Square Enix Co., Ltd. | Testimonial of 0x Consulting Group Service

“I believe that it is necessary for the market to expand services which are worth utilizing Web3. I would like 0xC to do that.”

“WHY Web3?”

We are asked this question extremely often when we are involved in the Web3 field. 

Why is it necessary to utilize NFT technology? 
What are the areas we can do only with crypto? 

Probably many business developers are struggling to find the answers to those questions.

0x Consulting Group has been supporting “SYMBIOGENESIS,” the NFT art project of SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. since 2022 as its sole marketing partner.

We have worked together to pursue “a new entertainment experience unique to Web3” and deliver it to users.

This interview features Naoyuki Tamate(Producer of SYMBIOGENESIS), Yosuke Toyoda(Creative Director), and Yoshiaki Iwai(Marketer), covering how they feel about 0x Consulting Group’s consulting services.

Summary of This Article

Challenges They Originally Faced & Reasons for Choosing 0xC

• At the time, SYMBIOGENESIS team did not have any know-hows on using Discord in a Web3 context, and there were few case studies of Japanese companies
• The deciding factor was that 0x Consulting Group presented a concrete mockup (an image of how Discord would be used after it was installed)
• When Discord was being planned, 0x Consulting Group explained about specifications in detail, categorized into “Possible Items” and “Impossible Items.” This helped the team imagine the results clearly

Points to Be Evaluated

• When thinking about NFT marketing strategies, 0xC was able to attract special advisors and establish connections with well-known NFT projects at an early stage
• As a consulting company, 0xC provides “community management services as solutions”
• High user engagement from the users in 0xC’s in-house community “LGG”

Recommended Companies to Utilize 0xC

• A company that pursues the essence of blockchain and wants to realize use cases that are meaningful to society
• A company that is planning to do something using blockchain, but does not have much know-how or knowledge yet
• A company that wants to carefully craft upstream designs and create strategies with logic rather than ideas first

Interviewees

　　

SYMBIOGENESIS Producer: Naoyuki Tamate

SYMBIOGENESIS Creative Director: Yosuke Toyoda

SYMBIOGENESIS Marketing Director: Yoshiaki Iwai

Challenges Before Starting 0xC’s Consulting Services

　　　　

Challenges Before Implementing Consulting

Interviewer(Kawaguchi): While setting up the team and proceeding with planning, what kind of marketing problem did you originally want to solve when you were listening to proposals from Web3 consulting firms, including our company?

Tamate: Many Web3 projects use Discord, so we were also considering introducing Discord. However, although there were examples of Discord in Web2 for managing games such as MMOs, our experiences of Web3 context-specific usage of Discord were mainly limited to overseas projects.

In addition, 0x Consulting Group was one of the limited companies which were very good at using Discord in the Web3 context at the time. Under these circumstances, the important focus was on how to solve issues such as chat design and operation that incorporated overseas Web3 contexts, and the hiring of moderators and community managers.

What Made You Choose 0xC’s Consulting?

Interviewer(Kawaguchi): What was the point that made you decide on our company?

Tamate: Your mock design for our Discord server was great, wasn’t it?

Interviewer(Kawaguchi): What specifically did you like?

Tamate: We place great importance on QA(Quality Assurance).There were some areas our team could not answer the questions on Discord, so it was reassuring to have a communication line on the server.

It was also great that 0xC team quickly answers our questions, using bots like “Mee6(*1),” and saying “This is how it works.” or “This can be done, but this can’t be done.” which made it easier for us to plan.

Toyoda: 0xC’s presentation was really great! We were able to get an idea of ​​what we can do by actual visualization.

Interviewer(Kawaguchi): Among the Web3 projects, SYMBIOGENESIS is a project that is trying to create a new user experience, especially in the “community” multiples “NFT.”

Toyoda：It has been a challenge for a long time how to link it with the game and seamlessly deliver a gaming experience to the users. This is an area where we still haven’t found an answer.

*1 Mee6: Name of a multifunctional bot for Discord servers. It provides functions that are useful for server management and improving community engagement, and at SYMBIOGENESIS, it was used to eliminate cheaters and design the flow of the campaign.

Evaluation of 0xC’s Consulting Services

0xC’s Web3 Marketing Strategy

Interviewer(Kawaguchi): Please tell us about our initial marketing strategy and advice on awareness and user acquisition.

Tamate: First, 0xC invited special advisors, and we were able to talk to about 20 different NFT communities (Reference link). I learned a lot throughout discussions with them. Especially 0xC connected us to communities from Japan, Korea, Singapore, and so on, including BAYC and Azuki(*2).

