Automate game debugging with AI! ? I asked Morikatron Kuwano-san.

This is Kai Fujisawa from public relations.

, we will release Japan's first smartphone game error monitoring service " Appmill for GAME !

This Appmill for GAME actually achieves automated monitoring by using the "Morika Tester" developed by Morikatron Co., Ltd.

So, this time, "What the heck is a Morika tester?" , we spoke to Mr. Kuwano, sales manager of Monobit Morikatron Holdings Co., Ltd., which also develops and researches AI. Ta!

1. What kind of company is Morikatron?

↑I visited the CECED2019 venue and had an interview.

FujisawaToday , I would like to ask Mr. Kuwano about Morikatron's AI business and game debugging services. Thank you very much!

Kuwano-san, thank you very much!

Fujisawa :First of all, please tell us a little bit about what Morikatron does.

Mr. Kuwano: Morikatron is currently celebrating its 2nd anniversary. It even says 2nd anniversary on the sweets (lol)

Fujisawa It’s true! The cat is so cute! ! (Illustration by Morikawa)

Mr. Kuwano : We started out as a company specializing in game AI development and consulting

For the AI ​​part, while doing contract development and consulting, we are also doing research and development

Fujisawa : I see, you started out with an AI business.

Mr. Kuwano also said that AI in a game can only be used for that game, so when I thought about what areas could be used that would be useful for people in the industry and could be used more generally, I focused on debugging .

Fujisawa ! We wanted to create a service that would benefit the game industry.

Kuwano-san , yes. When it comes to AI, Mr. Miyake from Square Enix defines it as ``AI outside, AI inside.'' the "inside AI" is original work of the company, so it cannot be shared, but the "outside AI" is for development assistance and debugging, so "let's share information together and do research to further improve it." ” I spoke to Mr. Miyake about this at CEDEC last August.

FujisawaI didn't know that AI had an inside and an outside! That's why I decided to proceed with research on external AI.

Mr. Kuwano: We had been preparing to launch a debugging service before that, but we started by creating a debugging room at the end of the year.

The reason why this happened is that even if you say, ``AI automates debugging,'' if you don't know about debugging, you won't know how to incorporate it, and it will end up being half-hearted, so if you're going to do it, let's do it seriously. ” and decided to do it properly as a business.

Mr. Kuwano , but first of all we need to be able to debug properly, so the quality of human debugging and at the same time automate it.

2. The reason why Morikatron was born

Fujisawa: August 2019 will be your 2nd anniversary, but what was the background behind Morikatron's establishment?

Kuwano : Mr. Morikawa from the AI ​​department was doing the illustrations and designs for the games that Mr. Narisawa, the director of the company, had produced at his previous company. If the two of us , ``Let's start an AI game company!'' The company was founded when the company's representative, Mr. Honjo, joined the company.

At that time, I was working at another company, and when I suddenly saw the news that an AI company was starting up, I was like, ``I wonder what they're going to do?''

Fujisawa: That's right. Mr. Kuwano, what was the process behind joining the company?

Mr. Kuwano and Mr. Honjo often told me, ``Please come over,'' but when I quit my previous job, I thought that Mr. Honjo had been talking about Morikatron, so I called him directly. I think it was a good thing in terms of doing debugging work because my speed increased by joining.

Fujisawa I see! What kind of debugging services are available?

Mr. Kuwano: Generally speaking, we have basically accomplished what other debugging companies can do for pre-release debugging, such as device verification and tuning services, and what we are currently working on "automation tools" , and we are working in Kyoto. Debugging experts are working exclusively at newly created "Expert Debugging Lab."

Fujisawa expert! It looks amazing.

Mr. Kuwano: Recently, we have started localization services and are doing a wide range of other things. Right now, we're focusing on debugging, so we're in a phase where we're steadily progressing without rapidly expanding.

3． AI and debugging

Mr. Kuwano: Regarding tools, we are making an automation tool called Morica Tester, but it is strictly for internal use, and we have prepared several such tools and are conducting various research and development.

Fujisawa Morika Tester is also used by Appmill for GAME, but has it not been released as a service yet?

Mr. Kuwano is not there yet. It's an item that we're using in a project we receive for debugging in our company to improve efficiency, and now that we've finally seen results, our representative, Mr. Honjo, announced it at CEDEC2019.

Fujisawa: That's right! Is Mr. Honjo in charge of the debugging part and Mr. Morikawa in charge of the AI ​​part?

Mr. Kuwano : The company is divided into an AI department and a debugging department

Fujisawa : So it's divided. How does the AI ​​department proceed with projects?

Mr. Kuwano: AI is not only engaged in contract work, but also research and development. There are some fields where we don't know if AI can be used, so unless you're with a company that wants to work with you, it's hard to work with them.

Mr. Kuwano : For example, we need to do something using AI, but there are times when we don't have enough resources or lack the wisdom, so at that time we work together as members of the same team to do it.

Fujisawa Wow! The company works by joining the team!

