Interview with Professor Hanakawa at "Hannan University" Booth! #TGS2025

Professor Hanakawa: Simply put, we are conducting research to improve the information disparity problem, such as "grandparents who can't use smartphones."
For example, we introduced research content showing that people who immediately gave up, saying "I can't use it," became "patient enough to use it" after small amounts of training using commercial games like "Pokémon UNITE." Once they got the hang of it, they "suddenly got better" and "were able to grow."

Professor Hanakawa: That's the feeling.
When we play games, we don't have instruction manuals or experience guides, right?
It seems that grandparents cannot proceed with a general conjecture or prediction that "this will happen based on past experience."
So, we started this research with the idea that if beginners played many commercial games, their power of conjecture would become stronger.
The feature is that it can be done with commercial games, not just games we created.
Since there is a huge number of commercial games in the world, we can constantly develop new games, and we can also easily create teaching materials by automatically collecting them using strategy sites on the internet.

Professor Hanakawa: Once they understand the controls, they start to enjoy it.
In addition to research to improve the information disparity problem, we are also conducting research to measure the educational effect of incorporating esports.
We are trying to incorporate it into elementary and middle school education, but because we lack evidence, we tried to clarify "this kind of educational effect was seen" to avoid being told, "It's just a game; just play."
This is a bit complicated, but traditional school education is about solving a given problem.
So, students are good at doing things that are given to them, such as "this is the task" or "this is the problem," but we are gradually learning that by incorporating esports, they gain the ability to solve ambiguous problems that are based only on prediction.

Professor Hanakawa: Yes. There is the PROG Test, which allows us to measure it quantitatively in this way.
We can compare the difference in growth over one year between children who participated in competitions incorporating esports and those who did not.
With evidence, it becomes possible to introduce esports and games into elementary and middle school education, and I believe that the esports industry can contribute more to education.

Professor Hanakawa: Students who received esports implementation education showed growth in their basic ability to handle tasks, while other students, such as those in system development, showed growth in their conceptualization skills and abilities unique to system development.

Professor Hanakawa: We at Hannan University have incorporated esports into our university education.
Since Hannan University is not a vocational school, we are not aiming to produce professional players, but rather to cultivate managers who can thrive in the esports industry.
We organize many large-scale events, such as esports events, social contributions, and esports tournaments, to develop skills in planning and management.
We also have optional elective subjects like Esports Event, Esports Practical Skills Analysis, and e-Sports English.
We include English classes because when playing games online globally, the conversation is often in English.

Professor Hanakawa: That's right. Also, while we create Minecraft and the Metaverse, it's a big deal that the university can actually create backend systems.
When playing multiplayer, multiple users log in, right?
From a system perspective, logging in and playing multiplayer is very difficult.
So, with a backend system to support that, even if you create the Metaverse or Minecraft, you can easily create the same kind of multiplayer experience.
Creating the backend system is a bit unique.

Professor Hanakawa: Yes, we actually built it and have the server in our laboratory.
The network environment at the TGS venue isn't in very good shape, so we can't connect to the lab (laughs).

Professor Hanakawa: Yes, it runs completely locally.

Professor Hanakawa: The students made this entirely as well.
The server in the lab is large, but they made a smaller version.

Professor Hanakawa: I am a member of the "Osaka Esports Roundtable" established by Osaka Prefecture, so this is an exhibition poster that I was asked to display by Osaka Prefecture.
They are working hard, centered around Governor Yoshimura (@hiroyoshimura), with the slogan "Esports is Osaka."
And the person two positions to the left of Governor Yoshimura in the photo above is me.

Professor Hanakawa: Actually, last year I was invited by a company and visited the TGS venue for the first time. I didn't know there was a Game Academy booth, but when I went, I saw so many universities exhibiting, so I thought we might be able to exhibit as well.
Hannan University's Faculty of Information Sciences was established in April 2024, and we are about to produce our first graduates. Since some students want to find employment in the gaming industry, we hoped to use this kind of setting to build connections and meet potential employers.
Thanks to this, we were able to find many employment opportunities, and it seems our goal will be achieved successfully.