Society and Capcom

Relationship with Employees

Promotion of Diversity

Initiatives Aimed at Promoting the Improvement of the Work Environment for Women and Proactively Hiring Non-Japanese

Capcom is currently engaged in initiatives aimed at improving the work environment for women and proactively hiring Non-Japanese.

In terms of providing an environment that facilitates women, we introduced systems enabling women to take a leave of absence before and after giving birth, childcare leave and shortened working hours, and promote their use throughout the Company. In fiscal 2017, 25 employees took childcare leave, six of whom were men, and 100% of eligible women took childcare leave (fiscal 2016: 3 men and 100% of 23 women took leave). A high percentage of women returned to work afterwards: 25 returned in fiscal 2017 — 96.0% if those still on leave are excluded. This is an increase over last fiscal year (95.6%, or 22 women, returned to work in fiscal 2016). As a result, despite it being said that Japan’s gaming industry is generally dominated by men, women account for roughly 21% of Capcom’s workforce, and 25 (10.3%) of Capcom’s managers are women. In accordance with the execution of the Act on Promotion of Women’s Participation and Advancement in the Workplace, in 2016 we formulated the General Employer Action Plan, which seeks to achieve two things: (1) having women comprise at least 20% of all of new graduates hired, and (2) having women comprise a least 15% of managers. In recognition of Capcom’s efforts toward improving the workplace environment for women, since 2014 we have earned the “Kurumin” mark, the symbol of a “company supporting childcare,” from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

In terms of the proactive employment of non-Japanese individuals, Capcom is making efforts to strengthen overseas expansion capabilities including creating an English hiring website. We currently employ 107 non-Japanese workers (representing 4.2% of our employees). Going forward, we will create a system for improving motivation in an attempt to increase the ratio of foreign employees, including support for career advancement and the promotion of non-Japanese individuals to management positions.

These measures have contributed to generating new IPs such as Toraware no Paruma.

Number of Female Managers and Ratio of Female Employees (Capcom Co., Ltd.)

Number and Ratio of Foreign Employees (Capcom Co., Ltd.)

Providing Career Paths for Employees and Improving the Work Environment

Company-Wide Training and Level-Based Training

To provide career paths and improve the work environment, Capcom offers the following training.

Major Training Programs

Level-based training Grade-based training
  • Training for new hires
  • Training for first year of employment
  • Training for third year of employment
  • Mentor training
Mid-level
  • Training for management candidates
Management-level
  • Management by Objectives (MBO)
Company-wide training Compulsory
  • Mental healthcare
  • Compliance training
  • Personal information training
Optional
  • English instruction

Corporate Governance and CSR

Action Criteria and Compliance-Related Employee Education

The Capcom Code of Conduct calls for “free competition and fair trade,” “respect for human rights and individuality and the prohibition of discrimination” and “environmental conservation and protection.” To ensure an understanding of these concepts, we created the Capcom Group Code of Conduct Handbook, which is available on the company intranet and contains illustrated case studies in an easily understandable Q&A format.

We also conduct e-learning compliance training and Personal Information Protection Act compliance training for all employees.

Action criteria and compliance are the lynchpin of corporate governance and the foundation of our CSR. Capcom will continue to instill this understanding in all its officers and employees.

Capcom Juku

Providing an Environment for Vibrant Childcare
Combining Day Care and Education

Given the desire to quickly improve the issue of long day care waiting lists accompanying a lack of preschools, Capcom’s top management set its sights on the future and wanted to provide an environment in which employees can raise their children with peace of mind while remaining employed over the long term. We opened Capcom Juku in April 2017, aiming to add individual education and growth to standard day care for children. Capcom Juku goes beyond caring for infants and preschool children and accepts a wide range of youth, including after-school kindergarten and elementary school students. This helps employees avoid the stress of not being able to find open facilities for their children. Furthermore, by offering educational support in the form of a place for learning English, eurhythmics, math, science, and other subjects, Capcom Juku joins its efforts with employees and fosters the growth of children. Currently, as of March 31, 2018, the school takes care of 14 preschool children and accepts as many as 40 temporary pupils a month. Going forward, plans are in place to accept after-school students from nearby elementary schools, to add further convenience for working employees. Capcom Juku also offers Spring School and Summer School with classes taught by employee instructors when standard schools are closed for seasonal breaks. The Spring School on March 28, 2018 was the first time for a Capcom employee to serve as an instructor. This class took place in Capcom’s dedicated Foley Stage, a studio for creating video game sound effects, and covered how to make games and the role of game music. Students were allowed to experience making sound effects, such as the flapping wings of a monster, as well as character voices, during a class that showcased some of the characteristic features of a video game company. Additionally, students were able to eat lunch with their parents in the employee cafeteria, which was an opportunity for encouraging parent-child communication.