Interviewer(Kawaguchi): When we considered our initial marketing strategy, we thought that we could not start anything without discussions with top NFT communities and asking them for collaborations. Eventually they became our special advisors of SYMBIOGENESIS, and they helped me a lot.

Tamate: 0xC also brought us many opportunities to talk to other companies and communities that we have not been made public. We learned a lot from hearing the opinions of people who were working on the project ahead of us. But there were some issues when we were about to give them our proposals, as trends are changing so quickly and we struggled to create our proposals.

Toyota: We had a lot of plans and ideas though. However it was a pity that we could not get to the point where we could create something that the users would find interesting. We could not discuss user engagement in detail.

*2 BAYC and Azuki: BAYC (Bored Ape Yacht Club) is an NFT collection on the Ethereum blockchain announced by Yuga Labs in April 2021. Azuki is an NFT collection on the Ethereum blockchain released in January 2022 by Chiru Labs. Both are the famous projects that led the NFT boom.

Provide Proper Solutions As a Consulting Firm

Interviewer(Kawaguchi): What about our consulting service regarding community building and management?

Toyoda: Generally, there was a method of connecting to the community through influencers(KOLs) and spreading information, but after trying everything, I realized that alone was not enough to get people into the game.

Even if we convey information to our community, it will be difficult without airdrops. Particularly in global communities, it was difficult to convey the monetary value because it was difficult to understand. Under such circumstances, the good thing about 0xCis that you can create products.

Interviewer(Kawaguchi): Product…? What do you mean? 

Toyoda: It is the “solution” we want from consulting companies. When we think “We want to conduct our Allow List campaign(*3) in this way,” 0xC worked closely with us to create a system and make this happen. 

I think there are many definitions of the word “community.” But in terms of Discord, I think users will not be able to enjoy the community unless the Discord experience itself is creative.

That is why I think 0xC is the company that is stronger in hardware than in software. In that sense, we can definitely say that 0xC is different from other consulting companies. I have always thought that the way you come up with solution packages for what we want to do is really great.

*3 Allow List campaign: A campaign by NFT projects and Web3 projects to give priority rights to purchase and mint NFTs to specific users. Because priority acquisition privileges can be given to users who meet the conditions set by the project, this method is used when you want users who genuinely play the game to participate, rather than those who purchase for the purpose of resale or for speculative reasons.

Consider the Balance between Creativity and Business

Toyoda: Business and creativity are in a straight line. With SYMBIOGENESIS, there are characters with stories, and on the other hand, the NFT prices go up and down. I think this is confusing because there are different contexts, including expectations of earning in this game.

This is why I believe it is important to consider the balance between creativity and business, such as “However, that is why it has an experiential value,” so this is the way to provide it. How to sellI don’t think it would be possible to make suggestions like, “Maybe it would be better to do something like that” without a balance between business and creativity.”

I think in order to make the appropriate proposal, it is important to understand the balance between business and creativity, such as “There is a unique value in the game experience, and this should be offered and sold this way in response to that.”

Interviewer(Kawaguchi): Exactly. We had a lot of discussions and tried many different ways to understand the world of SYMBIOGENESIS and how to apply it to marketing.

Toyoda: I looked at the creative and went on a treasure hunt, and tried making various adjustments to match the game’s scheme. In order to consider game play design, such as how our users would play this game, I don’t think we can do this without understanding of the game contents itself. 

I felt reassured that 0xC showed a deep understanding of our creativity. We thought that we would be able to create the flow to let our community enjoy the game while making sure to maintain the balance between business and creativity.

Anyway, I believe that 0xC is really powerful in that you can create actual products. It’s amazing that 0xC has created our community with such an enormous scope.

User Engagement of 0xC’s Inner Community “LGG”

　　

Interviewer(Kawaguchi): What about talking about another different angle. How did you feel about user engagement from our in-house community “LGG”? 

Iwai: LGG community is extremely active right now. As we can see from the game data, LGG members spend a considerable amount of time playing both the game and the community.

Interviewer(Kawaguchi): Thank you. There are many members who love SYMBIOGENESIS so much that they discuss strategies on voice chat at 11pm. So I think it makes me very happy as a community member to receive such recognition from the management.

Iwai: I felt a lot of love for SYMBIOGENESIS when I spoke to them at our offline event. I have been doing game marketing for a long time, and there are users who make their own goods and even cosplay costumes (e.g. airinkos Click here for X account), so I was simply happy to be able to meet them through this Web3 project.

Interviewer(Kawaguchi): Do you feel any difference from other communities? 

Iwai: My impression of Web3 communities is that it mainly focuses on information about tokens or airdrops. However, I feel that LGG members enjoy the game and sympathize with the project’s philosophy.

