Masamoto Morita

Masamoto Morita

Employment history: Sega of Japan (1994-04-01^[1]^[2]^[3] – ) Divisions: Sega AM1 Sega Software R&D Dept. 1 WOW Entertainment Sega WOW Asahi Net (2006-01^[3] – 2018^[4]) respon (2018^[4] – )
Role(s): Director, Designer
Education: Keio University^[1]

Masamoto Morita (森田真基) was a director at Sega who specialized in puzzle games.

Career

Morita as a new Sega employee in 1994.

Masamoto Morita joined Sega in 1994 after being impressed by the 3D graphics of Virtua Fighter, wanting to work at a developer that provided opportunities to work in 3D, such as Sega AM3, but was instead assigned to Sega AM1, where he mainly developed fortune-telling games and puzzle games. The mass output and short development periods of the department instead gave him the opportunity to experience a variety of games in various stages, from design, to early development, to location testing, to final release.^[3]

Under WOW Entertainment, he shifted his focus from arcades to console and handheld games, culminating in being the lead game designer for the 2004 PS2 game Blood Will Tell: Tezuka Osamu's Dororo, himself a massive fan of the original manga, and being satisfied with the high-budget product he was able to develop.^[3]

Wanting to break out of the game industry, Morita became intrigued with the game-like experiences possible using browser services such as Google Maps. He ran the website for a 3D shoot em' up developed by Asahi Net's founder, which was his gateway into joining said company in January 2006. His most lasting contribution to the company is the learning management system manaba,^[5] which he thought was a good service with poor presentation, so he used the skills he learned at Sega to refine features and redesign the user interface without sacrificing any of the base program.^[3]

In 2018 he left Asahi Net to found the company [https://respon.jp/company.html respon.^[4]

Production history

Die Hard Arcade (Sega Titan Video; 1996)
Columns '97 (Sega Titan Video; 1997) — Planner (as Morita,M)
Die Hard Arcade (Saturn; 1997) — Special Thanks^[6]
Hanagumi Taisen Columns (Saturn; 1997) — Original Columns '97 Design (as 森田真基)
Taisen Tanto-R Sasissu! (Sega Titan Video; 1998) — Director
Sega Tetris (NAOMI; 1999) — Director
Sega Tetris (Dreamcast; 2000) — Director
Columns Crown (Game Boy Advance; 2001) — Director^[7]
Blood Will Tell: Tezuka Osamu's Dororo (PlayStation 2; 2004) — Lead Game Designer^[8]

Photographs

Main article: Photos of Masamoto Morita

Magazine articles

Main article: Masamoto Morita/Magazine articles.

References

[:File:Harmony_JP_127.pdf_p13-1] 1.0 ^1.1 Harmony, "1994 4" (JP; 1994-04-01), page 13

[:File:DCM_JP_20010119.pdf_p95-2] Dreamcast Magazine, "2001-02 (2001-01-19,26)" (JP; 2001-01-05), page 95

[https:.2F.2Fwww.4gamer.net.2Fgames.2F999.2FG999905.2F20181206063.2F-3] 3.0 ^3.1 ^3.2 ^3.3 ^3.4 https://www.4gamer.net/games/999/G999905/20181206063/

[https:.2F.2Farchive.li.2FjEJtx-4] 4.0 ^4.1 ^4.2 @wizforest on Twitter (archive.today)

[https:.2F.2Fasahi-net.co.jp.2Fen.2Fcorporate.2Fservice.2F-5] ttps://asahi-net.co.jp/en/corporate/service/

[:File:Die_Hard_Arcade_Saturn_credits.pdf_p-6] File:Die Hard Arcade Saturn credits.pdf

[:File:Columns_Crown_GBA_credits.pdf_p-7] File:Columns Crown GBA credits.pdf

[:File:BloodWillTell_PS2_US_Manual.pdf_p28-8] File:BloodWillTell PS2 US Manual.pdf, page 28

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]