Cultivating a Culture Committed to Delivering the Best Content

Since our establishment in 2011, Cygames has invested in a cutting-edge environment that enables us to create high-quality content. When I was young, I sacrificed sleep, worked long hours in uncomfortable chairs and damaged my body. Because of that experience, I realized that creating a comfortable work environment is essential for improving work efficiency. That's why, even in the early days of the company when capital was limited, we provided functional office chairs for all staff and were pioneers in the industry to supply dual monitors. At the time, when we had our office set up within CyberAgent's space, visitors were surprised to see us arranging dozens of large monitors, even though we had no staff yet. Over the years, we've continued to expand our facilities with the latest equipment necessary for developing and producing high-quality games, including motion capture and sound studios.

Even our mission statement includes the phrase "Game Together," because we believe that playing fun games is important for those who create fun games. From my own experience as a user, playing many games has contributed to my work, which is why we have fully equipped a "playroom" in our office where staff can access a wide range of games. This also serves as a place for staff to interact and get a variety of input.

One of the defining practices at Cygames that truly sets our culture apart is the way staff consistently greet each other in passing and warmly welcome all visitors. It may seem too simple, but only a few companies can consistently maintain such basic practices, so mid-career hires are often surprised by this. But such habits help raise staff morale, and honestly, doesn't it just feel better to greet others?

To communicate the company's culture and management philosophy, I have continued to write a biweekly column in the internal web newsletter since the company was founded. After a new game is released, I share words of appreciation to the staff. When an internal events is held, I write to look it back. The themes range widely from serious to more casual topics, depending on the situation. Back issues are also accessible, and it's a valuable tool for conveying management messages directly as the organization grows.

Obsession With Quality

Cygames' greatest strength is its "art" and the technical skills to realize it. Our competitive edge comes from having amazing people who are driven by a relentless pursuit of quality and who embody our vision to be "the best in entertainment". Even in the final stages of developing the console game "GRANBLUE FANTASY: Relink," released this February, we continued to fix the details, working right up to the very end. One of the engineers, a recent graduate, was so surprised at seeing this that he asked, "Are we still working on it?" Although development took longer than expected, we focused on making the game fun through repeated revisions to increase the level of perfection.

When we showcased Granblue Fantasy at the Tokyo Game Show in 2015, the staff's persistence in creating the game's world was remarkable. The massive Grandcypher we displayed made such an impact that it was widely covered by several media outlets. In fact, we were working on it the night before, while other booths had already finished setting up and rehearsing. Even on the morning of the event, one of the staff said, "We want it to look more aged, it still doesn't look realistic enough," and kept painting the bacground of Grandcypher. They finished painting just before the doors opened, and looked relieved. I thought that this level of meticulous attention to detail was so emblematic of our people.

Just Keep Creating Interesting Content

Although it's been 13 years since Cygames was founded, the desire to "just keep creating interesting content" has never changed. In the end, games are judged by the users, so creating what the users want takes priority over what we want to make. I believe that if we just keep creating, there will come a moment when what we find exciting to create and what customers want to play will align. For me, that moment came with "Granblue Fantasy," which was released in 2014. This work was memorable for me because the imagery I had always envisioned had actually become a reality.

Even "Umamusume: Pretty Derby" wasn't originally conceived in the way it is now. When I initially discussed it with the team, thinking it would be interesting, the idea was so unconventional that no one understood it. To solve this, I created a 90-second anime to give a clearer sense of the game, and they started saying, "That's pretty cool." From there, discussions of cross-media development quickly expanded, leading to the possibility of creating both a game and an anime.

Through these experiences, I've come to believe that creating fun content is the fastest way for a company to grow. Of course, we have our own vision for the future, such as becoming a global company and developing our own IPs, but ultimately, creating interesting content is the most important priority.
Moving forward, we will steadily work on the tasks at hand while creating content that is beloved by users.

Challenge the Global Market

Cygames has always been aware of the need to entering the global market, driven by a sense of impending crisis as we recognized from the start that Japan's shrinking population would not sustain user growth. The global game industry has entered an era of polarization, where games are either large-scale productions created by companies with ample resources or indie games developed by individuals or small teams. With 4,055 employees*1 and a growing pool of talent with global market expertise, Cygames has been preparing for the global stage. Over the past few years, this has included establishing new overseas branches and exhibiting at local events. We continue to work hard at crafting innovative new titles that will inspire and entertain people all over the world, so look forward to more great things to come!

*1: The number of employees including fixed term employees as of September 2024.