SUSTAINABILITY

Sustainability Policy

Basic Concept

Akatsuki’s mission is to “Entertain the world and resonate with creators.” We believe that we can contribute to building a sustainable society by pursuing business activities aimed at fulfilling this mission, resulting not only in increased enterprise value of Akatsuki, but also leading to contributions towards solving social issues and contributions to the entertainment world through development of new technologies in partnership with stakeholders that include our staff, our suppliers, and creators both internal and external. We aim to carry out activities for sustainable growth in accordance with our management philosophy of “growth and connectivity” and after consideration for the various elements of our business stage, the surrounding industrial environment, and operating conditions.

Details of Sustainability Activities

Environment

• Paperless
  Our efforts to become paperless and promote recycling include the use of “DocuSign eSignature” (https://www.docusign.jp/products/electronic-signature) to electronically sign contracts and similar documents, distribution of computers to staff and the use of video displays in all meeting rooms in order to reduce the use of paper meeting materials, and the use of “MAMORU” (Nihon Purple Co., Ltd., https://www.mamoru-kun.com/) for recycling of paper resources. These measures serve to reduce our environmental burden, improve business efficiency, and prevent information leakage.
• Electricity usage
  We strive to achieve both a comfortable office environment and a reduced environmental burden through efforts such as switching to LED lighting, the utilization of timer controls for lighting as well as for heating and air-conditioning, and other measures aimed at reducing the amount of electricity used.

Society

For Customers

We make efforts to improve the gaming environment so that customers can enjoy games with peace of mind for a long time.

• Quality control
  We aim to “maximize customer and product satisfaction” through the use of CAPS (Customer And Product Satisfaction) teams that are mainly responsible for software verification and customer support, as well to maintain and improve the quality of our games as a group through the use of affiliated companies such as Akatsuki Fukuoka, which is responsible for user support, game inspection, and quality improvement, and Akatsuki Taiwan, which is responsible overseas game expansion and multilingual customer support.
• Safe gaming environment
  Social issues related to gaming include real money trading of in-game items via third-party auction sites, the appearance of in-game purchase items at inappropriate intervals, and the problem of billing minors. At Akatsuki, we observe various legal regulations and follow self-regulation through industry groups as we recognize that these are important issues which must be handled in order to maintain the health and growth potential of the gaming industry. Additionally, we believe that it is important to appropriately respond to the enactment of new laws and regulations, and we collect information from industry groups in a timely manner.
• Strengthening management system
  Game users are able to play games regardless of time and place, as long as they can access the internet through mobile computers and other devices. If many users attempt to access games at the same time, this can temporarily overload gaming system and interfere with the provision of games. We recognize that it is important to ensure the stability of system operations and we continuously work to strengthen management systems and our system infrastructure.

(Related information)
We disseminate information from software engineers to our owned media, “Akatsuki Hackers Lab.”

For Employees

Akatsuki values growth as an organization where we feel inspired to create and where we can feel happiness while we work, and we strive to provide a work environment that supports employee growth and working comfortably.

• Benefits and systems
  We have established various benefits such as systems for education and training, and systems to promote communication between employees.
  (Related information)
  Careers: https://aktsk.jp/recruit/welfare/
• Diversity
  Akatsuki aims to support staff with individuality in mind, supporting staff who share a desire to pursue our vision and mission together, regardless of gender, age, life stage, ethnicity, culture, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

For IT Ecosystem

• Contributing to open source software
  Akatsuki promotes contributions to open source software (hereafter, “OSS”) as part of its CSR activities.
  We utilize OSS extensively to develop and operate content at Akatsuki and we believe that, in return, contributing to OSS is important. Further, it is expected that such contributions will eventually result in synergistic benefits to Akatsuki.
  In addition to providing feedback to OSS from the knowledge we have gained, we actively promote backup for those who work on OSS activities. Akatsuki employs many OSS committers, including both Ruby and Ruby on Rails, and we sponsor the activities of such organizations, including those listed below.
  * Ruby Association (https://www.ruby.or.jp/ja/)
  * The Linus Foundation (https://www.linuxfoundation.jp)
  * Cloud Native Computing Foundation (https://www.cncf.io)
  * RubyKaigi (https://rubykaigi.org/2021-takeout)
  (Related information)
  Akatsuki Hackers Lab article: https://hackerslab.aktsk.jp/2021/03/04/122751 (“Interview with patch monster and Akatsuki employee Nakata, who has surpassed 18,000 cumulative commits.”)
  Akatsuki press release: https://aktsk.jp/news/17825/
  (“Akatsuki invited Motohiro Kosaki, Japan’s only dual-committer for both Ruby and Linux, as a new technical advisor – marking progress toward a professional organization that creates corporate value and contributes to society.”)
• Research and development
  Work done at Akatsuki was selected as exhibition projects in the VR/AR/MR division in 2018, 2019, and 2021 at “ACM SIGGRAPH,” which is the world’s leading conference for presenting computer graphics technology and research.
  (Related information)
  Akatsuki press release: https://aktsk.jp/press/8820/
  (“Technical work of Akatsuki engineer selected as exhibition project for "Immersive Pavilion Village", VR/AR/MR division of SIGGRAPH 2018”)
  Akatsuki Voice article: https://voice.aktsk.jp/1166/
  (“Akatsuki R&D team announces AR technology research at SIGGRAPH 2018, the world's largest CG technology event”)
• Kamiyama Marugoto Technical College
  In order to support passionate young people to grow and become human resources who can change the world, we support “Kamiyama Marugoto Kosen” through the corporate version of the hometown tax payment system.
  (Related information)
  Akatsuki press release: https://aktsk.jp/press/43029/"
  ("Akatsuki Inc. Commits to Backing Kamiyama College of Technology, Design and Entrepreneurship —Leverages Furusato Nozei scheme for enterprises to support hands-on education—")

Corporate Governance

• Basic policy and guidelines regarding Corporate Governance
  We aim to provide services that contribute to society and meet the needs of all of our various stakeholders, including users of our services, investors and shareholders, and trading partners. In doing this, we recognize that it is essential to continuously hold the trust of our stakeholders.
  To maintain this trust, our directors, auditors, and staff understand their respective roles and strive to continuously retain and improve their awareness of applicable laws and ordinances, social norms, and ethics. In doing so, we aim to enhance corporate governance while endeavoring with proper and efficient business activities.