The unified e-sports organization JeSU has been launched

 ■The unified e-sports organization JeSU has been launched       

 

The founding presentation of the Japan e-Sports Union (JeSU), a corporation, has been held in Shinjuku. It is the launch of a unified organization for e-sports.

Through the cooperation of the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA) and the Japan Online Game Association (JOGA), JeSU was founded through the integration of the Japanese e-Sports Association (JeSPA), the e-Sports Promotion Organization, and the Japan e-Sports Federation.

I was a director of JeSPA; this organization was founded through a merger after disbanding it. It’s a movement with deep meaning.

 Apart from distributing pro e-sports licenses and recognizing tournaments, JeSU will carry out surveys and research, popularize tournaments, and nurture players. It aims to support players and revitalize the community.

It issues licenses per title to people who see themselves as professionals, who achieve excellent results on recognized titles in tournaments recognized by this union, and who have gone through designated training.

 The Japan e-Sports Pro License is for those aged 15 and above, and enables players to receive high-value goods and prize money.

There is also a Junior License for those aged 13 to 15.

Team licenses are also issued. They are effective for two years.

These licenses do not put any limits on players’ participation in overseas tournaments or on activities in which they appear as celebrities.

 The issuing of the pro license clears up regulations and creates an environment where large amounts of prize money can be given. As this is an area where Japan’s regulations are unique, this meeting also leads to steps that are necessary in order to turn e-sports into an industry.

 E-sports have been adopted as an official event in the 2022 Asian Games.

JeSU is moving forward with its entry to the JOC, and aims to send representative players as well as provide domestically made titles.

After that, it aims to have e-sports recognized as an official event in the Olympics.

 As we hold tournaments with prize money and provide funding to players, we aim to increase awareness of e-sports and improve the social position of players. There are many issues we must address for this purpose, and we must act in a realistic manner.

 Japan is a major player in the world of video games, but an underdeveloped country in the world of e-sports. It’s finally time for the real takeoff.

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The content meeting at the intellectual-property headquarters has started

 ■The content meeting at the intellectual-property headquarters has started

The content meeting in the IP headquarters committee has started. I am serving as chairman.

The topic this time is the overseas expansion of content. We are reviewing government policy.

Since the IP headquarters were founded in 2003, the policies have thickened, and the export value of content has more than doubled. We can make the evaluation that results are showing.

 The export value of content:

In the past five years (2011 to 2016; 2010 to 2015 for broadcasting)

Film has gone from 6.9 billion yen to 19.5 billion yen (2.8 times)

Anime has gone from 266.9 billion yen to 767.6 billion yen (2.9 times)

Games have gone from 293 billion yen to 1066.7 billion yen (3.6 times)

Broadcasting has gone from 6.6 billion yen to 28.9 billion yen (4.4 times)

 However, in the $555 billion global market for content, the sales of Japanese content are only $14.1 billion, or 2.5% of the global market.

The sales of Japanese manga are 27% of the global comic market, and the figure for games is 15%; however, the figure for film is 1.1%, and the figures for broadcasting and music are both 0.4%. These industries have remained domestic.

Our strategy is to see this as room for growth, and stimulate expansion outside.

Because it has focused its efforts on exporting broadcast content and has achieved its goals for overseas sales three years in advance, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications decided in a cabinet decision in June this year to set the new confident goal of increasing sales to 50 billion yen by 2020.

At the same time, simple but important administrative work such as the preparation and spread of guidelines to optimize production transactions for broadcast content with regard to antitrust and subcontracting laws is also happening.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has spent 31 billion yen in five years on projects to support localization, such as subtitles and dubbing, which has led to a 200-billion-yen increase in overseas sales.

On the other hand, with regard to fundraising methods represented by the production committee, reviews of investment methods such as financing and fund establishment, as well as new methods such as international co-production, are proceeding.

