Friends who often watch Japanese film and television works or anime works will certainly not be unfamiliar with the word "Kashiwa Qingge". If you have some understanding of this, you should probably know that Bai Qingge is a general term for a type of game machine, but because Bai Qingge is often a disguised gambling game, so it is clearly prohibited in our country, it is said that only in a few places such as some free trade zones have simply been introduced as a game console, so for the vast majority of people in China, at best, they have only heard and have not experienced, as for How Bai Qingge is specifically how to play is basically not very clear.
How does Brother Bai Qing play?
In fact, Bai Qingge can be said to have a long history, its prototype is the popular in Europe and the United States pinball machine, it is said that Japan in the Taisho era has been introduced from the West, and then through local improvement, gradually evolved into today's national amusement projects. In Japan, except for some remote areas, it can be seen everywhere, and its popularity may be comparable to our "national essence" mahjong, and many people are happy to play for a while after tea and dinner. Japan now has a population of more than 100 million, and it is said that millions of people are gambling addicts who are addicted to Bai Qingge.
Maybe many people have played the three-dimensional pinball game that comes with the Windows system when they were young, and Bai Qingge is essentially the same as that. However, unlike pinball, pinball games have baffles that allow you to operate, and in order to reduce the falling speed and improve maneuverability, the machine is generally placed obliquely. The Baiqingge game machine is placed vertically, the steel ball is straight up and down, and there is no room for operation at all, and its actual situation is probably as follows:
When playing Bai Qingge, it is actually playing with small steel balls, and these small steel balls are also equivalent to chips. Bai Qingge's small steel balls, now the market is generally 1 yen to 4 yen or so, the current Bai Qingge machine to launch steel balls are basically fully automatic, a minute can launch dozens of hundreds of small steel balls, it can be seen that this thing is quite expensive. When a large number of steel balls are launched into the machine, after a bunch of obstacles will eventually fall under the machine, when you have steel balls fall to the specified position, it is the winner, then the machine will spit out a certain number of steel balls for you as a reward.
For example, the small mouth under the eyeball in the picture above is the winning mouth, and it can be imagined that winning the lottery is actually a bit difficult. In order to attract customers to play, the current Baiqingge shop will have a "Lianzhuang" mechanism after winning the lottery. The so-called "Lianzhuang", that is, after winning the lottery, the machine will increase the odds of winning the lottery for a period of time, this time is generally a few minutes, then the player can raise the speed of launching steel balls to the highest, if you are lucky, you can always win the lottery.
The probability of winning the lottery for different machines is not the same, and the machine that is easy to win the lottery will reward fewer steel balls, and the machine with a low probability of winning the lottery will reward much more steel balls. The probability of winning and the number of prizes will be clearly marked on the top of the machine, allowing the player to choose for themselves.
Why is it called Brother Baiqing?
Then again, how did the name "Brother Bai Qing" come about? The original Japanese text of "Pachinko" is "パチンコ" (Roman pronunciation: pachinko), because there is no corresponding thing in China, so there seems to be no official translation at present, and the name "Pachinko" is actually a simple transliteration. And it is more appropriate to say that it is not so much a transliteration as a transliteration to take the harmonic word directly as a translation.
It is precisely because there has been no official translation, so this kind of game also has many other names in The country, such as some places will be called "climbing the vault", some places will be called "pickpocketing gold cave", although the name of the latter sounds a bit earthy at first, but after accepting it, you will find that these titles seem to be more consistent with the nature of this type of game, there is a transliteration + transliteration of the Sindaya flavor.
What is Bai Qingjie?
Although the domestic media generally refers to all this type of game console as "Bai Qing Brother", in fact, if it is subdivided, there are two different types of game consoles: "Bai Qing Brother" and "Bai Qing Sister-in-law". The familiar "Bai Qing Ge" is パチンコ, while the "Bai Qing Jie" that may be less heard is パチスロ (Roman pronunciation: pachisuro). The name of this パチスロ sounds strange, but in fact, it is easier to contact in China to get everyone more familiar with slot machines.
The above is a game machine with the ghost warrior IP linkage, and the big difference between Bai Qingge who uses steel balls to win steel balls is that Bai Qingjie basically uses tokens directly. In fact, after aside all kinds of IP, the body of Bai Qingjie is a slot machine, which is still very common in China, whether it is physical or virtual form, and many people may have seen or even played in Macao and other places.
However, it must be mentioned that the Japanese spend their minds on games and even game consoles. In fact, whether it is Bai Qingge who plays steel balls or Bai Qingjie who plays tokens, it is not complicated in essence, and it can be said that the playability is not very high. However, in order to attract players to consume, manufacturers first innovate in different ways of playing, always make some innovations in details to make people feel fresh, and secondly, there are new machines that emerge endlessly and various IP linkages to various themes.
