December 8 morning, Japanese major newspapers like Yomiuri, Asahi and Nikkei, sum of the number of their print will be around 20 million issues every morning, had a full-page ad almost only with text, which is by Gree CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka.
http://twitpic.com/7pfyvq
The text is also publicized on Gree’s company page [J]. It has about 4,000 Japanese letters.
The text titled with “Making the world a better place through the power of the Internet”(English translation of which is not on the web page but was on the newspapers) is a style which Tanaka tells you by himself, starting with his memory on his youth that Japan started suffering long time economic standstill, how the Internet and Silicon Valley culture (like Netscape and Yahoo!) business and working style attracted him, how those companies from the Valley had changed the world.
The latter half is his talk how Gree began as his personal hobby after his daytime job (at early days in Rakuten, FYI), had many difficult time, how other people did not valued his and his teams challenges.
He ends the text that the only people who never give up and keep challenging have been changing the world, and (he and Gree) by learning that history, want to keep contributing society, “Making the world a better place through the power of the Internet”,
Many of those readers of major newspapers may be the farthest people who play and purchase virtual items on Gree. But they are the people who run business in regular Japanese enterprises. There are critics from traditional business that the social game companies are exploiting users as their sales and profits are soaring. By this he seems to try to impress people that Gree is just another company who serves society.
