So, Yuji Naka is a known dick. He also allegedly did some shady insider trading. Meh, no reason to crucify the guy. Feels like people just like to glom onto bad stuff others have done and castigate them. You can dislike the actions of someone without resorting to damning them as a person in whole. I'm with Saxman on this one.
I'll echo others' sentiments here. You can like the individual's work but not care for them as a person. The idea of supporting or not supporting something because the creator is of questionable character is really kinda dumb. Quite a few of us enjoy Michael Jackson's contribution to Sonic 3's soundtrack (whatever it was) even though it's highly probable he was a child molester. Both things can be true, there is such a thing as nuance. Now, does this situation surprise me, not really. Even if SE ratted him out, he understood the risks when he took on a legally questionable action and it fits with his character as best we understand it.
A question I am kind of wondering is if statistically it is even a solid investment to buy stocks in game companies before major announcements. Anyone who follows the game industry knows a botched announcement can really hurt a game's chances of success so to me that sounds risky, and if it is a title that is consistently good like Dragon Quest I would assume only a minor bump in price afterward. Also since it seems like we aren't even certain he sold the stocks and it is prevalent, this very well may be the point where he decided to jump on the train for his new company to show he is part of the team (I didn't look closely at the timeline here so please don't be mad if this was after he worked there). On the subject of guilt/innocence, I am pretty sure Mr. Naka will be found guilty. Japanese courts have a nasty habit of that partly due to high pressure to confess. Then again, he can afford a good lawyer.
In this particular case it seems he bought them at about 400 yen apiece and, if he liquidated his assets at their highest point, he'd triple his initial bet. Which would have netted him a surplus of like 40k USD lol. The other guys would've cashed in 800-900k, I guess? I think the idea is that a Dragon Quest announcement may not boost Square Enix's share price by a large margin, but it makes a bigger impact on the smaller company working with them for the title. That nears pump and dump territory a bit though, because the company will never operate on those prices for a sustained period, and will sort of crash and return to the original price. Which is what happened here, by the way. EDIT: I had said he bought them at 400 yen per share, but it was 300 (according to MykonosFan's tweet). So he'd have earned 4 times what he invested instead of 3.
I was thinking this myself earlier on - if the game had looked like garbage, the company's share price might have gone down. Success was likely, but not guaranteed. I haven't checked the timeline on any of this, but the other thought might be that Naka bought shares because he... wanted a job. It would be a fascinating kick in the teeth Naka ended up owning a sizable chunk of a company working on Dragon Quest, after attempts by the publisher to have him removed from their circle of friends. I'm not sure the timing lines up for that but again, if he didn't sell and didn't profit, who knows.
I’m not going to weigh in on this, but I will say I’m surprised someone hasn’t done some sort of mock up of him in the cell in Prison Island yet.
My current concern is this: from what I've read, Naka has been arrested but not charged. Certainly not convicted. There's an argument, apparently, that insider trading should not be illegal, based on things like whether anyone suffers any substantial, tangible harm or whether such laws are enforceable in practice. For my part, I... don't really know. I haven't thought or looked too much into it. Still pretty shady for Yujine H. Nakrabs to commit a secretive crime like this, though. Shakira's on trial for tax fraud in Spain, facing a possible 8-year prison sentence: https://www.npr.org/2022/09/27/1125339420/shakira-tax-fraud-trial-spain
In Japan, police can (and do) hold a suspect for 23 days before charging them. In a high profile case like this, the police would only make an arrest if they were reasonably certain of a conviction. In the majority of cases, the suspect will confess and a trial will be avoided. However, Naka being Naka, I can see him taking it to trial despite what I assume is overwhelming evidence. I mean, it doesn't seem like he has much room to work with the facts as they've been presented. Anyway, the point is that since he's been arrested, he will almost certainly be convicted. I suspect he'll be fined and receive a suspended sentence.
I really don’t think he’s some super villain-level megalomaniac despite what some detractors may believe. He won’t bring this to trial. But yeah, conviction is pretty certain considering it’s Japan. If anyone wants to read more about insider trading and see some arguments against the illegality of it (which is mainly due to the impact it’d have on the perception of the markets - which I do agree is not ideal), this one is decent and isn’t from a libertarian publication or anything: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/capitol-gains/308692/ Claiming that Yuji Naka is a dick simply because he broke a law requires the assumption that all laws are moral. So read more about the reasoning for the legislation so it doesn’t boil down to, “He did a rich person crime so he sucks.”
Oh, no Naka is a dick for other reasons than this. This is more “chalk it up as I’m not that shocked he’d do something like this.” If JK Rowling got caught inside trading it’d be the same thing, like I don’t like her because she’s a TERF that’d just be icing on the cake.
Street Fighter II producer and game industry veteran Yoshiki Okamoto just posted this video (in Japanese) raising a lot of questions about Naka's arrest: He suspects that this all came about due to Naka's lawsuit with Square Enix, since there are many things about the case that don't make sense, such as the amount that Naka traded being way low compared to what typically triggers an arrest. Naka was likely set up as retaliation for the lawsuit.
The reason he’s in there, is because of that fake hedgehog. This is some wild stuff. I’ve heard some stories while researching the gaming industry about what Japanese companies are like (executives getting smacked by presidents), but this would take the cake. This is up there with Sega apparently hiring the yakuza to kidnap that one guy (totally forget who it was). Guess I’m boycotting Squeenix. I think the only titles I have of theirs are FFVIIR, Mana Collection, Nier Automata, and Balan Wonderworld (obviously ), so it shouldn’t be too hard lol. Or at least I’ll stop buying them new… I still need Nier Replicant. Edit: Crap, despite the game that kicked this all off, I forgot they publish DQ. Sorry, Naka-san, can’t do that boycott.
Nice info, I'll add this to OP (also yeah, 2,8 million yen is an incredibly low amount of money for this kind of maneuver)
So yea he fucked around and found out. This is definitely an instance where both parties are in the wrong, Square Enix aren’t exactly saints either. So one asshole sued and the other assholes who have more money at their disposal threw him under the bus. Sounds like your average day between arrogant Japanese businesspeople (idk is working in Japan just awful it certainly seems it)
Well known asshole tries to fuck giant company out of spite by committing a crime, gets arrested. Definitely a "fuck around and find out" moment. Not that Square is without its sins but I don't know what he expected would happen. Dude needs to stop being so bitter, bitterness is a poison that only kills yourself.
This story was quite strongly debunked somewhere, though I can't remember who did it off the top of my head - however it is interspersed with actual facts (that yakuza were involved in parts of the arcade industry, like many entertainment businesses, and Sega got into legal troubles for placing employees in isolation rooms).
Yeah, that's one of the more ridiculous fantasies made-up to appeal to people who have watched one-too-many yakuza movie. Sega used isolation rooms, and I think they were involved in one of the first lawsuits over it, but as far as I understand it was not an uncommon practice back then. Yes, it's a shitty thing to do, but it's a by-product of very strict employment laws that prevent an employer from firing a full-time employee (something employees in many countries can only dream about).