Mr. Kuwano: Although we work in different workplaces, we are trying to work together as a team and work together on research. When we say lab contract, we don't have any deliverables, but we lend people, or rather, we lend an entire team. All the research results and things like that will remain, so let's work together to improve them. The AI ​​team often takes on projects in that direction.

Fujisawa: Is that so? Are the things that the AI ​​department and the debugging department do completely different?

Mr. Kuwano : Yes, the AI ​​department is working on projects such as contracting AI labs, while at the same time actively working on the development of automation tools using AI.

4. Debugging will save the gaming industry

Fujisawa : Have you heard from people in the game industry , ``Thanks to Morikatron, this good thing happened!''

Mr. Kuwano: In the debugging part, which I am currently mainly working on, we used to use another debugging company, but there were complaints from users and customers who had problems that did not decrease even after the product was released. .

Fujisawa Yes, yes.

Mr. Kuwano: We perform quality analysis for customers who have such issues, quantitatively visualize product performance, and highlight issues and risks. When we solved the problem by rewriting the test items, drastically changing the test system, defining the test scope, and proposing a development schedule that balanced QCD, we were able to reduce costs by 30 to 40%. There were also fewer problems

Fujisawa !

Mr. Kuwano:　 It was a difficult task to reduce costs and improve quality at the same time Morikatron is a company that takes quality seriously. I often give my opinions to the development side as well. I work in a fast-paced style, saying, ``I can't do it without this material on this day.'' This will resonate with customers who can handle their own challenges , and that's what makes them happy.

Morikatron Fujisawa will be there as a consultant!

Mr. Kuwano : Yes, up until now we've just gathered a number of people and let them do it and that's it. But now we're digging a little deeper and making proper proposals.

What kind of games does Fujisawa

Mr. Kuwano: I also play Steam PC games and consoles like the Nintendo Switch. We currently have about 15 business partners, and even though we've just started up, we'd be happy if we could be credited for a game.

Fujisawa: That makes me really happy! !

Mr. Kuwano : Also, recently there was a ``5-company competition'' to choose the best debugging company out of the 5, and we won.

Fujisawa: Is that so? ? amazing! ! ! !

Mr. Kuwano, an engineer, selected it for me. We're just doing what's normal for us.

Fujisawa Wow. First of all, there is such a competition!

Mr. Kuwano was there. I was surprised that there were so many (lol)

5. History of Morica Tester

What was the development process for the Fujisawa

Mr. Kuwano: In the game industry, automation hasn't made much progress before things like AI.

Fujisawa Oh, I see!

Mr. Kuwano : Manufacturers and other companies with a certain level of physical strength are doing this. For example, SEGA's Ryu ga Gotoku automatically performs ``high-speed debugging.'' A few years ago, Nintendo used automated tools to debug The Legend of Zelda. That's the only option available, and there's no such thing as ``a debugging company did it.'' I've always wanted to do it.

Kuwano Fujisawa want to do it?

Mr. Kuwano : Yes, personally. My previous company also had an automation team, and there was a phase where we realized that ``the specifications of games change, so we can't automate them.''

Fujisawa : Hmm, is that so?

Mr. Kuwano: There aren't many good automation tools out there. So I decided to make it from scratch

Fujisawa : I see. So if it didn't exist, we decided to make it ourselves.

Mr. Kuwano: We have created a tool, but the challenge is how to actually apply it to a project I didn't know until I tried it out whether it was easy for the debug team to use and whether it was really effective, so I put it into practice in the project I'm currently taking and it's already showing results.

Fujisawa: It's already working! Has this been progressing in the one year since Mr. Kuwano joined the company last year?

Mr. Kuwano is right. In fact, it hasn't even been a year yet. I was using it in my company's operations, and I had told Mr. Haraoka (Beyond's representative) that I had been making a Morica tester for a while, so I was wondering if there was anything I could do with it. That's what I was talking about.

Fujisawa I see! That's why Beyond's Appmill came up as an idea.

Kuwano-san, that’s right!

6. Can Appmill for GAME save the gaming industry?

Appmill for GAME, released by Fujisawa claims to be "Japan's first smartphone game error monitoring service,"

Isn't it the first time since Mr. Kuwano

Fujisawa : That's right, it was great (lol)

Mr. Kuwano: There are automation tools such as Egg Plant and Air Test, but there are no such tools and none are domestically produced. There's no such thing as being aimed at games.

Fujisawa: Appmill for GAME is also on display at this year's Tokyo Game Show

Mr. Kuwano: I don't know where it will hit me yet, but Beyond monitoring it 24 hours a day, 365 days , right? I think it would be good to be able to monitor that

Fujisawa: 24-hour, 365-day manned monitoring is unique to Beyond. What kind of errors does Morika Tester actually detect during service operation?

Mr. Kuwano: You write the scenario on the Morica tester in advance, right? It's an error that occurs during that transition, so it might be that the load is too high and it stops, the server crashes and stops, it doesn't work as expected, or the characters are wrong.

Fujisawa : When such an error occurs, the Morica tester discovers it and notifies Appmill for GAME.

Mr. Kuwano is right. The scenario changes depending on what you want to see, so if you want the game to go in various directions, you'll have to prepare a variety of scenarios. With a scenario, the user decides in advance what action to take, and then it runs automatically.

