In this article, Hina Ishida will be reviewing her experience with RED Tokyo Tower, and how as technology is rapidly becoming more advanced, the attitude towards gaming and notion that gaming is always “unhealthy” can be changed in people’s minds.
Yes, it’s true. An esports hub inside the famous tokyo tower.
Over the summer, I travelled with 6 other friends to Japan. It was the first time visiting Japan for most of my friends and they were enamoured by districts such as Akihabara, known for it’s anime and gaming goods, and Shibuya, the home of the famous scramble crossing. We spent hours trying out rhythm games and dance dance revolution machines in the arcades, spent countless amounts of 100 yen coins in claw and gacha machines. We definitely could see how someone could get addicted to them.
As all tourists must do when they first visit Japan, we planned, of course, to go to Tokyo Tower. Built in 1958 and being Japan’s tallest structure until it was surpassed by the Skytree in 2010, the red tower is iconic to the worldwide image of Tokyo.
Little did our gamer-selves expect to put on VR headsets in the middle of the tower.
Four floors of Tokyo Tower is dedicated to RED Tokyo Tower; a “theme park” decked out with motor sports, motion sensor games, XR technology and other digital spaces.
They were offering ticket packages which allowed us 2 hours of exploring the park plus a ticket to the Tokyo Tower observation deck for £20 which seems quite an insanely low price point for such a big tourist attraction.
If a teen is sitting in front of a screen for hours of a day, he or she isn’t getting much exercise.
The Health Effects of Too Much Gaming – Harvard Health Publishing
What I noticed about RED Tokyo Tower which was different from the image of an eSports hub in the UK was the focus on not only gaming PCs but other ways to play video games. I expected to walk into the venue and see rows of PCs similar to a LAN but no, not a single set-up in sight. They do have a space dedicated for competitive PC gaming tournaments but it seemed that this space was used for special occasions rather than being open for the general public.
Instead, what we saw were yoga balls, projection screens, jump rope and exercise bikes! Floor 4 “The Attraction Zone”, was filled with tasters – new, experimentational games that implemented physical exercise with eSports.
The climbing wall
Over the past year, my friends and I have gotten into bouldering. There’s a local climbing centre 10 minutes away from where I live and so it was very convenient for me to go and spend hours there climbing with friends. It’s a full body work out, engaging all your muscles.
Red Tokyo had a climbing wall, although not to the scale of the ones in climbing centres, you would climb around the wall and a projector would display a game similar to “Pong” where you would have to use your limbs to hit the ball back to your opponent’s side whilst keeping yourself on the holds.
hado
HADO is an augmented reality video game in which players uses head-mounted displays and armband sensors to allow players to wield energy balls and shields on a real life size court. Essentially the game is similar to dodgeball. When we tried it out as a group of friends, it felt like we were really stepping into the future of technology. At points it felt ridiculous, but I think because we were so amazed by how advanced the technology was that any embarrassment was quickly forgotten.
What’s more is that HADO even had a World Cup Tournament in 2023 in which teams from 9 countries participated!
hole in the wall
This was probably my favourite one because of how fast paced and straight forward it was. The game would use a motion detector to read the shapes of our bodies as we contorted into random positions so we could fit through the hole in the wall. It really felt like a throwback to the Wii, except without the inconvenience of holding a controller.
The future of esports
I really think that this space that encourages people to change their initial interpretation of what Esports is, through showcasing a wide variety of ways in which gaming is not exclusive to just “sitting in front of a screen,” is incredibly innovative. Especially by having it located in one of Japan’s most famous tourist attractions and having ticket packages which let you spend time in both the Red Tokyo space and also the upper observation deck of Tokyo Tower. Gaming, as a hobby, has a lot of negative stigma surrounding it, and people oftentimes see it to be the opposite of productivity. However, I hope that this article has spread a little bit more awareness that there are ways in which gaming can be not only productive but also hep the introducing and teaching of new skills.
After reading this article, if you are intending on going to visit Tokyo at any point, I highly suggest this as a half day activity. I especially recommend going in the late afternoon so that you are able to see the night view of the city. It’s absolutely breath-taking!
Thank you for reading my article!