Japan is a game country, with many well-known international game manufacturers and game IP, and many of them have long been old allies of Bai Qingge. For example, CAPCOM, KONAMI and other game manufacturers have long made their own IP into Bai Qingge games, "Street Fighter", "Devil May Cry", "Reverse Referee", "Resident Evil" these well-known works, you can experience it on Bai Qingge, and even CAPCOM's popular masterpiece "Monster Hunter" over the years has also been made into Bai Qingge. In the Baiqingge shop, you still have the opportunity to see the works of "Metal Gear Solid" and even "Silent Ridge", I am afraid that only you can't think of it, there is no work that Bai qingge does not dare to come out, is it surprised or not?
The above IPs have become the tears of the times, and in the hearts of many old players, they are classics that have passed, but they may be "new works" that have just come out on Bai Qingge. The linkage between Bai Qingge and well-known works has long been commonplace, and Bai Qingge itself is a mass entertainment in Japan, you can hardly even say who rubbed whose heat, in the end is the work borrowed by Bai Qingge to promote itself, and the game manufacturers have earned a royalty, or Bai Qingge has attracted more players through the popularity of the work? I am afraid that this issue is difficult to conclude, and it can only be said that it is a win-win cooperation model for both sides.
And in addition to game works, Bai Qingge and various film and television works such as Japanese dramas, movies, Korean dramas, animation works, and even singers or idol groups have linkage, after all, Bai Qingge's audience is all over various age groups and different social groups, there may be elderly people, there may be housewives, and I am afraid that game IP alone cannot attract these people. It can be said that in order to attract people to play, as long as it is something that can be linked, Bai Qingge will find a way to link you out.
For example, in Japan, once a very popular, phenomenon-level idol group AKB48, it is really impossible to say that it is not possible to make a sum of money on Bai Qingge, right? When you win the lottery, watching the singers and dances of the idols played by the machine, I am afraid that the fans will be doubly moved.
However, no matter how much innovation in the gameplay, and how many big IP have been linked, these games, in the end, are limited in playability, and it can make so many Japanese people addicted in the end because of their own gambling nature.
Brother Bai Qing is actually a kind of gambling in disguise
Gambling is prohibited by Japanese law, and the Kashiwa Tsingo shops that are open everywhere are not casinos. In the Baiqingge shop, no matter how lucky you are, you can only win a lot of steel balls, when you leave, these steel balls can only be exchanged for gifts to take away, which is actually similar to the various amusement centers in china. However, basically all Boqingge stores will have supporting gift recycling channels, and the prizes you win in the store can be exchanged for money for you. And the person who uses the money to recycle your prizes will also have another store to take money to recycle the prizes he received, which is the so-called "three-store model".
The steel balls won by the player in Shop A of Pachinko cannot be exchanged directly for cash in the shop, but need to be exchanged for some special prize;
Players go to the nearby prize buying shop B and "sell" the special prize for cash;
Since the law prohibits Shop A from buying back the prizes itself, it is finally necessary to add another merchant C, buy back the special prize from B, and sell it back to Shop A.
Nominally, in this capital cycle, there are three different companies, so on the surface, the Baiqingge store is a place to play games to win prizes, and the rest is a spontaneous commodity trading behavior, as to whether the boss behind the three companies is the same, no one has asked. In fact, similar ecology also exists in our country, in some amusement centers there may be people recycling gifts, there may be some people wandering back and forth, looking for you to recycle tokens at a high price, the fishing machine that was once popular is the product of a similar mechanism.
It is said that in the 1990s, survey data showed that the annual output value of Japan's Kashiwa Qingge related industries could reach 30 trillion yen. Over the years, this number has been declining, and the Baiqingge industry is no longer the grand event of the year, but it is still very hot. The Japanese government has also deliberately controlled this somewhat deformed gambling industry, and has continuously stepped up human intervention, resulting in a decrease in the number of Pachinko stores year by year. On the other hand, in order to deal with those "professional players" who are bent on making money from the Bo Qing Ge machine, the Bai Qing Ge machine has been updated from generation to generation, and the rules have been continuously improved, making it difficult for professional players to continue to win money with strategies and skills.
With the continuous enrichment of entertainment means, the scale of Bai Qingge is now much worse than before. And with the prosperity of mobile games, many of the original Baiqingge players have run to play various Kryptonian mobile games. These mobile games themselves are highly entertaining, and they can satisfy the gambling psychology of the masses, which is the reason for the loss of some Baiqingge players. But no matter what, as long as the essence of the gambling that Bai Qingge can be linked to real money and silver is still there, I am afraid it will be difficult to see the day when it sunsets on the West Mountain.
Finally, I would like to remind everyone that no matter how beautifully packaged Bai Qingge is, its essence is gambling. If you have the opportunity to experience it, it is good to play a few small hands, such as playing 2000 yen when you are set, and then you will no longer touch it whether you win or lose, and you must not be addicted to it. Don't think that you keep putting in less money, you may accidentally look back and you will find that your wallet has been sucked dry.
Cherish life and stay away from gambling! Cherish life and stay away from gambling! Cherish life and stay away from gambling!