Mr. Kuwano : For example, if the game was to go through a tutorial, then have a battle, spin the gacha once, and then it was over, the scenario would proceed as planned. So, if one of the versions updates at a certain point and stops working, an alert will sound.

Fujisawa : I see. If you update the version, you'll have to rewrite the scenario as well.

Mr. Kuwano : There are times when I don't need to do this, but if something changes, it will resonate somewhere else, so I always look at the same thing every time. We run the scenarios immediately after updating, so having this automatically done 24 hours a day, 365 days a year saves testers time.

Fujisawa : How much time do testers actually look at the product visually?

Mr. Kuwano, if you don't do anything, it will probably take all day It takes about 10 minutes to watch it for 3-4 hours, but you have to watch it on all devices and double-check.

Fujisawa Oh, do you sometimes use it for a day? Being able to automatically monitor it even during the night will greatly improve work efficiency!

7. Morikatron's future vision

↑Morikatron booth at Tokyo Game Show 2019 (Beyond was next door)

FujisawaFinally , how do you think Morikatron will be involved in the game industry in the future?

Mr. Kuwano and refer to Morikatron as an ``AI sommelier,'' AI is only a means. AI can be referred to in many different ways, such as deep learning and machine learning. So, first of all, if you have an idea of ​​what your goal is and how you can achieve it, then you can say, ``How about this?'' Even if we don't have the technology right now, we can still say things like, ``Maybe we can do it using this.'' I think we can and will continue to work in this way.

Fujisawa AI's sommelier is so cool...! !

Mr. Kuwano : Speaking of the test, isn't Japan currently experiencing a declining birthrate? The number of testers is decreasing.

Fujisawa is decreasing... That's dangerous for the gaming industry.

Mr. Kuwano: Even though the debugging company needed to recruit a lot of people, the number of people was decreasing. As the minimum wage increases, costs will increase. All of that comes back to the manufacturer. The point is, the number of things being tested is increasing, but the number of people being tested is decreasing.

Fujisawa game titles continues to increase...

Mr. Kuwano: The types of games we play range from the pop-up type to things like Fortnite and Wilderness Adventures, which kids today take for granted.The games that come out next will be even more complex, and we have to play them. I think a lot of things will come out. Even Zelda said that debugging couldn't be completed without automation. If you don't do it, your neck will close. Manufacturers have been doing a lot of automation for many years, but no debugging company is doing it.

Fujisawa

Mr. Kuwano: This is because the product requires people to operate, so if we automate it and reduce the number of people, sales will decrease.

Fujisawa Indeed...!

Mr. Kuwano: The idea of ​​automating things never came up in the first place. The reason we're intentionally trying to avoid that is because we're like ``However, there won't be many people left, right?''

Fujisawa said (lol)

Mr. Kuwano said it would be dangerous soon. So doing research now , when that phase comes, I would be able to hand over automation tools.

I heard that you are proceeding with your research by reading the trends of the Fujisawa

Kuwano-san, this is just a hypothetical story. That's what I'm aiming for.

Fujisawa: The population is definitely decreasing...

Mr. Kuwano: Yes, it will definitely decrease.

Mr. Kuwano , in the future automate things, or take things that are normally operated by humans to the point where they can be operated automatically by incorporating AI I don't know how long it will take though. The steps to get there include automating things and creating tools.

Fujisawa: Will it become commonplace to use AI?

Mr. Kuwano: If it turns out that you could have done it without using AI technology, or that you could have made it more efficient just by using tools, then that's fine. we may come to the conclusion that it would be faster if people did it , rather than relying solely on AI That's why we have created an expert debugging team in Kyoto. There are people who produce three times as many bugs as humans, so it's faster if great people do it. Rather than having a machine rewrite it one by one.

FujisawaExpert debuggers mean people with such skills!

Mr. Kuwano: There are some amazing people. There are people called divine debuggers

Fujisawa !

Mr. Kuwano finds three times more than other people. It's like, ``Wow, I found this.''

Fujisawa: I wonder what your thought process is...

Mr. Kuwano, is it your ability or your intuition... your sense? A slightly different way of thinking than other people. I think I should attack here.

Fujisawa: That's interesting. I also want to visit the lab in Kyoto.

Mr. Kuwano : Humans are the strongest, right? If that's the case, then that's fine.

Fujisawa : Yes, I agree.

Mr. Kuwano: Wouldn't it be nice if the machine could learn from the I would like Morikatron to move with these thoughts in mind.

Fujisawa : I'm looking forward to seeing how Morikatron will play an active role as an AI sommelier. Thank you very much for speaking with us today!

summary

I felt that there is an infinite number of things that both Morikatron and Beyond can bring to the world in the future, depending on how they can use the means of AI. I think that Appmill for GAME, which is being released this time, is one of them, and I hope that it will be useful to many more people! I think so. look forward to the future progress of Morikatron, who is the savior of the game industry also look forward to Beyond, which is capable of manned monitoring by engineers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year !

Appmill for GAME service page