Source (Fuji News Network) Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office arrested 57-year-old game creator Yuji Naka in context of insider trading related to new installment from popular Dragon Quest franchise (from this tweet). Yuji Naka was arrested on grounds of insider information trading and stock manipulation after purchasing 10,000 shares of Aiming right before the announcement of Dragon Quest Tact, a free-to-play mobile tactical RPG developed by Square Enix and the afrementioned company. Another Square Enix employee -- Taisuke Sasaki -- and their acquaintance -- Fumiaki Suzuki -- have also been arrested in the same case, having bought 162,000 of Aiming's shares. To provide further context, @MykonosFan posted this on Twitter: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------221120 Edit: Yoshiki Okamoto raised questions about Naka's arrest: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------230601 Edit: From JoeBro64's post: Naka has confessed to insider trading. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------230707 Edit: From JoeBro64's post: Naka is basically on probation and will go to jail if he misbehaves again. He's also been fined about US$ 14,000, plus he'll have to return the same amount he profitted -- about US$ 1.2 million. (Corrections made by Gyrson) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I'll update this thread as we find out more about what happened. So it would appear Naka invested 2,8 million of Japan's own yen (about 20k USD) on a company because he knew their stocks would go up (while Balan Wonderland was still under development, no less!).
When Naka announced he was working with Square Enix I've never thought that it was going to end up this way.
I'm stunned... I didn't really like him as a person, but I respected him for his creative work. I could have never imagined he'd do this, I never thought he'd actually do something illegal...
At first, I was wondering if this was just some other guy with the same name, but assuming all this is true... oh no. Between this and whatever's happening with Shakira, we're going through some times right now.
Wow talk about a fall from grace. Yea he’s done, and with good reason. Thanks for making Sonic feel fun to control all those years ago, shame you’re a dick.
WHAT THE HELL IS WITH THIS OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER HAVING THE MOST STRANGEST THINGS HAPPEN THIS YEAR?! We're not even a month away from this year ending and it's almost as if all the stops are being pulled out to make it the strangest since two and six years ago!
I'm not going to dump on the guy like this. There's no excuse for insider trading. But how many other people have also done it and never been caught, or never been targeted? I bet a good many. It's tempting on one's soul to see the potential empowerment achieved through investments and not at least consider it. It's really quite unfortunate he made the choice he did. But frankly, all of us are greedy in one form or another. Did he murder someone? No. Did he destroy property? No. Did he kidnap someone? Not at all. He invested his money to try and earn more. And while he did it unfairly, he by no means did anything that deserves for him to be completely discarded to the trash heap. At least not by my standards. I seem to always be on the opposite sides of these things. I'm not sure why. I see someone who is subject to the human condition the way we all are. I think you have to put the crime in a bit more perspective. It's bad, don't get me wrong, but it's not the crime of the century. My advice is accept he did wrong and that he should pay a price. But it shouldn't mean being completely kicked to the curb. This doesn't inherently make him a bad man.
@saxman maybe if this was the only thing I’d go lighter on him but this just seems to be another dick move in a life time of dick moves. Guy fucked around and he found out. He just doesn’t seem like that great of a person.
There were plenty of good reasons to dislike Naka before this. Financial crimes are bad, they're normalized and that's bad, but this is just the cherry on top of every worker abuse we've heard about the guy.
You all are missing the truly interesting thing here: This is clear retaliation by Square Enix for Naka's lawsuit and public badmouthing of the company. I have little doubt information was leaked to the police through Square Enix that initiated the arrest. These kinds of anonymous leaks are not unheard of in Japan. "Why don't former employees ever say anything bad about Japanese companies?" This is why. That's not to excuse him. I just wanted to highlight what I see as a clear case of retaliation.
I was just thinking that. You beat me to the punch. Pretty thuggish if that's truly what happened. I'd like to know the other gentleman's connection. Did he also have a falling out with Square Enix by chance? Does anyone know anything about the guy? I might have to do some digging myself when I get a little time to do so.
It was probably unavoidable. It would raise too many eyebrows if police only targeted Naka, so SE threw his two acquaintances under the bus as well. SE just posted a statement saying they were just notified via mass media of the arrests, and that they'll work to avoid this kind of thing in the future. Sure...
