Yoshiki Okamoto

Japan · Born 1961 · Konami, Capcom, Game Republic · Game Designer, Producer

He designed Time Pilot and Gyruss at Konami, directed 1942 at Capcom, and produced Final Fight and Street Fighter II — then, decades later, created the mobile hit Monster Strike.

Yoshiki Okamoto was born in Ainan, Ehime, on 10 June 1961. He began his career at Konami in 1981, where he was the game designer and a graphic artist on the arcade shooters Time Pilot (1982) and Gyruss (1983), both of which became arcade classics. In 1983 he moved to Capcom, joining alongside Tokuro Fujiwara. He directed the vertical shooter 1942 (1984), and as Capcom grew into one of the most important arcade companies of the era he became a producer. He produced Final Fight (1989), which set the standard for the scrolling brawler, and Street Fighter II (1991), the game that created the modern fighting-game boom and is estimated to have grossed more than $10 billion. In 1996 he became Capcom's head of development. Okamoto left Capcom in 2003 and founded Game Republic, which operated until 2011. His later career produced one more enormous success: Monster Strike (2013), a mobile game he created for the Japanese company Mixi, which had grossed more than $7.2 billion by 2018.