By Bruce Rutledge

Fukuoka may be a few hours by bullet train from Osaka and Tokyo, but the southern Japanese city has decided that one of its strongest business allies may be more than 5,000 miles to the east. Fukuoka City officials are looking across the Pacific to Seattle to find the knowledge and business ties necessary to build a global hub for the rapidly expanding and internationalizing video-game industry.
“Fukuoka is thinking about connecting with Seattle via the video-game business,” Kohei Yamada of Fukuoka’s international economic development team writes in an email. “Fukuoka’s game industry is much smaller than Seattle’s, and it has a much smaller cluster than Seattle, but by building ties with Seattle we can create new game businesses, send companies there and have Seattle companies come here.”
Global competition in the gaming industry — one of the few hot industries in an otherwise tepid global economy — has grown fierce. While Fukuoka is still a small player in the industry, it’s neatly tucked next to South Korea, an up-and-coming player in the sector, and a quick flight from Taiwan, another emerging force. Fukuoka City has been slowly wooing more game companies, too, growing from a modest cluster of three companies in 2003 to 13 today anchored by the very successful LEVEL-5 Inc., creator of the Professor Layton series, which has sold 9.18 million copies worldwide. LEVEL-5 has also been handpicked by Square Enix to make the newest version of the 50-million-seller Dragon Quest franchise, Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies.

	Fukuoka is the biggest city on Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands. The city has a population of 1.5 million. The population swells with tourists each summer during the 750-year-old Yamakasa Festival. Bottom left: A favorite Fukuoka treat is the pork-based tonkotsu ramen served from street vendors.

Of course, compared to the greater Seattle area, which is home to 150 -200 game-related companies including Bungie, PopCap, Nintendo of America and Microsoft, Fukuoka is still a minor player. But by connecting with Seattle and creating strong ties between the cities, Yamada says, Fukuoka can establish itself as an international hub in a country that has not always been quick to embrace global ties.
“By promoting ties (with Seattle), we can promote Fukuoka as a gateway connecting Japan to the rest of the world at a time when Japanese game companies have been slow to internationalize,” he writes. “We would like to have game companies from Asia and the West that are interested in Japan gather in Fukuoka.”
The first steps for Fukuoka are dispatching a consultant and researcher to Seattle and Vancouver to review the game industry and get a better feel for the terrain. Based on the researcher’s feedback, the city plans to send a business delegation this year to strengthen ties with Seattle. Fukuoka will then become a more noticeable presence at video-game exhibits and business conferences in the Pacific Northwest.
Fukuoka’s game sector is centered around what it calls the GFF, short for Game Factory Fukuoka, which began in 2004. The star of the group is LEVEL-5, but other innovative companies creating game software and digital content have also chosen to settle here, including D.A.G Inc., which created the computer graphics for the movie Devil May Cry 4; CyberConnect2, the creator of many PlayStation platform games for NARUTO;and GANBARION, the creator of many One Piece titles.
Fukuoka’s easy access to other Northeast Asian destinations, its high quality of life and its temperate climate are all draws for businesses looking for a Japanese home, as is the fact that a video-game company can run its business in Fukuoka for a fraction of the cost of doing business in Tokyo. To top it off, the city plans to offer financial and legal support to foreign companies setting up businesses in Fukuoka. The city is eager to make a splash in the industry, so businesses that choose Fukuoka early may find some great deals.
The midsize Japanese city has set up the Fukuoka Game Industry Promotion Agency to achieve its dream of growing into a strong international video-game hub. Its relationship with Seattle plays a key part in that dream, so expect to see more from Fukuoka in the months ahead.

Information about fukuoka city: http://www.city.fukuoka.lg.jp/promo/english/index.html

GFF: http://www.gff.jp/

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