As the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry are aiming to promote overseas expansion through financial support, they are taking measures to stimulate structural change, such as transaction optimization and fundraising diversification.

More attention tends to be put on the former, but the latter is more of a core measure from a long-term administrative perspective, and is an important policy.

These enhancements to policies are being sought.

Committee members made the following points in succession.

・The concept of the Cool Japan policy needs to be reconsidered, including its naming.

・We should not consider each genre separately, but should expand all genres together.

・In a world where platform providers are making large movements, rather than evaluating the measures for each genre (games, anime, etc.) separately, we should consolidate the changes in the world as data and act proactively

・With regard to manga and anime, transmission is becoming a larger business in the U.S., China, and South Korea. Japan does not have prominent platform providers.

・We are too focused on purity. Japanese whiskey is well-rated around the world. Rather than only selling sake, we should have the idea that “although it’s from Japan, it’s whiskey”. Being able to watch top musicals from Europe or the U.S., or being able to see a Van Gogh work in an art museum, have high value for people in Asia.

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A new round has started in the intellectual-property headquarters

 ■A new round has started in the intellectual-property headquarters 

The committee in the intellectual-property headquarters has convened, and a new round has started. We are refining our short- and long-term strategies regarding content and industrial property rights. I am serving as the chairman.

 These were my greetings at the start.

“The fact that the Prime Minister appeared dressed as Super Mario in the closing ceremony of the Rio Olympics is a manifestation of the stance that moving towards the Tokyo Olympics, Japan places importance on the integration and transmission of content and technology.

　On one hand, there are things we must strictly review in our measures up to now, but on the other hand, the overseas expansion of anime and music have shown results. We must evaluate this positively.

　At the same time, a series of technological innovations such as AI, IoT, big data, and blockchains has become an enormous wave descending even on the field of content, which has adapted to ten years of the transition to smart technology.”

　This also shows that the time has come to join with the field of industrial property rights, as well as to coordinate with IT strategy and policy on science and technology, in order to create a new vision.”

The government made the following explanations regarding the progress of the IP plans.

・On constructing an IP system to promote the use and application of data:

　Contract guidelines on data usage rights; proof-of-concept of an information bank; guidelines on promoting the use of AI

・On constructing a copyright system:

　 Flexible restrictions on rights; revising the copyright system to allow for active use of ICT in education

・Promoting overseas expansion of content, and strengthening industry foundations:

　Supporting TV programs; promoting development of forms of presentation through new technology: AR, VR, drones, AI; measures against counterfeit products

・Strengthening the foundation of the film industry:

　Support for international co-production; strengthening location-shooting support; constructing a digital archive

The points listed from now on are opinions exchanged among committee members.

・Both a short-term strategy and a long-term vision surrounding PDCA are necessary.

・An unpredictable situation will appear in the field of content as well because of coordination with AI. We need measures that make good use of the ideas, challenges, and speculative spirit of society.

・Evidence-based policies are important. We should stick to the principle of making the use and application of data our top priority.

・The IP-based power of individuals is important, but there is little engagement with this in universities.

・IP education in elementary, middle, and high school is difficult. Like in programming education, we should use external instructors.

・We need to increase literacy regarding data usage and rule creation.

・“Frameless images” through VR and projection mapping are receiving attention. Smartphones will not necessarily be the driving force in 10 years. We need to examine the topic of the “post-smartphone” world.

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Recommendations for an ultra-free society 7: Can the bureau director be AI?

 ■Recommendations for an ultra-free society 7: Can the bureau director be AI?          

　What jobs are suitable for me? If I were reborn, what would I like to become?

　I think at the start, I would probably choose to be a bureaucrat again. That’s because a bureaucrat is a generalist, which is suitable for an ultra-free society. Also, the path after the bureaucracy is a wide one. After leaving the bureaucracy, I went onto the paths of education and business. Not descending from heaven (a Japanese term referring to retiring government officials taking high-ranking positions in private industry), but ascending into heaven - I left the bureaucracy young. Conversely, the path from education or business into the bureaucracy is still narrow.