In the future, we will create a learning atmosphere at Capcom Juku that stimulates and broadens children’s curiosity, while also striving for an environment where parents can work with peace of mind so that both they and their families can lead fulfilling lives.

My Experience

Natsuki Shiozawa

Produce Section 2
Management Department 2,
Consumer Games Development Division 2
Capcom Co., Ltd.

I have been using Capcom Juku on a monthly contract since it opened. The location is convenient for drop-off and pick-up because it is near the office and has a parking lot. I think the surroundings are nice, too, since it has a park in front of it.

I feel at ease because the parents of the other children there are also employees of my company.

Capcom Juku prepares meals on site, which is another way in which the facility is both convenient and safe.

The daily activities of the school are important to me. It is more than just day care. They bring in external instructors to teach English conversation, while others teach eurhythmics and the children get to learn how to grow vegetables in planter boxes. During the summer, they have well-designed activities such as pool time. I am really satisfied with the facility.

Relationship with Customers

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For the Healthy Development of Young People

Compliance with the CERO Rating System and Endorsement of Guidelines

The Computer Entertainment Rating Organization (CERO), a Specified Nonprofit Corporation, was created to provide age-appropriate ratings for video games. Capcom complies with the CERO rating system and rules.

The rating system is an initiative for the healthy development of young people that calls for voluntary restrictions on home video game content and sales methods to limit access by young people to sexual or violent content. In addition, recent home video game consoles include a parental control function that enables parents to limit the online purchase and use of certain games according to their ratings.

Guidelines Issued by the Computer Entertainment Suppliers’ Association (CESA)

Please refer to CESA’s website for the content of each set of guidelines
https://www.cesa.or.jp/index_e.html

Senior
Tours

Holding Amusement Arcade Tours for Seniors and
Contributing to Livelier Local Communities

Today, amusement facilities are becoming increasingly popular among retired senior citizens as spaces for communication with other people. Since 2012, Capcom has held amusement arcade tours free of charge on long public holidays and Respect-for-the-Aged Day for senior citizens where they can try out coin-operated games and crane games, enabling more people to make use of such facilities.

In addition, as part of efforts to create arcades where senior citizens can comfortably enjoy themselves, since 2012 Capcom has encouraged arcade staff to get the Service Assistant certification. Currently, 27 staff members have received this certification.

Cumulative Number of Participants in Senior Tours

Comments from a Tour Organizer

Daisuke Sharyo

Area Leader, Operations Team
Arcade Operations Department,
Arcade Operations Business Division
Capcom Co., Ltd.

The people who take part in the senior tours show lots of happy smiles. The ones who bring their grandchildren seem especially pleased, and many of them say that they are really glad to have more to talk about with their grandkids than usual, thanks to video games. The tours are also a chance for senior participants to have more social interactions, with some of them even becoming regulars at the arcade. We are trying to be more proactive in our communication so that visitors will be able to comfortably use the arcade as a local community gathering place where they can make connections with both the staff and each other. Going forward, we will continue contributing to a livelier local community, including taking part in events hosted by the city government.

Relationship with Regional Communities

On-Site
Classes

Encouraging an Appropriate Understanding of Video
Games with On-Site Classes for Children in School

Video games are a comparatively new cultural phenomenon about which there is little academic research. Rather than examining the educational aspects, discussions tend to focus on the detrimental effects of violent content. However, the idea of a future career as a video game creator is very popular among children and the decision has been made to make programming lessons compulsory in Japanese elementary schools in 2020. A host of private sector efforts are also being carried out, including opening programming academies for youth. Considering these recent developments, it is reasonable to expect that the number of children hoping to become video game creators will increase further in the future. Additionally, the ratio of smartphone ownership among young people—29.9% of elementary school students and 58.1% of junior high school students—is rising year by year. Game apps for smartphones are also increasingly gaining in popularity and the distance between video games and children is shrinking.

