一般社団法人ウェブ解析士協会のプレスリリース
The Web Analytics Consultants Association (WACA) announces the launch of a free game “The Arita Files: Pottery Edition” for teenagers together with the opening of Web Arita Ceramics Fair on April 29th, 2020. The Association will create more gamification content for regional vitalization and marketing education for kids in cooperation with a number of amateur creators.
WACA announces the release of the game “The Arita Files: Pottery Edition” on April 29th (https://arita.games), 2020. This free smartphone game promotes the town called Arita in Saga prefecture, Japan as well as promotes the “Web Arita Ceramics Fair (Arita Toukiichi)” (http://www.arita-toukiichi-web.jp/) held in Arita on the same day the game was launched.
“The Arita Files: Pottery Edition” is a new game for smartphones produced by Contents Value Research Labo (https://cvrlabo.com/). This visual novel game is similar to “Banshee’s Last Cry” and “Tokimeki Memorial” where players read the story of the game and select their options as they play. The result changes depending on what the players select.
Users play the role of the mayor of Arita and need to solve many problems for the Arita citizens. The story is mainly for teenagers to enjoy and learn the basics of marketing and is available in both Japanese (Original title: “宇宙から届いた焼き物X”) and English versions.
The main character is a pre-teen boy called Keita. Through the whole game, players will need to think of how to sell a piece of pottery for 23 million yen (approximately $230,000) by working together with a mayor of Arita, who is an alien, and can learn about how marketing elements such as blogs, search engines, and social media work.
In cooperation with Arita Town, the production team is planning to offer rewards to players who earn high scores in the game.
The scenario was written by Shigeoki Matsuo, the author of best selling marketing training books. The real mayor of Arita, Yoshiaki Matsuo, Arita Tourism Association, and Arita Town Hall also contributed to the scenario creation through a set of interviews and photoshoots. In addition, the game was sponsored by Shoichi Yamashita, a founder of Peraichi Inc. as well as a host of the Ouen Festival, which aims at creating a society to support people with willpower and dreams.
This project is designed to create opportunities for children to learn what marketing is all about, and to try to make a new profit model by supporting the marketing of local areas and particular industries without seeking revenue from advertisements or user subscriptions.
Contents Value Research Labo believes that the future of marketing should be sublimated from the status quo that enhances the corporate value of a specific company to a more valued marketing that improves all related regions, countries, and societies. In that respect, Japan, as a developed country, has excellent resources and assets and has faced many challenges that other parts of the world may encounter in the future. Solving regional problems in Japan could serve as a case study to apply all over the world. With the cooperation of Arita Town and Yoshiaki Matsuo, the mayor of Arita, this game has successfully depicted Arita’s regional resources and solutions to problems using the concept of marketing in the hopes that children all over the world will become interested in Arita and eventually create opportunities for the future.
According to The Saga Shimbun, 1.26 million people visited The Arita Ceramics Fair held in 2019, and that number increased by 20,000 people compared to the previous year. (https://www.saga-s.co.jp/articles/-/370369)
The size of the Japanese cloud gaming market including “The Arita Files: Pottery Edition” is considered to be 12.6 billion yen in 2020. (https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000005925.000007006.html, source: Gz brain)
In addition, the global gamification market will be beyond 220.5 billion dollars in 2032. (https://ja.pdvg.it/2019/09/03/global-gamification-market-anticipated-to-exceed-32-billion-by-2025-researchandmarkets-com/, source: ResearchAndMarkets.com)
The Association and Contents Value Research Labo will produce a series of stories or fan fiction with amatuer game creators and authors through crowdfunding and content sharing platforms in a sponsorship with interested companies and organizations to discover creative talents for newer generations, create revolutionary gaming contents for children, and promote regional vitalizations.
- “The Arita Files: Pottery Edition” official website: https://arita.games
- YouTube talk by Shigeoki Matsuo (Web Rider Inc.), Yoshiaki Matsuo (Mayor of Arita), and Toshiaki Ejiri (WACA): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCI7VFR2AZU
- Web Arita Ceramics Fair: http://www.arita-toukiichi-web.jp/
- Arita Ceramics Fair (offline): http://www.arita-toukiichi.or.jp/
- “Web Writing of Silence (沈黙のWebライティング)” official website: https://www.cpi.ad.jp/bourne-writing/
- “Web Marketing of Silence (沈黙のWebマーケティング)” official website: https://www.cpi.ad.jp/bourne/
Facebook：https://www.facebook.com/waca.jp/
Twitter：https://twitter.com/wacajp
YouTube：https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3CB2lTUmPEqfITNXc6SK1Q
The Web Analytics Consultants Association
The Association’s mission is to promote and raise the overall level of the web analytics industry by continuously creating opportunities for people to learn, discuss, and pass on their web analytics knowledge. The Association aims to create a community through web analytics which will drive business success, research and development, personal career development, and employment opportunities.
Organization name: The Web Analytics Consultants Association (一般社団法人ウェブ解析士協会)
Location: Shinjuku-ku, Japan
Founder: Toshiaki Ejiri
URL: https://waca.associates
Business range: Offering licensing classes and courses related to Digital Marketing and Web Analytics
