JACK MIXNER STRATEGY

Copyright Jack Mixner.     714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

We all know about Pac-Man's phenomenal success.

Here's what we didn't know:

1. Pac-Man was created to entice girls to play more video games, shifting Japanese game arcades and the whole game experience from the boy-dominated, dark, sinister war battles, to couples and girl-oriented games focused not on boyfriends or fashion but on - you guessed it - food and eating (Kelts, 110).
2. The creator of Pac-Man got, basically, nothing more than a job for his creation, something that would have been worth millions in the West. "You work for a company all your life in Japan (Kelts, 112)." They provide for you. That's the theory, any way, something that is changing.
3. Anime played a role: the ghosts (both evil and cute) were modeled on Obakeno QTaro, the famous anime ghost. You didn't control a tank or a car - you controlled a person. That was a first in video games.

Implications for Today

1. The Japanese government has realized that intellectual property (think Pac-Man or other electronics or software) creates value.
2. That value requires compensation. (Some creators have taken to suing their employers. The inventor of the blue laser received more than $100 million for his work when he sued after relocating to America.)
3. Intellectual property for engineered products can be a strategy. Sony dominates electronics because it dominated older manufacturers with new designs. Toyota and Honda dominated American manufacturers with engineering. That has been the point. All the products from Japan, until now, have been engineered, consumer products.
4. Now a new point: intellectual property for ideas can be a strategy as well. Japan has a huge investment in anime (sophisticated cartoons different than American favorites) that is exportable. Exports to date have not favored Japan: the American partner for Pokemon made millions for commercializing the idea - the Japanese received very little (Kelts, 108). That will change as Japanese animators and marketing companies gain confidence in the American market.
5. Innocuous creations like Hello Kitty seem valueless until you add up the many, many products launched using the icon. The branding technology of anime is exportable - and very, very profitable.

There is an opportunity for intellectual for ideas to exceed the value created in past waves of Japanese innovation. We say the Japanese can't innovate, that they'll never be as innovative as we are with movies and their tie-ins, for instance. Witness Star Wars and all its tie-ins. We forget that the hundred or so Star Wars characters are exceeded by the hundreds and hundreds of Pokemon characters. When Japanese animators attack on their own, without local representation, the ensuing battles will be fierce - and very profitable.

Reference

Kelts, Roland. Japanamerica How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invded the U. S. Palgrave Macmillan. 2006.