INTERVIEW
Building Performance and Relationships, the Signature of PitayaGames. DMM GAMES Ventures Investment Journal
This time, we will be digging deep by joining Mr. Su of DMM GAMES Ventures as he welcomes Mr. Sun and Mr. Liu of PitayaGames in a discussion of DMM GAMES Ventures' initiatives.
Guangyu Su
Vice President and Head of Chinese Business at DMM GAMES
LLC Graduated from the Department of Science and
Engineering at Waseda University. Following time with a
foreign financial institution, he joined the marketing
business division at GREE Inc. in 2011. He has been
involved in the data analysis, KPI management, and
business strategy development of social games and game
platforms.
Ruifeng Sun
CEO at PitayaGames Co., Ltd. Graduated from the
Electronic Engineering Department at Xiamen University
in China. Founding member of Baidu.com's Japan branch
staff, one of Asia's largest search engines, in 2007. He
joined Rekoo Japan Co., Ltd., of Sunshine Bokujo
(Sunshine Ranch) fame, as CTO in 2010. He established
PitayaGames Co., Ltd. in 2012 as a venture in game
publishing as well as development of social applications
and smartphone games.
Hanson Liu
COO at PitayaGames Co., Ltd. Graduated from the College
of Foreign Studies at Hunan Normal University in China.
Founding member of Baidu.com's Japan branch staff in
2007. He joined Rekoo Japan Co., Ltd., of Sunshine
Bokujo (Sunshine Ranch) fame, as chief executive of
product and business strategy in 2010. He co-founded
PitayaGames Co., Ltd in 2012 and is presently still with
the company.
Building the relationship between DMM GAMES and PitayaGames
First Contact
Sun:
Mr. Su of DMM GAMES was already an old acquaintance of
our COO at PitayaGames. So when I got a call from DMM
GAMES saying they were looking for a company that can
develop native-Chinese games cost-effectively, I knew it
would be a good chance for our company to make a
competitive move in the development scene.
About Creating Effective Partnerships
Su:
Our first correspondence with Pitaya goes back to 2014.
At first, we had been outsourcing development on some
projects to Pitaya as a second-party developer. Since
Pitaya has bases of operation in both Tokyo and Chengdu
in the Sichuan Province of China, it was possible for
them to meet development needs in both Chinese and
Japanese. We knew Pitaya would be a great partner we
could trust since we already had a great rapport, and
not just on the technical side of things. They really
helped us minimize stress and communication costs as
well.
Sun:
As Mr. Su mentioned, those outsourcing contracts were
Pitaya's first time working with DMM GAMES. I remember
our collaborations being particularly smooth. After
getting experience with a multitude of genres, game
engines, and company partnerships during these
development collaborations, we realized that Pitaya had
a uniquely harmonious structure that allowed us to
respond to a myriad of development needs. I feel like it
was the steady stream of projects over time that really
helped our two companies to bond and build a trusting
relationship.
A Key Combination: Pitaya's Technical Prowess & DMM GAMES's Sense of Speed
Pitaya's Technical Prowess
Sun:
Pitaya is a global company, so we set it up so that the
Tokyo team handles direction and the Chengdu team
manages development on projects. China has many software
development engineers, and with our highly skilled
engineers comes the ability to produce highly efficient
and cost-effective work. Furthermore, our team can
quickly adapt to fit work volume and customer needs,
which gives us an advantage when it comes to scaling the
company structure accordingly. Plus, Pitaya has the
ability to create titles that are compatible for native
multi-platform as well as PC through our liberal usage
of Cocos2dx and Unity3D, two of the most current
mainstream game engines.
The Power of DMM GAMES Support
Sun:
DMM GAMES makes decisions with little hesitation, so the
sense of speed moving from concept to development is
extraordinary even when it comes to the planning and
development of new titles. They offered us as much
preparation support as possible, showing that they have
a sincere and positive attitude towards seeing projects
become successes.
Su:
Over the course of our three-year professional
relationship with Pitaya, I have had some chances to
talk with Mr. Sun and Mr. Liu about growth strategies
for Pitaya as a company. The conclusion drawn through
those talks of ours was "to live and grow in the games
industry, a company needs to be able to consistently
handle publishing, management, and game planning and
development internally".
Around that same time, DMM Games was also giving considerable thought to entering into global development. Naturally, in addition to the expansion overseas of game titles made in Japan, we figured it would be an important addition to our business development policy to also bring various overseas titles to Japan. With all eyes on China becoming a market of particular growth over the past three to four years, it was clear to DMM GAMES that China would become one of the most important markets for us. It became very important for us at DMM GAMES to accomplish localization from Japanese to Chinese and vice-versa in development as well as be able to simultaneously release titles to both the Japanese and Chinese markets. With all that in my mind, it became clear to me that Pitaya's past accomplishments and company vision were highly compatible with those of DMM GAMES. And if we invested in Pitaya, it would allow us to get a clear picture of Pitaya's financial affairs and how they operate as a company. This helped us determine that investment in Pitaya was the way to allow us to make even bigger deals than before.
By bringing Pitaya into DMM GAMES's ecosystem, we will bolster our ties with our investment companies, and we will be better able to expand our global presence by playing an integral role in the Japanese-Chinese marketplace.
Summary
- Name
- DMM GAMES Ventures
- Location
- Minato Ward, Tokyo
- Investment Capital
- Approx. 10,000,000,000 Yen
- Financier
- DMM GAMES LLC
- Operating Company
- DMM GAMES LLC
- Main Target of Investment
- Businesses that develop services in the game industry.