"AI" Solve the Pachinko Inbound Issue?

長北真 Pachinko the WORLD！海外と外国人とジャパニーズパチンコ事情

It has been a week, and here's another lengthy update. Since this might turn out to be another substantial piece, let me start with the basics. This time, I'd like to discuss how to address the challenges faced by the pachinko industry when incorporating inbound strategies, building upon the previous discussion.

Quickly revisiting the challenges mentioned earlier, there are five significant ones:

1. Translation
2. Talent acquisition and development
3. Sharing the 'fun' factor
4. Determining who resolves the issues
5. Legal regulations and law enforcement

Now, let me promptly delve into my proposed solutions for these challenges.

Issue 1: Solution for Translation

I've discussed this at length, and practically, it's already solved. The remaining question is simply, who will fund it? Huh? So, if we translate 20,000 characters for 100 models, it would cost 40 million yen, assuming 20 yen per 1,000 characters. And, if a pachinko-savvy translator takes 666 days to translate 2 million characters at a rate of 3,000 characters per day, their certification might expire! For those who quickly calculated this, you're right.

However, this is the workload when done manually. Here's where 'AI' comes into play.

The idea is to significantly reduce the workload by using AI translation. Now, some might think, "Couldn't we have used Google Translate for this all along?" That's an excellent point. Let me explain how AI translation is superior to existing machine translation!

...It's getting lengthy, so let me get some help.

▲AI also can do this work in a min

1. Improvement in Context Understanding: AI translation excels in comprehending context deeply. This enables it to accurately capture how words and phrases are used in specific contexts, providing precise translations.

2. Natural Language Generation: AI translation systems can generate language expressions used naturally by humans, resulting in more natural and readable translated texts.

3. Learning and Evolution: AI translation continually learns and evolves by receiving new data and feedback, leading to an improvement in translation quality over time.

4. Adaptability to Specific Fields: AI translation adapts to specific domains and industry terminology, achieving high accuracy even in translating technical documents or specialized content.

5. Flexibility in Multilingual Translation: AI translation is flexible in handling translations across multiple languages, enabling high-quality translations in a wide range of language pairs.

6. Understanding Emotion and Nuance: AI translation has the ability to capture the emotion and nuance of the text, allowing translated texts to more faithfully reflect the original intent and emotion.

7. Customization and Personalization: AI translation systems can be customized to fit the specific needs and preferences of individual users, offering a more personalized translation experience.

It was a bit lengthy, so let me summarize a bit more.

▲ Indeed, the world has become incredibly convenient.

1. Contextual Understanding: AI translation deeply comprehends context, providing more accurate translations.

2. Natural Expression: AI translation translates in a natural language similar to humans.

3. Learning Capability: AI translation learns and evolves, improving in quality over time.

4. Specialized Field Adaptation: AI translation appropriately translates specialized terminology.

5. Multilingual Support: AI translation supports a wide range of language pairs for diverse translation capabilities.

6. Emotion and Nuance: AI translation captures both emotion and nuance.

7. Customization: AI translation is customizable to individual needs.

In summary, what does this mean?

In essence, how does 'AI translation' prove useful? Essentially, it goes beyond a literal 'translation' from Japanese to English, incorporating not only direct translation but also natural 'paraphrasing' considering the nuances before and after. Additionally, it now comes with the ability to learn.

Moreover, the learning capability means that by continuously feeding it vast amounts of pachinko analysis data, it gradually comprehends the intricacies, showcasing considerable efficacy.

Let me briefly explain other aspects.

◆Specialized Field Adaptation:
Understanding the context of the current translated text, for example, recognizing that it's discussing pachislot, AI processes terms like 'チャンス目' ('Chance Eye') not as separate words but as a single term, 'チャンス目.'

◆Customization:
By providing pre-prepared texts explaining specific terms or game mechanics beforehand, the AI can handle even highly specialized translations.

If we focus on the word 'チャンス目' (Chance Eye) mentioned earlier, by providing a prior explanation like 'Chance Eye primarily represents a special non-winning combination where specific symbols are arranged in a particular sequence, mainly when small winnings are not aligned. It is often utilized as a high-potential role for jackpot or chance zones in many models, but the expectation level varies significantly between models. Also, it is often distinguished from reaching the point where a jackpot is confirmed,' and defining the translation (let's temporarily call it 'Chance Pattern'), it now understands and constructs sentences about any existence of 'チャンス目' naturally.

In other words, as long as the definitions are well-established beforehand, it has become capable of translating any text naturally.