Given this context, as part of our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts as a video game software producer, and based around a desire to promote understanding in society of video games, we accept student visits to our offices, with a focus on elementary and junior high school students, and also actively conduct on-site classes at schools. At these events, Capcom conducts a program with two sessions: one is a career education support session, which introduces the work done in a game software company and the difficulty and rewards of that work, and the other is a game literacy education support session, which helps students use their own judgement to establish a healthy relationship with games. These programs have in turn been well-received in educational environments. Capcom has also incorporated opinions from educators to improve its educational efforts. In fiscal 2011, Capcom launched its second educational program, focused on the educational theme of career education support. In fiscal 2013, Capcom started a new class program on work and mathematics targeted towards elementary and junior high school students to help prevent children from losing interest in math, a challenge in recent years.

As a result of these efforts, Capcom has welcomed 2,950 children as part of 366 different field trips to its offices (as of the end of March 2018). Capcom has also held 136 on-site classes for 12,715 students (as of the end of March 2018) at schools such as Edogawa Ward Seishin Daini Junior High School in Tokyo.

Impressions of the On-Site Classes
(A Portion of This Fiscal Year’s Comments)

  • The work done at a video game company uses a lot of math and I’m glad that I was reminded how important math is. (Junior high school student)
  • I saw students more engaged and energetic than in our normal classes. It made me feel that pupils will participate more seriously in subjects that interest them. (Junior high school teacher)
  • During the class, nearly all of the children seemed nervous, but in the post-class surveys, they said that they want to have this kind of job and want to know more about it. (Local learning center leader)
  • I thought it was really good that the videos let children hear the voices of people actually doing this kind of work, which was a nice way to convey information to the students. (City Hall official)

Regional
Revitalization
Activities

Supporting Regional Revitalization Using the
Appeal of Capcom Video Game Content

The attraction of video game content for the worldwide audience was in evidence when Japan’s Prime Minister promoted the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games by dressing as a video game character at the Closing Ceremony of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games. In the same vein, Capcom is following a Single Content Multiple Usage strategy for our content, which we deploy in a wide range of fields beyond video games. As such, we are proud to have a high level of recognition and popularity among men and women, young and old alike.

Utilizing the power of our game content to capture the attention of people, Capcom has been engaged in the following four regional revitalization activities not only in Osaka, where we have our head office, but across Japan, since the mid-2000s: 1) economic promotion that supports the local tourism industries; 2) cultural promotion that supports education concerning local history and culture; 3) the improvement of public order through coordination with the police; and 4) raising awareness about voting in elections in coordination with the Committee for Election Administration.

In 2017, Capcom provided support for a stamp rally that used our characters, as well as collaborated to make the commemorative goods for the 73rd National Athletic Meet’s Ice Skating Winter Competition (known as Fujinokuni Yamanashi-Kokutai), in Kofu Yamanashi Prefecture, a city with which Capcom entered into a Comprehensive Agreement to Promote Vitalization of the Local Economy. These events were part of Capcom’s efforts to help achieve regional development by 2019. In Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, which is seizing the opportunity of a televised historical drama series to boost tourism, we collaborated with decorating the exterior of a train (the “Naotora Express”) by providing a Capcom character. Furthermore, in March 2018, we provided characters for inclusion in promtional posters and handouts for performances at the National Bunraku Theatre in Osaka, which is striving to better communicate to young people the appeal of bunraku, an art form included on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List. These examples highlight some of our dedicated efforts to help regional revitalization activities.

Also, in October 2017, Monster Hunter series characters were used in materials to promote efforts by the Osaka Prefectural Police Department to raise awareness and prevent the theft of valuables from unattended cars. Car interior cleaner wipes with packaging featuring the characters were distributed to promote the campaign.

Comments from a City Official

Shinya Kawai

HAMAMATSU CITY
INDUSTRIAL DEPARTMENT
Tourism & City Promotion Division

With the airing of a televised historical drama series and the boom in popularity of history from the Sengoku period, Hamamatsu city signed an agreement in 2016 to license Capcom content. We have used Ii Naotora, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and other Sengoku BASARA characters in our promotions.

We are striving to promote Hamamatsu to new demographics, such as young people and women, and have been able to attract visitors to related locations within the city. There were particularly spirited responses to the live on-stage talk, the sumie ink art exhibit, and the announcements played inside buses decorated with character images. Information spread on social media and I think the PR activities were effective. Additionally, visitors from outside Japan also asked to receive some of the collaboration posters, which showed us how strong the appeal of popular video games can be.

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