SEGA SAMMY Group companies in Japan hold a new graduate welcome ceremony jointly every year as part of receiving new employees. For the ceremony held on April 1, 2026, 15 Group companies welcomed 192 new recruits.

On the morning of April 1, the first thing handed out to the stream of nervous-looking new employees making their way into the Group’s Head Office in Osaki was an original SEGA SAMMY hoodie prepared especially for that day. In addition to having the SEGA SAMMY logo on the left side of its chest, the back of the hoodie featured a scene with popular characters from the Group’s various IPs. Unlike a typical recruit induction ceremony, there is no dress code, so the new members of the SEGA SAMMY family began to put their hoodies on one after the other. Perhaps it was due to the soft ivory hue of the hoodies, but smiles soon began to spread across the faces of the new recruits.

Wrapped in an air of solemnity, the recruit induction ceremony kicked off with an opening address by Haruki Satomi, President and Group CEO, Representative Director. This was followed by the new employees being presented with their individual letters of appointment, and a statement of determination delivered by their representative. Following the ceremony was a talk by President Satomi, as well as a Q&A session with a casual atmosphere that allowed questions—some of which are usually difficult to ask—to be raised by the audience.

The new employees then made their way to JOURNEY’S CANTEEN, the employee cafeteria at the SEGA SAMMY Group’s Head Office, to have lunch together. The break time afterwards was also very lively, where a variety of activities awaited them, including a hands-on corner set up in the hall with numerous UFO CATCHER^® machines from SEGA FAVE CORPORATION. They also had a chance to take photos with Sonic, Shadow and Aliyan, who dropped by for the occasion.

In the afternoon, the new employees split up into 20 teams to face off against each other in a competitive recreation event. For the challenges where they had the chance to rack up a large number of points, they got hands on experience with a variety of the SEGA SAMMY Group’s entertainment content. This included playing SEGA CORPORATION’s Puyo Puyo™ Tetris^® 2, Sammy Corporation (Sammy)’s P-SPORTS* Hokuto No Ken: Tenun Shobu pachinko machines, as well as stacking mahjong tile walls with members of SEGA SAMMY PHOENIX, the Group’s professional mahjong team. The end of the event also served as the day’s climax, with teams trying their luck at turning the tables and coming out on top with the spin of a roulette wheel from SEGA SAMMY CREATION INC.^*.

The SEGA SAMMY Group New Graduate Welcome Ceremony was well received, with the new employees who participated saying that, in addition to being able to have fun while bonding with their peers, they got a feel for what makes SEGA SAMMY special and had the solid realization they were on their way to becoming part of the organization. Yet, the individual who served as the leader of the ceremony’s planning and management team, and who oversaw the ceremony, was one of SEGA SAMMY’s employees from overseas who was himself unfamiliar with Japanese traditional “welcome ceremonies.” His name is Gruca Marcin Edward, a member of the Education and Training Team in the Learning and Development Department at SEGA SAMMY’s Human Resources Development Division. We spoke with both Marcin-san and Koichi Shibasaki, the head of the team who assigned him as leader, to ask them about the roles of the ceremony and its planning and management within the SEGA SAMMY Group’s Human Resources Strategy.

In his third year at SEGA SAMMY, Marcin-san is originally from Poland and joined the Group as a mid-career hire. His feeling when approached about leading the team to plan and manage the recruit induction ceremony was one of complete bewilderment.

Marcin

I was surprised when Shibasaki-san approached me about organizing the recruit induction ceremony. Being from overseas, I wasn’t very familiar with the concept of a new graduate induction ceremony, and since I was also a mid-career hire, the mindset of the new employees was also a mystery to me.

However, Marcin-san accepted the invitation, seeing it as a valuable chance. He started by coming up with his own interpretation of the culture of the recruit induction ceremony, which he was unfamiliar with.

Shibasaki-san shares his thoughts about why he approached Marcin-san with this role.

Shibasaki

Despite only domestic Group companies taking part in thisceremony, the number of new employees from overseas is growing steadily, and the Group is taking on an increasingly global hue. So, I approached Marcin-san because I wanted him to add a unique essence to the usual ceremony. Having said that, I secretly hoped that this project would turn into a good opportunity to get Marcin-san, one of SEGA SAMMY’s MC (Multicultural) personnel*, to relate to the ceremony and gain a better understanding of Japanese culture and what makes SEGA SAMMY special. I believed that thinking about the ceremony’s significance and working on the project while involving his colleagues as its leader would be an important experience that he could make use of in his work at SEGA SAMMY in the future.

Just as Shibasaki-san had anticipated, the first obstacle that Marcin-san ran into as he started work on the project was how to interpret the meaning of the ceremony in his own way.

Marcin

The first thing that comes to my mind when I hear “recruit induction ceremony” is the entrance ceremonies at schools. In my experience, they were extremely formal events that children attend until they turn 18. At my previous companies, we never had a large number of people join the company at the same time, so it was quite a mystery to me why recruit induction ceremonies had to be held in the first place.

However, Marcin-san  gradually developed his understanding of the significance of the recruit induction ceremony through discussions with his team members and Shibasaki-san.

