Ehemaliger „Yakuza“-Produzent verlässt Sega und wechselt zu chinesischem Gaming-Unternehmen – „Es gab Angebote von japanischen Unternehmen, aber ich konnte mir schon vor meinem Einstieg vorstellen, welche Art von Arbeit ich machen würde. Mit chinesischen Unternehmen konnte ich mich am besten über aktuelle Themen unterhalten.“

Japanese companies have ossified. That’s a problem across all industries.

> DIAMOND: What are the differences between Chinese game companies and Japanese companies?
>
> NAGOSHI: First, managers at Chinese companies are young. Most CEOs are still in their 40s. And they actually play a lot of games, so we can talk about why a game is so popular and why a game is fun to play, naming specific titles. These young managers have funds, delegate a lot of authority, and invest a vast amount of money at an overwhelming speed.
>
> When you decide things in Japan, you make presentation materials, have meetings, and make requests for approval, which takes about one month in total. At NetEase, you talk in a videoconference, with the conversation going like:
>
> “Are there any problems?”
>
> “Recently, this has been happening, but it would be easier if we decided to do this.”
>
> “Okay, let’s do that.”
>
> Things are decided in a single day. Their sales are growing, so their management style is not wrong.
>
> Also, there tend to be differences in thinking between managers and lower-level employees at most game companies, but at NetEase, their ideas are consistent. One of the companies that I strongly feel is like that is Nintendo, but NetEase is like a faster version.

Another interesting bit. Chinese companies are willing to learn by seeing how others do things.

> NetEase studied and developed the skills of its employees by subcontracting the development of major titles in the U.S. and Europe at a low price, and it invests from a long-term perspective of five to ten years. The company’s turnover is larger than Nintendo’s, and its creators can try new things that are difficult to achieve at major Japanese companies. However, they are not expecting to sell their products in China. They say, “We’re going to come up with the money, so you sell the games in Japan, the U.S., and Europe.”