　At the moment, if one makes, or even forces, bureaucrats to wear two, three, or four pairs of straw sandals, they participate fairly actively. The situation was more lenient when I was still in the bureaucracy. While being a bureaucrat, I could write books or appear on TV, and could move freely. Because of the fierce criticism of bureaucrats and regulations on public servants that came later, generalists who represent the country are restricted today.

 　In an ultra-free society with AI, liberating these people is important. First, let’s reform the way bureaucrats work - or rather, liberate the way they play. The reforms have to start from the bureaucracy. Let’s start from government offices when we introduce AI. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry lets AI write its answers in the Diet; it seems like the role of the bureau director or the Assistant Vice-Minister could be done by AI, so let’s start around there by replacing them. Let’s make the government offices ultra-free by doing this, and have young bureaucrats go outside and do general work.

 　By the way, the ultra-free society when AI has arrived will be a world where change is inevitable, and generalists will have the advantage. In order to adapt to this, an attitude of enjoying change and seeing relearning as a matter of course will be important. But this doesn’t mean throwing away specialization - rather, I think it’s the work of creating a new area you specialize in every one to two years.

 　I’m also saying this because I was forced to go through it. Although I went to university for five years, I did nothing but music, and chose the generalist path of a bureaucrat without having a specialty; after that, I had no choice but to study the work that was in front of me.

 　My first assignment as a working adult was right in the midst of the war on telecommunications liberalization, and I had to thoroughly study transmission and exchange technology, the economics of information distribution, and laws regarding public enterprise monopolies in order to keep up. As for the automatic translation project I handled, I had to thoroughly study advanced technology regarding speech recognition and machine translation, or I wouldn’t have been taken notice of.

 　In the CATV/satellite department that I was assigned to next, I had to thoroughly study filming technology, laws regarding radio waves and broadcasting, as well as the structure of the advertising and content industries. During my transfer to the post office, I had to study the postal service, savings, and insurance, while during my transfer to Paris, I had to study French and the politics and economy of Europe. When I handled administrative reform, I had to study administrative law and state organizations. All this was a matter of course.

 　But it was even harder once I left. The moment I joined MIT, I couldn’t join conversations without frantically refreshing my knowledge about computers, AI, physical chemistry, or design, and when I worked at Sega, I couldn’t take part in meetings without knowing the ABCs of game production or semiconductors. It was things like this over and over again.

    In an ultra-free society, I think that extensive learning and training will be sought after in order to get through the free time. I long for this free society, but just because we’ll be free doesn’t mean it’ll be easy. These will be stimulating, stinging days.

The incentive to work will be to get better AI. Rather than beautiful clothing or sumptuous food, I would rather have good AI. And the way I’ll pass my free time in an ultra-free society will be entirely by training this AI. Get smarter, get smarter! Then get to work for me right away!

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Recommendations for an ultra-free society 6: Recommendations for an ultra-free society 5: Quickly do the work for me

■Recommendations for an ultra-free society 6: Recommendations for an ultra-free society 5: Quickly do the work for me    

　Try imagining what you would do in an ultra-free society, rather than what other people would do.

　Specialists’ jobs will be taken by specialized AI, and generalists will have the advantage. Try recklessly planning and fantasizing, and polishing your skills. Put on more pairs of straw sandals.

 

　After that, it’s a revolution in the way you play. Distribute your time among e-sports, live comedy, or guerrilla band activities. You’ll read and watch more. Which reminds me - for the past few years, the number of books people read has been steadily falling, but this is because the number of other things people are reading has been going up. That’s because people are reading things like Internet news, columns, aggregator sites, or tweets rapidly and in large amounts.

　According to research by the University of California, San Diego, the spread of the Internet meant that the amount people read tripled from 1980 to 2008. People are becoming even more of reading creatures.

