Our Founder's Story

Creative drive

Creative drive is the passion to create something, and the dedication to give everything you have to that passion. So much of what we see in the world today was born from this kind of creative drive. Our founder, Yoshikazu Tanaka, discovered the Internet in his teens and became captivated by it. Then, one day in his twenties, he hit on the idea of “GREE.” Driven by the desire to bring that idea to life and change people’s lives, he began developing it on his own.

He had no funding, sacrificed sleep, worked in isolation—he had nothing. People told him it was pointless, meaningless, and that he would fail. He had nothing and he was nobody, but a powerful creative drive kept him going: “I want to create GREE. I want to dedicate everything to making it real.” The dedication to give everything to the passion to create was there from the very beginning of this company. That creative drive is etched into our origins.

Creativity drives you

When Tanaka was a child, his father bought him a birthday present: a Famicom game console that had just been released. That simple gift would go on to change his life. He spent his days immersed in games literally from morning to night. He played games with friends every day, eagerly counting down the days until new ones came out. Eventually, it dawned on him that he wanted to do more than just playing games. He realized, “I want to make games myself.”

The creative drive of countless game creators, their passion for making games, had reached this boy through the games they made, inspired him, and changed his life. A passion for creation awakened inside him.

Creativity drives you. Creating something through your creative drive will in turn drive someone else. Just like this simple story, a child’s passing dream can still lead, over time, to the creation of a company like GREE. Creativity drives you—this too is one of the stories of how this company began.

Power of creativity

It starts with creative drive. That urge to create drives you forward, and what you create then drives others. That passion and dedication to creation will transform both yourself and those around you, inspiring the tireless effort needed to bring your creation to life, an indomitable spirit of never giving up, and the ambition to aim ever higher.

Tanaka started developing GREE on his own, but soon realized there were things he couldn’t accomplish alone. He was forced to transform himself to bring that idea to life. He personally brought together teammates one by one and together they pushed themselves to found a company and realize his idea. Time and again, Tanaka generated the power of creativity himself, and used that power of creativity to transform himself.

This is the power of creativity. Rooted in creative drive, the power of creativity drives you forward, and you drive others with the power of your creativity.

—That’s the story of how this company was started.