For those who find definitions troublesome, especially in the field of translating specialized terms, the process involves:

①Learning: Knowledgeable individuals research each word and industry background. For example, in pachinko, they study the rules and history of pachinko, identifying specialized terms.
②Definition: They compile the identified terms and establish translation rules for each word.
③Translation: The standard understanding of 'translation.' Executing the translation according to the rules.
④Confirmation: Native checking, ensuring there is no unnaturalness in the translation.
⑤Correction: This involves not only correcting translation errors but also addressing issues that arise during the translation process. For instance, if there is difficulty translating a term like '4コマスベリ' in pachislot, decisions are made on how to handle it.
⑥Maintenance and Updates: Operating the translation, fixing issues found, and adding translations for new terms as needed.

In summary, the work is conducted through a process similar to programming, with variations depending on the company. The steps include ①learning, ②defining, ③translating, ④confirming, ⑤correcting, and ⑥maintaining, resembling the stages in programming such as requirements definition, design, coding, testing, and debugging.

The ultimate conclusion is that someone knowledgeable about pachinko, by handling only the definition (step 2), can eliminate the need for learning (step 1) and translation (step 3). Confirmation (step 4), correction (step 5), and maintenance (step 6) are tasks that don't require a large team, often handled by a single person.

It might be lengthy, but when it comes to one's own field of expertise, enthusiasts tend to be unstoppable. Apologies for the lengthy explanation!

In essence, it means "I alone can now translate all pachinko literature in the world" (realistically, with an assistant, handling around 30-50 models per month, I think). Additionally, the work for step 2 is generally completed. There is a pachinko translation table that I spent about a year creating, so let's use that. By the way, just between us, regarding the English translation for this series... well, maybe I should drop that topic. I might get a reduction in my manuscript fee.

▲5 to 10 minutes of work including revisions,

No worries! It's just that the premise is lengthy as usual, but the rest is a breeze!

Issue 2：Solution for Talent Acquistion and Development

This challenging issue, which seems to have left industry insiders in despair, can actually be solved with "AI." Maybe we should just leave everything to AI. In essence, it's about having AI handle the questions and answers!

To be more specific, we can prepare anticipated questions and answers, and have AI respond naturally according to each keyword. While there are still some challenges with speech recognition, if it's text-based, there are several ways to distribute it to customers, such as making it a mobile app or providing dedicated devices.

Interestingly, this field shares similarities with translation. With that in mind, one idea is to gradually educate existing employees in English conversation skills.

Oh, and why not create e-learning materials using AI for this too? It would be interesting to generate audio files with AI and conduct listening tests. Education in this regard isn't actually such a complex issue. If we focus on teaching employees the content typically heard in pachinko parlors, it's just about memorizing around 20 phrases. Making someone understand and speak 20 phrases is easier than getting them to pass the Eiken Grade 5（Very Entry level of English certification in Japan） exam, isn't it?

Issue 3：Solution for Sharing Enjoyment

So, here's the final challenge. While this is something that could be solved with "AI," it's a bit of a high hurdle. Nonetheless, there are some apps out there that use AI in this context.

▲ I've found an app that seems to bring in just the right kind of short videos.

Essentially, there are apps that can translate spoken Japanese content directly into English. So, why not use this for existing pachinko videos and such? That's the idea.

However, there are concerns about the accuracy of translating specialized terminology, handling background noise, and whether it can handle videos longer than 30 minutes. So, while it seems feasible, it hasn't been fully tested yet. Maybe we'll try it out sometime soon.

So, here's the current solution.

Fundamentally, it would be great to have more players who can communicate the allure of pachinko in foreign languages. So, why not have foreigners communicate it?

In other words, it might be a good idea to train foreigners living in Japan in filming techniques and game dynamics and have them play pachinko. It would be great if more pachinko parlors could provide support for filming, even lending tripods and such.

Focusing on increasing the number of people who share our message is a matter of strategy, and it requires approaching "foreign residents in Japan" rather than "foreign tourists." This represents a different direction, I believe.

Regardless, disseminating this "enjoyment" requires the cooperation of various individuals. That's why it's considered the most challenging aspect. Other issues can ultimately be resolved with money or, essentially, time, turning our world into one where anything can be solved.

Let's skip challenges 4 and 5 for now!

Anyway, as for "Who will solve challenge 4?" Well, it's a bit complicated with many characters involved, making it a tangled tale. While I'd love to say, "I'll do it!" it's not something I can claim from the position of someone relying on others for their livelihood. Challenge 5 regarding laws and the police is also a complex issue, so let's leave it to industry associations and the like to tackle. Feeling relieved? Yeah, me too.

It feels like this has gotten excessively long, so I'll stop here for now. Until next time!

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We have organized a special tour to introduce pachinko, a traditional Japanese form of entertainment, to our foreign friends. On this tour, you will be accompanied by an instructor who is fluent in English and well-versed in pachinko, providing detailed guidance from the basics to advanced techniques. Pachinko, known for its bright lights and unique sounds, has been a beloved game in Japan for over 80 years. Although the tour is just two hours, it offers a wealth of knowledge about pachinko's history and how to play!