　In the last few years, the number of movies I’ve watched has also decreased. What I mean by “movies” here are those from theater films to theater films converted into films for DVD or Internet transmission. However, the amount of time I’ve spent watching filmed works has significantly increased. This is the fault of - or rather thanks to - Netflix, Hulu and Amazon.

　 “Hibana: Spark” on Netflix was not shown in theaters, so is it a movie or something else? There is a dispute about whether the Cannes Film Festival should recognize Netflix works, but even in the conference on promoting film in the government’s intellectual-property headquarters, the definition of what constitutes a movie and the relationship that it has with media needs to be put in order. Former Tokyo University president Shigehiko Hasumi wrote that “anything not on 35mm film is not a movie”, but by that definition, there are no movies anymore.

　There are many jobs I just wouldn’t be able to do from the start.

　I wouldn’t be able to become a taxi driver. I have confidence in my driving, but my grasp of geographical space like what road to take and how is low, and I would get scolded by the customer. Please head from Akasaka to Hiroo. “Do I go from Aoyama Street to Seijoki Street? Do I pass through Nogizaka? Do I pass through Roppongi?” - to be able to draw out a route map in my head like that and immediately plan out a route is a superpower to me.

　Kyoto was built as an imitation of Xi’an, China. To someone from there, roads exist in a checkered pattern to the north, south, east, and west, and as long as you know your starting point and destination, the distance is fixed no matter which path you take, and you’ll manage somehow as long as you set off. The problem is where north is; if you always look at the mountains at the basin to confirm it, and make sure your first step isn’t wrong, you’ll be fine. In Tokyo, there are no mountains, and the roads are diagonal or form arcs or circles. The roads in Tokyo are ridiculous. You can’t drive on them without being smart.

　I couldn’t be a sommelier either. Burgundy, Bordeaux, Tuscan, Napa Valley, Chile. Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon. I don’t know any of these things. I don’t know anything apart from the things you can tell by looking - if it’s white, red, rosé or has bubbles. I can’t create any miraculous pairings of food and wine. This job requires delicate taste buds, the imagination to drag pieces of information out of one’s memory database and hybridize them with one another to match them together, as well as the creativity to recreate those pairings in real life.

　I couldn’t be a teacher either. I have the title of a professor, but I couldn’t teach. The knowledge I have has been put down in writing, so it’s enough for people to read it. What I can do is provide a setting for projects and let people participate and learn there. I can’t do educator-like things. I take my hat off to all the teachers around the world.

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Recommendations for an ultra-free society 5: Quickly do the work for me

■Recommendations for an ultra-free society 5: Quickly do the work for me        

 

　The English word “content” started being used in Japanese in 1993, 25 years ago. With digitization, devices became multimedia, and distribution networks started to be bundled up into the Internet. Information services like those for movies, games, music, news, and books that had been scattered until then were now circulated as one. This concept was created based on that.

　High hopes are being set on the content industry. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry recognized that “the possibility of the content industry driving our country’s economy as a new leading industry is large” (2003: “Establishing a ‘Japan Brand’ based on the core of the content industry”); in 2004, the Cabinet Secretariat and the intellectual-property strategy headquarters assembled “Policies to Promote the Content Business”, which stated that the government would forge ahead and “turn promoting the content business into a pillar of our national strategy”.

　However, when I created an estimation based on past data, the scale of the content industry was a function of GDP. The coefficient of determination between the scale of the content industry and GDP was 0.988, and the elasticity coefficient of expansion of the content market when the GDP grew was close to 1. The likelihood of the content industry growing more than GDP had grown was low. That would be putting the cart before the horse; if GDP isn’t increased in the first place, the content industry won’t grow.

　In reality, despite the government’s expectations, the content industry is not showing growth sufficient to drive the economy; in fact, the effect of digitization after that has meant that the scale of the domestic content industry is not growing.

