The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2022–2023
Monster Strike turns players' true stories into web films — ACC 2023 Online Film GP
MIXI asked Monster Strike players for true moments the game caused, then made eight web films from them — #OurMonStory won ACC 2023 Online Film Grand Prix.
MIXI, Inc. · Hakuhodo / TBWA\Hakuhodo
What it had to solve
Monster Strike, the pull-and-bounce hunting RPG launched by MIXI in October 2013, had passed 61 million cumulative users worldwide by late 2023. Its defining feature was co-op multiplayer with friends — the game was a social ritual — yet MIXI wanted advertising that showed that truth instead of inventing fantastical game fiction.
How it works
Monster Strike, MIXI's smartphone hunting RPG, passed 61 million cumulative users worldwide by October 2023, a decade after launch. Its signature is four-player co-op, which made the game a social ritual among friends, families and classmates — but its advertising had rarely shown that side of the product.
For the campaign '#OurMonStory' ('#俺たちのモンストーリー'), MIXI and Hakuhodo/TBWA\Hakuhodo asked players on X (then Twitter) from July to October 2022 to share true episodes where Monster Strike had been the catalyst for something in their real lives. The submissions produced moments no script could have invented: a teacher's love of the game exposed while scolding a student, a father showing off to his kids by playing better than them, strangers bonding in a park.
Eight chosen stories were turned into web films, each named after its setting — guidance counseling, a dark shrine, a cold pack, a park, a friend's older brother, waking up, father, New Year — and aired as a series. Two follow-up editions ran in June and September 2023 as the format became an ongoing property.
At the 2023 63rd ACC TOKYO CREATIVITY AWARDS, the series won the Grand Prix in the Online Film category — Monster Strike's first ACC Grand Prix. The jury noted that the films updated what people thought a mobile game could be, showing it as a real communication tool connecting generations, and that grounding the films in users' own voices pointed to advertising's future as two-way conversation.
Why it lands
- Real player anecdotes contained specific, unscriptable details — a teacher caught mid-scolding, a flexing dad — that made each film feel lived-in.
- Crowdsourcing the stories on X made players co-authors, so the campaign spread through the same community that supplied it.
- The films showed Monster Strike as a source of human connection, countering the stereotype of games as isolating.
- Series naming after everyday settings made ordinary life the hero, matching a game built around co-op play with friends.
- Letting the campaign continue with new editions in 2023 turned a one-off idea into a repeatable storytelling engine.
What it did
The series won the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Award (Grand Prix) in the Online Film category at the 2023 63rd ACC TOKYO CREATIVITY AWARDS — Japan's largest creative award, judged from 2,448 entries — Monster Strike's first ACC Grand Prix. The jury praised the films for shattering the stereotype that mobile games isolate people and for showing, through stories composed from users' own voices, that advertising can be a communication tool rather than a one-way broadcast.
What you can take
When a product's real value is the relationships around it, don't invent stories — collect them. Films from players' true anecdotes felt community-written, so the community shared them as their own.
Since then
After the ACC Grand Prix, MIXI kept producing '#OurMonStory' installments through 2023 and the series became part of Monster Strike's 10th-anniversary communications around the game's October 2023 milestone. The win was the game's first at ACC, Japan's largest creative awards, and the jury's comment — that films composed from users' voices showed advertising becoming a communication tool — was widely read in the Japanese industry as a validation of community-sourced brand storytelling.
Sources
- Monster Strike wins its first ACC Grand Prix in the Online Film category (MIXI news)
- Monster Strike wins ACC 2023 Online Film Grand Prix for #OurMonStory
- ACC 2023 Film B category winners and jury review
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe the brief you are staring at, and see who has been given the same problem.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card