Still In A Dream: My Pachinko Woes

Imagine waking up one morning to learn that your favorite game was getting a fully-fleshed out, beautiful current-gen remake. Can you picture the vivid, stunning reveal trailer? There they are: your favorite characters standing beautifully rendered in high-definition glory. Now imagine that all of that joy is ripped away in seconds because of a silly arcade game.

This might sound specific and rather reactionary, but that’s how my morning has gone so far. I saw an image and trailer from Konami that had Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater’s Naked Snake and The Boss with new models and freaked out. Should I have probably realized that this was just a marketing pull? Probably, but admittedly I was still pretty groggy.

So, that beautiful trailer that features the wonderful soundtrack, the thrilling bosses, and the emotional climax of the game imagined in a new engine is all just one big commercial for a Pachinko game coming to Japan this fall.

I visited Japan for a month last year and can attest to the fact that Pachinko parlors, machines, and advertisements are about as ubiquitous there as people seem to joke that McDonalds are here in the states. It seemed like at every street corner in Shibuya, Akihabara, and Shinjuku there was another brightly lit den of pachislot machines.

Despite this bombardment of exposure, I never once played a single round of Pachinko. A number of factors contributed to this decision. I’m not one for gambling, my Japanese reading ability is terrible, and the whole layout confused me. Most importantly, however, is that I don’t think I would have had the opportunity to sit at a machine even if I wanted to.

People in Japan are CRAZY about Pachinko. These machines are crowded nearly all the time, sometimes from the same customer sitting for hours on end, chain-smoking cheap cigarettes, drinking cheap beers, and occasionally snacking. I observed plenty of these arcades to try and wrap my brain around the phenomenon.

In the game, you shoot a number of small balls at targets and around flipping, spinning, and rolling mechanisms. You try to line up the right symbols to win a voucher for a cash prize (gambling is technically illegal so it is technically not gambling, a really confusing situation I’m still confused by).

I totally felt lost in translation as I studied the Pachinko players of Japan. What was I missing? What am I still missing? The game doesn’t look like it’s going to take off in America soon, but this Metal Gear trailer is definitely bringing some attention to the cultural buzz around the game. For people who happen to love both Pachinko and Metal Gear, I’m sure today is a great day. For me, however, it is not.