　On the other hand, what has increased in importance during this time is social media. After digitization - composed of PC phones, the Internet, and content - made its rounds, the transition to smart technology - composed of smartphones, the cloud, and social media - arrived, and the leading role in the category of services shifted on an industrial level as well as in terms of information traffic from content to the social dimension.

　This does not mean that the importance of content decreased; rather, as content continued to be the meat, the value of communication and community increased. From the perspective of content, social media was a platform as well as a lifeline for content to be active.

　Platforms such as Netflix and Amazon that are not social but that make content transmission their core business also became stronger. Japan’s transmission platforms put their efforts into being fair platforms, as had been their custom since Docomo’s i-mode, and were indifferent when it came to the creation of content.

　However, Netflix and Amazon pour huge amounts of funding into creating content in-house, and aim to operate as both platforms and content creators. In fact, it is precisely the combination of their platforms and their content that they see as the source of their competitiveness. This is a successful model that Nintendo has used since the NES era, and these companies have carried it out in the field of film and media.

　Incidentally, the two-sided model of hardware and software adopted by Apple (PC and iPhone -> iTunes) as well as Google (search engine -> Android) is the Nintendo/Sony model of creating gaming consoles as well as game software.

　Now, the transition to smart technology has created the product known as the share. It has created people who seek likes rather than possessions. And from sharing large items such as houses or cars, it has pushed us in the direction of sharing virtual things such as time or skills.

　To recognize your value, turn yourself into content, and provide your time and skills in a modular manner. To take off your many pairs of straw sandals all around the place. That will become the way we work and play in an ultra-free society.

　How can we design portfolios of the skills and time we are providing and share them on social platforms? Providing specialized skills for eight hours a day, five days a week; having two jobs and working on them for four hours each per day; dividing eight hours into blocks of three days and two days per week; having five jobs and changing the work you do every day - what? These are all what ants do. No, the standard will probably be to work for only one day a week, and to freely put AI to work for us for the other days.

　When this happens, it’s exactly the ability to manage AI that will become people’s content value.

　That will be influenced by the AI’s algorithms, the functionality of the machines, as well as the quality of the learning models. It’ll be about how much the AI assistants that are your subordinates will work for you.

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Recommendations for an ultra-free society 4: How many pairs of straw sandals are you wearing?

■Recommendations for an ultra-free society 4: How many pairs of straw sandals are you wearing?            

　As digitization and the transition to smart technology move ahead, as well as people’s return to urban areas, we become a mobile society. Kenro Hayamizu’s “Where to Live in Tokyo?” argues that as the concentration of people away from outside urban areas and towards inner-city areas continues, the ability to move and to change one’s location is becoming an important ability.

Richard Florida’s “Who’s Your City?” also suggests that movement between social classes and geographical mobility are closely linked, and one’s possibilities in life are significantly affected by the ability or inability to move.

　This is also the effect of the fact that IT has created a need for direct contact between people, and the popularization of smartphones has meant that the value of short distances has increased. Telecommunications have overcome distance and made closeness prominent. A community and communication close to oneself has come to hold value through the Internet, and as people gather and spend time in real places, they continue moving from place to place.

　In terms of policy, these items are relevant: telecommunications policy (preparing 5G and a digital foundation); urban policy (urban concentration policies - the opposite of regional revival and dispersion); social security policy (basic income); educational policy (relaxation of regulations to support recurrent education, and computerization of education).

　What’s more important is labor policy. The first step to modular work is recognizing second jobs. In fact, what we need is to recommend second jobs. Signs of what’s called “wearing two pairs of straw sandals” in Japanese - in other words, recognizing side jobs - are already appearing in the industry. Moving forward, wearing three or four pairs of straw sandals will probably become a matter of course.

