tokyo-based app-maker Colopl.
Baba, who owns 69% of Colopl, is now worth $2.2 billion according to Bloomberg, since the five-year-old company’s stock price jumped sevenfold in six weeks. It is best known for games like What’s Up? Zombie!, Bowling Zombies and Kuma’s Digging Adventure, five of which are in Google’s top-grossing mobile games list. To be sure, not all of Colopl’s apps are about zombies. The company also makes a range of robot and imaginary creature puzzle/action games.