【FIELDS】Operating as a wholly owned subsidiary of Tsuburaya Fields Holdings Inc.! What kind of company is FIELDS, releasing software that feels like playing pachislot as it is?

Seeing the name, some people might have been curious, asking “Is Fields a company that makes games?”. FIELDS CORPORATION is a bit different from game companies centered on general console and smartphone games, and is an enterprise developing business with the Japanese gaming machine market as its stage. Its main domains are planning and development, procurement, and sales of gaming machines including pachinko machines and pachislot machines, bearing the role of delivering products to pachinko parlors nationwide. Furthermore, it is also involved in the management and operation of fitness clubs, and business development not limited to just a single field is also a characteristic. Considering it as an existence connecting between the “making side” and the “introducing side” of gaming machines and expanding them to the market makes its positioning easy to understand.

The interesting part of Fields is that it is not a company that merely procures and sells completed pachinko machines and pachislot machines. One of the important elements for gaming machines is the existence of works and characters. Therefore, the company acquires rights regarding characters and the like, and proposes planning taking advantage of that charm to pachinko and pachislot manufacturers. Connecting content and gaming machines like “If it's the worldview of this work, wouldn't such a gaming experience be born?”, it creates possibilities leading to new products. The business style connecting planning, rights, manufacturers, and sales destinations can be said to be an indispensable point when getting to know Fields.

No matter how attractive a gaming machine is born, if it does not reach actual stores, users cannot play it. What bears that important exit is Fields' sales business. As its main business, it sells pachinko machines and pachislot machines to pachinko parlors nationwide, standing in a position connecting gaming machine manufacturers and stores, and furthermore users beyond that. It is an industry where eyes easily turn to gorgeous characters and directions, but behind the scenes there are various jobs from product planning to distribution and introduction to stores. Fields is one of the enterprises supporting such mechanism of gaming machine business.

Currently it is known as “FIELDS CORPORATION”, but its former trade name was Toyo Shoji Co., Ltd. Knowing the transition of the company name lets you feel a history that cannot be seen with just the current corporate image, doesn't it? Also, Fields is positioned as a wholly owned subsidiary of Tsuburaya Fields Holdings Inc. Not only looking at the enterprise alone, but paying attention to what role it bears within the entire group allows a deeper understanding of the business background.

What I want to pay attention to from a slightly different angle from the enterprise itself is Chairman of the Board Hidetoshi Yamamoto. Mr. Yamamoto possesses a face not only as a manager but also as a racehorse owner, having owned racehorses such as Casino Drive and Flying Apple. The background that the chairman of an enterprise handling gaming machine business also has touchpoints with the horse racing world is one of the interesting episodes when getting to know the company named Fields. Rather than chasing corporate information with just numbers or business contents, looking even into the background of persons involved in management brings a different side into view.

Expressing Fields' characteristics in a word, it can be said to be “a company that not only delivers gaming machines to the market, but expands up to possibilities of content”. In addition to planning, development, procurement, and nationwide-scale sales of pachinko and pachislot, it proposes planning to manufacturers utilizing rights such as characters. In the point of combining such multiple functions, there is a feature unique to the company. Usually eyes tend to turn only to titles and manufacturers of gaming machines, but looking at the industry from a perspective of “What kind of enterprises are involved until that product is born and reaches stores?”, Fields' presence should be felt more interesting.