Marcin

I realized that the recruit induction ceremony served to simultaneously shift the mindset of many of the new employees from that of a student to that of a working adult. Additionally, through communicating with the team members around me, I gradually became curious about something: Namely the importance they placed on douki, others who joined the company at the same time as they did. Precisely because I’d just come to SEGA SAMMY as a mid-career hire, I didn’t really understand the definition of the word, nor its importance. However, by frequently hearing my Japanese coworkers say things like, “let’s ask A-san since they’re our douki,” I realized there was a big benefit to having others at the company who’d joined at the same time.

Marcin

After they’ve finished the SEGA SAMMY Group’s nearly month-long Joint New Graduate Training, the new employees finally begin work at their respective companies. From that point on, it isn’t easy for them to meet up every day and touch base. However, for the Group’s companies that are involved with a wide variety of entertainment content, close communication that transcends company lines is essential to create synergy within the Group and maximize the potential of our talents. I wanted to include activities that would promote team building in the hopes that the new employees would remember the bonds they’d built at the recruit induction ceremony even after they went their separate ways. So, I decided on “Ignite the Future Together” as the concept for the 2026 SEGA SAMMY Group New Graduate Welcome Ceremony, which incorporates that wish.

The afternoon recreation event, held under the concept of “Ignite the Future Together” played a major role in this team building.

Teams of nine competed for points by tackling the challenges they were presented to them. Some of these challenges also made use of the SEGA SAMMY Group’s unique content, including video games, pachinko machines and mahjong. The intent behind this event design was to encourage participants to get hands-on with the Group’s content, while deepening their bonds as teams by combining their individual strengths to take on the challenges.

Marcin

As the SEGA SAMMY Group is involved in the creation of a diverse range of entertainment content, the people who join as new employees have a truly wide variety of strengths and content that they like. I designed the challenges to increase team cohesiveness and deepen members’ bonds by helping team members get to know each other and contribute using their individual strengths. This could be seen, for example, in the Pachinko Challenge where new Sammy employees played an active role. The climax of the event at the end was the Roulette Challenge, where each team had a chance to turn the tables and come out on top. More than anything, I’m glad that everyone had a good time and of course were able to strengthen their connections.

Waiting for the new employees the day after the recruitment induction ceremony is the nearly month-long orientation named the Navigating SEGA SAMMY “The SEGA SAMMY Way”. The experiences that the employees gained at the recruit induction ceremony also have a direct link to the training’s learning outcomes.

Shibasaki

The Human Resources Development Division considers it vital that new employees feel glad that they “came on board,” and we express that sentiment with the motto “All on Board,” which is our way of saying, “thank you for coming aboard our ship (company).” That’s because this feeling ties into their motivation to engage with in the Navigating SEGA SAMMY “The SEGA SAMMY Way” that starts the day after the recruit induction ceremony. Over the next month or so, they transcend company lines and cultivate their bonds with other new employees, while learning basic business manners and the SEGA SAMMY Group’s business operations. The captivating experiences and bonds with their peers that they gain during this time, and not just the ceremony, are extremely important to SEGA SAMMY Group’s on-boarding onboarding program.

Lastly, we asked Marcin-san and Shibasaki-san to share their thoughts on the SEGA SAMMY Group New Graduate Welcome Ceremony from their respective standpoints.

Shibasaki

Currently, the SEGA SAMMY Group is working to expand its businesses overseas. While we welcome around 200 new employees annually in Japan alone, the percentage of individuals who are either from overseas or have experience living and working abroad grows every year. As such, I’d like to update our on-boarding program so that we’re also able to communicate SEGA SAMMY’s merits and appeal to this diverse talents. I’d like to do this in an natural, organic way, so that they come to genuinely resonate with these aspects of the Group. That’s exactly why I believe there’s great significance in having this program developed by Marcin-san. Because he is from overseas, I initially worked hard to help him understand unique aspects of Japanese corporate culture the welcome ceremony, as well as what makes SEGA SAMMY special. The SEGA SAMMY Group is striving to become the world’s number one integrated entertainment company, and I’d like to continue creating ceremonies that can help the company achieve that goal from a human resources perspective.

Marcin

I think that what makes the SEGA SAMMY Group special has yet to be effectively conveyed to the Group’s employees both in Japan and overseas. While the appeal of the content created by the individual Group companies is of course one extremely important aspect of this, so is the fact that our employees have colleagues working towards the same goal of creating captivating experiences across the entire Group companies and around the world. That’s precisely why the welcome ceremony, which brings a large number of new employees together under one roof, is so significant. In the future I’d like to expand my horizons beyond the ceremony to include communicating the appeal of SEGA SAMMY’s culture to our new colleagues through the on-boarding program as a whole, which includes training.

“Ignite the Future Together”—Become a light that illuminates the future of the SEGA SAMMY Group alongside your peers: That was the message to SEGA SAMMY’s new employees from those responsible for this year’s welcome ceremony. There is immense potential in the creation of Group synergy that transcends company lines, especially for SEGA SAMMY, which is involved in the development of a variety of entertainment content. Without a doubt, the foundation for this synergy was laid at this year’s SEGA SAMMY Group New Graduate Welcome Ceremony.

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