Yoshiki Okamoto (岡本 吉起, Okamoto Yoshiki, born June 10, 1961), sometimes credited as Kihaji Okamoto, is a Japanese video game designer. He is credited with producing popular titles for Konami, including Gyruss and Time Pilot, and for Capcom, including 1942, Gun.Smoke, Final Fight and Street Fighter II. He later founded the companies Flagship and Game Republic, and then created the hit mobile gamesDragon Hunter and Monster Strike for Mixi. He also played a role in the creation of Rockstar's Red Dead franchise. Several franchises he helped create are among the highest-grossing video game franchises of all time, including Street Fighter,Monster Strike and Red Dead.
History
Early career at Konami
His early games Time Pilot (1982) and Gyruss (1983) innovated in the shoot 'em up genre during the golden age of arcade games. The Killer List of Videogames included both Gyruss and Time Pilot in its list of top 100 arcade games of all time.[1] Although these games turned out to be successful titles for Konami, Okamoto's employer was not happy as apparently Okamoto had been told to create a driving game instead.[2] Internal disagreements, financial and credible, caused his termination from Konami.
Career at Capcom
Joining Capcom in 1984, Okamoto directed several arcade games such as 1942 (1984), SonSon (1984), and Side Arms (1986). His 1985 shoot 'em up Gun.Smoke later inspired a spiritual successor, Red Dead Revolver, the first installment of the Red Dead series.[3]
The last game he directed was the 1989CP System game Willow (1989). He would oversee the development of Capcom's subsequent games as a producer and was responsible for recruiting character designer Akira Yasuda for Capcom. Okamoto and Yasuda developed some of Capcom's biggest hits, most notably the beat 'em up game Final Fight (1989) and fighting gameStreet Fighter II (1991). Street Fighter II is estimated to have grossed $10.61 billion as of 2017, making it the third highest-grossing video game of all time, after Space Invaders and Pac-Man.[4]
In 1997, he resigned from Capcom to start his own video game development company, Flagship.[5] He continued to develop video games for Capcom through Flagship.
Okamoto approached Angel Studios with the idea for an original intellectual property entitled S.W.A.T. It later adopted a Western theme at Okamoto's recommendation, redefining the acronym as "Spaghetti Western Action Team".[6] It was intended to be a spiritual successor to Gun.Smoke.[3] Angel Studios began work on the game with Capcom's oversight and funding in 2000, and Capcom announced the game as Red Dead Revolver in March 2002.[7][8] Okamoto then left Capcom,[6] which canceled the game in August 2003.[9][10]Rockstar Games acquired the rights to Red Dead Revolver in December 2003 and resumed development,[11][12] releasing it for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in May 2004.[6]
In 2003, he left Flagship to form another video game company.
In 2007, Game Republic signed with Brash Entertainment and started working on licensed games like Clash of the Titans. But then in November 2008, Brash Entertainment went out of business, and Game Republic had to turn to Namco Bandai for the release of Clash of the Titans.[13]
In 2011, Game Republic also shut down due to debt, and a year later, Okamoto announced that he had retired from making console games and started working on mobile games.[14]
Mixi
In recent years, he created the mobile gamesDragon Hunter and Monster Strike (2013) for Mixi. Dragon Hunter was a moderate success, before Monster Strike became a major hit, competing with Puzzle & Dragons for the top spot on mobile charts.[15] By 2018, Monster Strike had grossed over $7.2 billion, surpassing Puzzle & Dragons to become the highest-grossing mobile app of all time.[16]
Later years
Okamoto became the chairman of the Japan Game Culture Foundation in November 2017,[17] an organization which seeks to support young game creators.[18] In 2018 he made the Malaysian game development company Okakichi. In November 2022 he was appointed as "game advisor" for the Whole Earth Foundation,[19] a Japanese organization seeking to raise infrastructure maintenance awareness through a cryptocurrency smartphone game.[20]
Since 2020 he has also made three YouTube channels[21][22][23] which he uses to discuss various topics. His "YoshikiOkamotoGameCh" channel in particular looks back at his life as a video game designer for over 40 years, discussing experiences with past games he was involved in, his opinion on other games, and interviews with individuals related to game development. He also used this channel to announce his planned retirement in June 2027.[24]
Influences and style
Okamoto has said that he gets ideas from scenery from movies, citing particularly the works of Akira Kurosawa and Chinese ghost stories.[25] He commented that "We don't make games for ourselves - I don't actually play games very much."[25]
