Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | August 2011 34 Pachinko : The Next Generation KYORAKU is developing a form of the legendary Japanese arcade game especially for casinos W hen casino operators think about Japan, it’s probably in terms of the chance to build and manage casino gaming resorts in that country. Now a Japanese games equipment maker is offering to sell an essentially Japanese game concept to casinos in the Asia Pacific region. KYORAKU, one of biggest vendors of pachinko games in Japan, says it is developing a pachinko -style game for the overseas casino market. An early prototype of the game—using balls in a sealed cabinet rather than allowing the balls to be fed into the machine by hand as happens in Japan—was on display at G2E Asia this year. Other adaptations for the casinomarket are likely to include ticket-in, ticket-out capability ( pachinko machines in Japan use a swipe card system for storing play credit that is unique to that market). Pachinko is hugely popular in the Land of the Rising Sun, generating a staggering Y21.1 trillion (US$254 billion) in revenue in 2009—the most recent available figures. But the game has not so far spread much beyond the borders of Japan and South Korea. And in South Korea, the commercial pachinko market has in recent years effectively been regulated out of existence by the government. But Japanese and South Korean television series, film dramas and pop music do travel well in terms of regional appeal. Every week millions of Asian viewers tune in to TV soap operas and music shows produced by those countries. KYORAKU believes it can take advantage of this cultural phenomenon by theming pachinko -style games around such material. The prototype game on display at G2E Asia was themed around Winter Sonata, a hugely successful South Korean TV drama that also generated an anime [animated] series as a spin-off product. KYORAKU says it’s likely to take several years of development and regulatory review before its new hybrid game is ready for casino Star attraction—KYORAKU’s pachinko-style casino game at G2E Asia