Creator of popular Othello board game dies at the age of 83

Goro Hasegawa, the Japanese man who created the board game Othello, has died. He was 83.

Hasegawa died after a long illness in his home in Kashiwa, a Tokyo suburb, said Marie Kimura of the Japan Othello Association. She didn’t specify the illness.

Hasegawa came up with the idea for the game as a child, when he played with milk bottle tops. He proposed it to a manufacturer as an adult in 1972.

His father, an English literature expert, was behind the name, inspired by Shakespeare’s play. The game uses round pieces – black on one side, white on the other.

Since 1973, 24.75 million Othello sets have been shipped in Japan, not counting online or overseas sales, according to Tokyo-based MegaHouse, which makes the game.