If anyone asks me “Do you have any recommendations for Web3 communities?” then I would definitely recommend LGG. We can tell them the meaning of the project, and LGG members listen to us carefully. 

Tamate: Generally speaking, I think most people involved in Web3 are interested in new technology or new things. Especially, I get the impression that LGG attracts a lot of people who want to take on new challenges. The concept of LGG seems like “adults’ springtime of life,” and I think it fits perfectly with SYMBIOGENESIS, where you can play in the communities.

Interviewer(Kawaguchi): That’s right! The theme of our community is “taking on challenges,” so it’s easy to feel sympathy for projects that are taking on challenges.

Iwai: Speaking on the premise that each community has its own strengths, I get the impression that LGG has a lot of game fans.

I feel like there are a lot of gamers out there who will not play a game if it doesn’t suit them, and if they think it’s suitable or interesting they’ll play it to the hilt. It was very reassuring to see them playing SYMBIOGENESIS with such an impression.

Therefore, if you want to develop a promotion that promotes the gameplay, LGG is the community that I would recommend.

What Kind of Company Would You Recommend 0xC to?

Companies that Want to Improve Society through Blockchain

Interviewer(Kawaguchi): Finally, please tell us what kind of company you would like to recommend our consulting services to.

Tamate: Although we did not implement it in SYMBIOGENESIS, I think there is still a possibility of token economics(based on FT) within the game.

I believe that each type of game has its own challenges. For example, it is easy to create a community for games, but it is difficult to design tokens. For non-game services, on the other hand, it is easy to design tokens but difficult to create a community.

0xC has the rich experience to talk about token economics, game KPIs, and community, so this is definitely a strength. 

Toyoda: SYMBIOGENESIS is a highly novel game design that has never been seen before, and we are constantly confronting how to convey the meaning that connects games and token economics.

I think it would be a good idea to combine blockchain into a gacha game if we consider its compatibility with gacha games, but I think that if the design is just adding blockchain, regardless of the game design, it will be a failure as a project or business.

If we are to find value in blockchain that is different from the social game market, we can see from the current market that we need to think about fun and game design unique to blockchain and make it a viable business.

Therefore, I think 0xC matches with the projects that “want to work together to pursue and create new values ​​that can only be created with Web3.”

Tamate: I also think it is necessary for the market to spread the service that we can think “We’re glad to have Web3 technology.” I believe 0xC matches with the projects with such a vision.

For example, when thinking about sharing food in Japan with other areas in food shortage, I think that if such differences in the ecosystem between countries can be covered through transactions that do not rely on legal currency, it will become a service that is in line with the philosophy of blockchain.

I think it would be great for companies that want to convert economic disparity into token economics, provide what they have left over to those who don’t have it, and receive tokens in return. 

Interviewer(Kawaguchi): That’s right. Rather than just doing marketing, we have been discussing with everyone how to think about the essence of token economics and blockchain, and what would happen if we applied that to a game.

In conclusion, you can recommend 0xC to the companies that want to develop their services based on deep ideas of “How will society improve using blockchain?”

Ideal Clients: Companies with Limited Knowledge of Web3 and Looking for a Discussion Partner

Interviewer(Kawaguchi): As a marketer, Iwai-san works with a variety of marketing agencies. From that perspective, how do you feel about 0xC compared to other agencies?

Iwai: This also assumes that each company has its own strengths, but I believe that your company’s strength is its ability to make proposals based on careful logic construction and analysis.

Interviewer(Kawaguchi): Really? I’m glad to hear that.

Iwai: The strength of your company is that it carefully explains from the upstream the knowledge gained from numerous successes and failures over a long period of consulting experience.The materials, including the materials, were very clean and easy to read and understand.

If there are three stages: designing a strategy upstream, incorporating it into measures, and once implemented, your company has a good overall balance, and in particular, the upstream design is very carefully created, so I think companies with less knowledge of web3 will find it more valuable.

I think it’s great for companies that don’t know much about web3 but want to do something new with blockchain, as it can be a great partner to help determine if your business will succeed.

Interviewer(Kawaguchi): Thank you!

Interview Summary

　

Through an interview with the “SYMBIOGENESIS” team, it was time to think once again about the significance of implementing blockchain in society.

When thinking about marketing and community formation for Web3 projects, it is extremely important to fit the idea of ​​each project into the trends and context of Web3, and to get users to sympathize with the project’s vision and support it.

Therefore, it is necessary to have a solid vision and concept regarding “WHY Web3?” mentioned at the beginning. We can provide a wide range of consulting services, from upstream design of such projects to actual marketing selection and community formation.

If you have any concerns regarding Web3 business, please contact 0x Consulting Group.