As entertainment in Japan entered a new era in the 1980s, we saw a business opportunity in the growing leisure time available to people. This marked the beginning of our move to create entertainment that would enrich people’s lives.
In 1988, Fields’ forerunner, Toyo Shoji Co., Ltd. was established. The company focused first on revitalizing the pachinko industry and making it sounder, with the aim of making it easier for many more people to enjoy the inherent entertainment value of pachinko machines as an ordinary part of life.
After that, the scale of Japan’s pachinko/pachislot market expanded to ¥30 trillion. We also grew into the industry’s largest distributor with a nationwide sales network, as we continued to anticipate and meet the diverse needs of pachinko halls and fans.

In the 1990s pachinko/pachislot machines mounted with LCD screens brought the same appeal to these machines as media such as movies and television. The advent of larger LCD screens with higher resolutions, meanwhile, led to the emergence of a host of original intellectual property (IP) unique to the industry.
Viewing pachinko/pachislot machines as media in their own right, we moved to create more fans of the genre. To this end, we used our nationwide sales network to identify needs, and began taking steps to create pachinko/pachislot machines that utilize outstanding IP known widely throughout the public domain.
Together with building a structure for acquiring IP and relationships with talented planners, we entered a business alliance with machine manufacturer Sammy Corporation. These and other efforts formed our single-minded focus on measures to enhance both the gaming and entertainment value of pachinko/pachislot machines.
In 1998, the number of pachislot machines installed, which had stalled in the several hundred thousands, broke the one million machine mark. We recognized this milestone would change pachinko and pachislot, and transform entertainment in Japan. This was the start of our full-scale shift toward IP.

Amid diversifying media formats and growth in individual preferences, we strove to establish IP-driven business models to realize “The Greatest Leisure for All People.”
Utilizing funds from our public offering and other opportunities afforded by our 2003 stock market listing, we focused on obtaining many merchandising rights to develop high-quality IP into products from companies that possess such IP in areas such as comics, animations, movies, TV dramas, music, games, and sports.
In addition, we formed alliances with outstanding creative production companies and companies with the talented human resources and cutting-edge technology, taking new steps to develop the merchandising rights we obtained in pachinko/pachislot and other media as well.
The start of the 21st century saw the use of characters and other IP across the full spectrum of media formats. For pachinko machines, roughly 70 percent featured IP of some kind. Recognizing that this trend could lead to IP exhaustion in the future, we made it our mission to eliminate this looming concern.

From our beginnings as an independent distributor of pachinko/pachislot machines, we have now achieved substantial growth in the Pachinko/Pachislot field driven by IP.
Along the way, we have brought companies with high-quality IP rights like Tsuburaya Productions Co., Ltd. under our umbrella, and sought out higher-added value for our IP by building a more robust network of prominent companies and talented partners in every field. In parallel, the Fields Group has also welcomed companies skilled in comics, animation, visual and other specialized field.
During this time, the exhaustion of characters and other high-quality IP in the pachinko/pachislot industry worsened. In light of the situation, we opted to make a strategic shift to a collective of business models centered on the continuous acquisition, creation and cultivation of IP.

Since 2012, the spread of smartphones, tablets and other digital devices, along with high-speed internet and devices with greater storage capacity have enabled the casual enjoyment of comics, visual and games without dependence on a specific platform, leading to diversification in the way people spend their leisure time.
Also, with the advent of new fixed price services for visual, books, music and other content, we have entered an age in which contents are in demand on a global basis.
In anticipation of these trends, Fields has promoted the cross-media development of IP through the acquisition, creation and cultivation of IP focused on the Japanese and global markets.
In an effort to plan, develop and provide products and services providing people of the world with personal fulfillment, Fields will continue striving toward the realization of its corporate philosophy “The Greatest Leisure for All People.”