When I was a third-year university student, I was thinking about starting job hunting, so I applied for an internship selection at a game company, but unfortunately, I failed the selection process. While looking for other game-related internships, I happened to come across a recruitment for a planning position for Reazon's game app.

However, when I went for the interview, they offered me a position different from the planning position I had hoped for, saying, 'If it's a development position, will it be alright?' At first, I was puzzled (laughs). However, since it was a good opportunity, I decided to give it a try and decided to intern in a development position. Since I had no prior experience in development, I studied engineering on my own after joining the company.

Yes, that's right. I've loved games since elementary school. I spent a lot of time playing games, especially during high school, when I lived quite freely in a dormitory and was away from my parents' watchful eyes.

I didn't consider any other companies at all.

When I first joined Reazon as an intern, I didn't think about just continuing on to full-time employment, nor did I think I could turn my love for games into a job. The truth is, I started the internship because I wanted to know what the game industry was like. However, as I gained various experiences during the internship, I gradually began to feel that at Reazon, I could really turn my favorite games into work.

A lot of game companies in the world have long apprenticeships, and it's difficult to get involved in important parts of major projects immediately after joining. In the midst of that, I vaguely felt that at Reazon, where the game business was not yet established, I could immediately get involved in something interesting. I thought, 'This is a chance!'

As I mentioned earlier, when I joined the company, I was involved in projects as a game engineer. However, the project involved redeveloping mini-games originally made for feature phones for smartphones, and personally, I didn't find it very interesting.

So, I proposed to the management that I wanted to implement a game I had come up with myself. Then, they said, 'If you can make one in three days, that's fine' (laughs). It was an incredibly high hurdle, but because I said I wanted to do it, I went through with planning and implementation by myself. Since I was completely inexperienced, I was stumbling along while studying, but eventually, I was able to come up with and implement 7 games in total within 1 to 2 days each.

I gained a little experience as a server-side engineer. It was a job that required completely different knowledge from what I had before. However, my role as an engineer ended there, and from then on, I started coming up with more and more plans as a game planner.

There wasn't much of a big change. I became a full-time employee as an extension of my internship, so there wasn't a significant change in my duties. I continued to do planning, and game data settings, which I had been doing during my internship.

Yes. Making 'Dragon Egg' from scratch stands out the most to me. I think it was around a few years after I joined the company as a full-time employee, and I remember vividly that I was having really intense days, regardless of being a junior. Since I was working directly under the CEO most of the time, the level of expectation was extremely high, and I was just working relentlessly.

Among them, what the CEO said, 'As long as you don't give up, you haven't lost,' left a lasting impression on me. At the time, since nobody had ever made a game before, we started from scratch, and things didn't go the way we wanted most of the time. But the CEO had an attitude of never giving up. He said, 'As long as you don't give up, you haven't lost, so there's no need to feel down. Just try again,' so I got the energy to move forward.

I think so. Whether or not we are actively promoting that vision externally is another matter, but saying 'the world's best' implies that we don't want to lose to anyone.

Actually, it's a bit different. I don't have a strong obsession with becoming the world's best myself. One of the reasons why I've been working at Reazon for so long is because there are many people in this company who want to work together.

Perhaps many people other than me also think like this. Everyone is not just working because they resonate with the vision, but because they find it enjoyable to work together, feel fulfilled, feel like they can do something big, and for such reasons, I think they work at Reazon.

Mainly, I work on producing and directing new titles under development. Personally, I have a creator mindset, so when creating a new game, I often get involved as a planner and actually write game plans and manage data, feeling like it's almost a hobby.

On the other hand, as an executive officer, I also have a mission to achieve the numerical targets for the entire game business. So, I check the progress and situation of the members on a daily basis and provide advice as needed. Since the situation changes rapidly every day and there are many projects involved, I switch gears as needed and respond accordingly. Of course, there are moments when my head gets filled up too (laughs).

In the future, we plan to release various titles, and we're already releasing 'Baki' and working on other big IP titles. Additionally, we're considering new businesses that go beyond the framework of social games.

Because we prioritize communication between users while developing games, when I hear happy reports from users like 'We actually became friends,' 'We started dating,' or 'We got married,' I think again that making games was worth it. Sometimes, as a manager, I also just watch the chat between users, and I also participate in games as a user myself and directly communicate with users. I myself really enjoy playing games (laughs).

Yes. Currently, when it comes to creating something new, I mainly handle planning, so when I exceed my limit, there are inevitably parts that I can't handle completely, including the amount of resources. Since we generally set very strict deadlines and release targets, there are times when we run out of manpower. I actually think, 'It would be nice if we could do more in this area,' but when I consider how far we can go with the existing maximum resources, I sometimes compromise. So, I want to further increase the number of people in order to expand the scope of game development.

First of all, I think those who can have interest and respect for businesses other than their own would match Reazon. Also, I believe that people who work because they have something they want to do, rather than just getting the job done, can excel. There are many members who join as planners without any experience, but the ones who achieve results among them are often those who are curious and want to learn because they don't know anything at first.

I want to change the way games are perceived in society. The reality is that the status of games is not high, with messages like "playing games too much is not good" or being told by parents when you were young, "You should quit the game in about an hour." In fact, I think there are many households where you won't be stopped even if you read for 5 hours, but you will be stopped if you play games for 5 hours.

As a fundamental thought of mine, I love games myself, and I want to permeate the image that you can play games more confidently. Therefore, when I think about what I can do to improve that image, in the end, I think I have to create a game that can be played by many people in general and that can be enjoyed every day. Indeed, to reach the maximum number of users, it is necessary to get even those who have not been playing games so far to be interested in them.

I don't know if I can achieve it in 5 or 10 years, or if I can achieve it a little earlier, but I have always wanted to create a game that can influence society as a whole.