New Edition: Creating a Super Free Society 6 - Super Free-Time Killing Strategies

 ■New Edition: Creating a Super Free Society 6 - Super Free-Time Killing Strategies

　Part of my recent work, "New Edition: Creating a Super Free Society After COVID-19 - The Age of Cats" is revealed below. 

　From Chapter 4, "Super Free-Time Killing Strategies".

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Games are perfect for during COVID-19

　A super free society is a tremendously sporty society. A time of dazzling entertainment, academics, romance, and sports comes when you are super free. It is fun because we move our bodies and sweat. It is not very exciting to watch robots fighting each other. Sweat it out. Sweat it out. Clench the sweat in your hands. Clench the sweat in your hands. Yes, let's create sports. 

e-Sports is the new sport of the information society. There are a wide variety of genres such as fighting, car racing, soccer, and strategy games. With professional players emerging, and it also becoming a club activity at schools, it is likely to become a popular and well-known sport on par with baseball and soccer.

Expectations are high for the industry, and In 2017, the global market was $1.5 billion, a x1.5 growth rate in five years. The audience is expected to grow from 260 million of which it is today, to 560 million in 5 years.

　It has come to be recognized as a sport, and has been chosen as an official event at the 2022 Asian Games to be held in Hangzhou, China. In 2018, it was held as an exhibition event at the Asian Games in Jakarta (Jakarta Palembang 2018). Naoki Sugimura of Kinki University and Tsubasa Aihara of Okinawa Ikei N Senior High School, won gold medals in the soccer game "Winning Eleven". In Japan, an inter-prefectural competition was held at the 2019 Ibaraki National Athletic Meet.

　It is also expected to become an official Olympic event, and it is rumored to be held at the earliest at Paris 2024, and at the latest at Los Angeles 2028. A tournament will also be held at the Tokyo Olympics. If you are good at games, you can represent your country and win a gold medal to become a hero, and a professional. 

Throughout the world, the United States and South Korea have grown to become the home of gaming over the past 20 years. Japan, despite being a major gaming nation, has been lagging behind when it comes to e-Sports. It's market size makes up one-fifteenth of the world's market, and the number of players in Japan make up one-twentieth of the number of players in the world. 

　The main reason for this is that Japan was a major gaming nation. Nintendo and Sony, the giants of video game consoles, dominated the world market in the 1980s and 1990s, but these were made for household TVs. The world was trending towards games for PCs and the Internet. Japan experienced too much success, and was late to engage in online coetitive gaming.

　But in 2018, Japan celebrated its first year of e-Sports, and the industry had begun to grow as it had overcome two major obstacles - prize money regulations and the proliferation of organizations. The regulation in the Act Against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations, which limits prize money for amateurs to ¥100,000, has made it difficult to hold large-scale tournaments. There are three e-Sports organizations, and their unification has been deemed a condition for their membership in the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

　In 2018, the three organizations were first merged to form the Japan e-Sports Union (JeSU). JeSPA, of which I served as a director, was also dissolved and merged. I did so well I lost my job. JeSU issues professional licenses which will overcome the restrictions on prize money under the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations. Professional teams and large tournaments funded by corporations will be set up, as an environment has been created in which companies can invest their funds with confidence. A complex equation has been solved. [Complicated Game] (XTC).

　In response, Sega, mixi, and other companies began full-scale development in the same year, while the J-League and Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) also held leagues. Yoshimoto Kogyo opened its base, "YOSHIMOTO∞DOME" in Shibuya, and TV stations such as Nittele (Nippon TV), Fuji, and TBS also began to produce programs. The Mainichi Newspapers held the "All Japan High School e-Sports Championship", and NTT established NTTe-Sports.

However, there is a large gap with developed countries such as the United States. Twitch, a company which broadcasts e-Sports and was acquired by Amazon for ¥100 billion, has reached a global audience of 10 million viewers per day, and boasts the second highest traffic throughout all of the United States after Netflix and YouTube.

　According to the the National Association of Collegiate e-Sports, there are more than 80 colleges in the United States and Canada with e-Sports programs. The University of Utah in the United States offers complete exemption of tuition to teams participating in "League of Legends". The University of California, Irvine, a public institution, has set up a 325 ㎡ arena for gaming.

　South Korea is also making efforts with CJ Media Inc., setting up Korea's largest stadium dedicated to e-Sports in Seoul's Digital Media City DMC, a town created through industry-government collaboration by the Korean government and Seoul. Matches are arranged on a daily basis in the 650-seat venue, and broadcast via cable TV and internet. They are sponsored by KT, Samsung, and other telecommunications, IT, and manufacturing companies. 

Japan also wants to do something. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and JeSU opened an "Investigative Commission for Vitalizing e-Sports" and compiled a report, which was probably the first government report on e-Sports in the world. I chaired the meeting. From Kasumigaseki, in addition to Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the intellectual Property Headquarters, Cabinet Office; the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications; the Consumer Affairs Agency; and the Sports Agency of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology also participated, so the government also appreciates the situation.

For the market size of e-Sports, the direct market will see a x16 increase from ¥4.4 billion, where it is currently, to ¥70 billion in 2025. Including spillover markets such as food and beverage, sale of goods, and education, the current ¥34 billion will grow to ¥300 billion by 2025. In Japan, e-Sports fans account for 8% of the gaming market. The strategy is to increase this to 47%, to be on par with South Korea, and to increase the number of e-Sports fans to about 25 million, to match professional baseball.

COVID-19 is advancing gaming, which is a pastime that creates communication with other people, without having physical contact with them. That's why games are perfect for during COVID-19. You can shut yourself in at home and relieve stress. The World Health Organization (WHO), which has regarded gaming as its enemy, has also changed its attitude, and is now advocating e-Sports. Viewing time has also increased dramatically, and online events have skyrocketed as well.

With real-life sports tournaments being canceled, existing sports are utilizing e-Sports as an alternative. United States basketball, the NBA, held a tournament in which Kevin Durant, Rui Hachimura, and others participated to demonstrate their gaming skills, and in Formula 1's "Virtual Australian Grand Prix," Charles Leclerc of Ferrari participated for the first time and unexpectedly won the race. Professional tennis has also held e-Sports tournaments, with currently active players such as Rafael Nadal taking part.

　With 5G now in full swing, the decentralization of e-Sports, which by its nature does not not allow for any lagging and has naturally been held at real venues, allows people to play each other and have battles on their smartphones in various parts of the world. Gaming is using the cloud system, and titles of e-Sports competitions, the methods of having matches, the viewing methods, and the way in which competitions are held seem likely to change. How will Japan, where the industry is finally starting to get up and running, make the most of these changes in the environment that are progressing simultaneously?

Focusing on e-Sports not only as an industry, but also as a culture and a public benefit, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry/JeSU report recommends that efforts in the field of education are important. To embody this, JeSU, iU, and others have collaborated to establish "Super e-Sports School", a community made up of experts, researchers, and schools, from universities to elementary schools, that are interested in introducing e-Sports into education.

Japan's e-Sports are at the starting line, with the future ahead.