Concentrating everything on Monster Strike: the ¥6.5bn offering (2014)

A company that had watched a ship sink chooses its next swing

What this decision tested was not whether the game would be a hit but how far a company could push its resources onto a single title at a time when nobody could know. In February 2014 MIXI was earning less than ¥500 million in operating profit — nowhere near able to fund ¥6.5 billion of advertising out of the operating business. It brought in outside capital, accepted that the founder’s shareholding would fall below half, and then put every yen of it into advertising, which leaves behind neither people nor technology if it fails. Holding the cash and waiting was an available option; management chose the opposite side.

What pushed them was, it seems, the company’s own memory of mixi’s decline. Having failed to change its core business in time for the shift from feature phones to smartphones, and having fallen to its first operating loss since listing, that experience worked as a reason to step forward rather than a reason to hesitate. In the month the offering was decided, Monster Strike was earning under ¥100 million a month. Two years later, the game was taking in some ¥15 billion in a single month.