　In the past, in the rigorous job of a bureaucrat, I went through my days with no breaks and with 200 hours of overtime, but ever since I’ve left, I’ve led a life with many pairs of straw sandals, where it isn’t clear what my main occupation is. If you count these as jobs, I have four - a university faculty member, a business executive, a representative of public organizations such as associations or consortiums, a government committee member - which is modular in nature.

　And yet I go to live performances and host drinking parties while calling it work, although an outsider would see me as playing. During the time that I was writing this text, I seemed like I was writing about something that seemed like work, but it wasn’t even for a manuscript fee, so from an outside perspective, it would seem like I was playing.

　It’ll become something like that. In the 20 years since I left government office, I’ve become totally used to this feeling and can’t go back, but if everyone gets used to this, it’ll be this kind of feeling too.

　Osaka University president Kiyokazu Washida has a fantastic essay entitled “Many Pieces of Time”. People lead a polychronic existence in which they live through many blocks of time in a multi-layered way. He wrote that there was another piece of time that was important in everyday life, and he wanted to add the additional dimension of “play” to time.

　People have many different pieces of time flowing within them, and to live a rich life is to not make any of the pieces of time scream. It is better to have many pieces of time, and although alternating between them is good too, it’s better to have them running simultaneously if possible. That is the understanding we’ll have in an ultra-free society.

　Professor Washida was my senior in middle school, high school, and university. I would like to take his understanding as guidance this time.

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Recommendations for an ultra-free society 3: A mosaic-style way to work

■Recommendations for an ultra-free society 3: A mosaic-style way to work        

 

　The ultra-free society will lead to a revolution in the way we work and play.

　If general AI appears on the scene, we will be able to get by with only 10% of the population working. 90% of today’s jobs will be handled by AI or robots. That will actually increase production, and we will be able to distribute the fruits and live on basic income. I can see a future like that.

 

　But it’s difficult to anticipate what it looks like when only 10% of people are working and 90% are playing. Wouldn’t it become a situation instead where most people are working a little bit, little by little? It would be something like a situation where it’s not clear whether people are working or playing, and they’ll be quite busy, wouldn’t it?

　From the Industrial Revolution to modern times and the present day, mechanization and automation have progressed, and things have become convenient and efficient. Movement and communication have both become freer. We have been freed from field labor and from simple manual labor to a considerable extent. That has freed up our time. But we aren’t just sitting around being lazy - on the contrary, we are fussing about all the time. We are busy. Our work, play, and lives have all sped up.

　When AI takes our jobs and we hand our work over to them, that probably doesn’t mean that we’ll be sitting around doing nothing; work for us to do instead will spring up in its place, and things we need to do in the freed-up time - whether entertainment, creating works, or love - will appear in large amounts, and we’ll probably still be busy.

 

　Lecturer Atsushi Hiyama from Tokyo University proposed “mosaic-style work”, where multiple people do a job for one person. He advocates three types of work - time-sharing work where people combine their time, remote work done through remotely operated robots or VR, and virtual talent synthesis, where multiple people’s skills are combined together. I agree.

　Even without waiting for general AI, this is something that needs to be implemented in the context of the sharing economy. The sharing economy is the result of digitization and the transition to smart technology. The global scale of this economy was $15 billion in 2013, and is predicted to grow to $330 billion in 2025.

　We have started from businesses that share large items such as homes (Airbnb) and cars (Uber), and have now become able to share small items such as bicycles and clothing. However, sharing things that everyone has like time or skills has much more unlimited potential, and will grow into a large business in the future.

 

　As a result of the Sharing Economy Conference by the government that I participated in, the Sharing Economy Association created rules on voluntary restraints, and started a system to certify suitable sharing economy services. Most of the services approved in the first round of certification were ones such as childcare or housework that were based on models that shared people’s time and skills. Yes, that is the winner.

　Creating a schedule and skill list of the things you can do and want to do, and providing these as modules. Sharing these as sharing services. Combining these modules in the form of a mosaic and designing a job. That’s it.

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