Day 8 — Yoshida-san!
Sometimes we learn from something in a completely different category.
As I enter my third year at HENNGE, I challenge myself with various things daily and listen to music when I have to face some of the most challenging tasks. For example, at this very moment, I am writing this article at midnight on the day before the deadline. I create and check articles for the user community “chameleon” every week, but it is not easy when it comes to free themes.
The song I am listening to right now is called “Locus.”
This song is played in an online video game called Final Fantasy 14 (FF14), and I have listened to it at least 50 times, although I started listening to it recently. FF14 is an online game by Square Enix, which has more than 27 million users.
I am going to write an article on FF14, but actually, I have never played FF 14. (So, first of all, I would like to apologize to the FF14 players reading this article.)
I don’t play many games, have no interest in playing Pokemon, Splatoon, or even Animal Crossing, and have played other famous titles but have cleared very few games. The PlayStation 4 I bought after became just an ornament in my room, and the only exceptions I can make are Mariokart and Momotetsu.
Why am I mentioning FF14? Because I was greatly inspired by content related to it. It is called “FF14 Producer Letter Live” and “Patch Note Reading Session.”
They are content in which Naoki Yoshida, the producer, and director of FF14, will live-stream for 3–4 hours to introduce the updates of FF14 and answer questions from users. He has done the producer letter live 74 times so far.
I was so impressed with this content and how Mr. Yoshida communicates that I would like to introduce it here. It’s more than just about the latest news on a single game, it’s about how we should think about our work, products, and users.
First of all, FF14 is a that failed once. It was released with poor quality and bashed by users, and then a completely new one was created and expanded into the huge content it is today. And Mr. Yoshida took over the project from the middle of the project.
And since FF 14 is an online game, it is a subscription-based model. In short, they must continue to deliver exciting content and user experience to keep users playing the game for a long time. Conversely, if the service is not attractive, the number of users will quickly decline, and the service will not be able to continue.
You have heard this story somewhere before, haven’t you? Yes, it is the same as SaaS. If you look at the history of subscription models, I guess online games have a long history.
I think it is one of the most successful subscription services in Japan. I am sure there are many other success stories, but the interesting point in the case of FF 14 is that much of its planning for promotion, marketing, and customer success is open to the public.
They have many projects such as a well-developed Q&A page, community, events, etc., and in this Producer Letter Live, they communicate information about additional contents (story, quests, items, etc.), new features, specification changes, and other updates. This way of explaining and conversing with Mr. Yoshida helps because of his thorough knowledge of the product and his responses from the user’s perspective because he himself is a game user, is one of the correct methods of communication in the subscription model.
FF 14 is entertainment at its core, whereas saas is diverse (e.g. HENNGE is a security product). But I think the essence is the same for this service industry which is thinking about the user and the experience.
Just as reading a business book can be very unmemorable, I think that if the topic doesn’t touch your heartstrings, no amount of fine or good arguments will resonate. So this article might be just a list of words for many people, but I hoped this article conveys how you can find tips or learn something new from what you thought was in a completely different category. I hope next year will be another year where I will be interested in different things.
And finally, I’m about to turn on my PS4 for the first time in six months.
