Arzest developers are airing their dirty laundry? What? Nobody from Arzest has said a thing about this. I have seen no airing of anything from them. Naka, on the other hand... Broadly what Sonic Team produced... targeting a single console produced by the company that owned them, before Artoon was even a thing... was better than what Artoon produced later? Sure. Broadly what Artoon and Arzest have produced is better than anything Sonic Team under Yuji Naka produced since Artoon was a thing. Sonic Heroes wasn't excellent, but it's probably the best thing "Sonic Team under Yuji Naka" has made since Artoon's first release (although I think Billy Hatcher should get that crown personally). Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic '06 (yes he left halfway through but it wasn't going great at that point either) are considerably less than excellent. For what it's worth, I don't think Naka was trying to push extreme crunch time on developers. It's more likely that what happened was that he wanted the game to have more development time (yes, it did need it) and was kicking up a fuss constantly complaining about it, with the devs looking at him like "dude you're gonna get the whole thing cancelled we want to eat".
The last sentence of that Yahoo article is pretty funny. It’s using a Japanese idiom and sounds like some weird prophecy.
Somebody was complaining about Naka wanting them to work weekends. Given the practise isn't uncommon and Arzest are known to have wanted Naka out the door, it sounds like someone with a grudge. I don't want to turn this into "who made the better games", but the point I'm making is that products Naka was hands-on with (NiGHTS, Burning Rangers, Sonic Adventure, Phantasy Star Online) were almost certainly delivered to a higher standard than Azest's produce. Yes they were designed to shift hardware and had were first-party Sega products, but that's the thing - Yuji Naka's career was shaped at Sega where every game kept the company afloat, so it's a culture shift to work with a studio with fewer resources building a game Square Enix seemingly only had a passing interest in (it's no Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy!). It's a source of tension, and would explain why Naka was keen to get people working harder. Basically what I'm saying is, the insider trading is the issue, not Naka's proposed working strategy.
The situation sounds like someone with a grudge, yes, but that someone is clearly Naka. There are two sides to this situation. On one side, is the guy who did this: And on the other is, in Naka's own words: Simply saying "can you work weekends" is not going to annoy all of those people to the point that they want to remove you. Neither is insider trading, especially when all of those people are probably also doing it. I imagine they probably weren't saying "but he was a producer for some good games 25 years ago" either, especially when one of them also worked on those same games. Maybe it's a grand conspiracy, and multiple members of the company were working together to oust him for... asking for more time? Insider trading? Dunno. Or maybe he was acting petulant like he was doing on Twitter afterwards and people just got fed up with his shit. I guess we'll never know.
This has been my grand takeaway and a reminder for me to just look at things that happen and try to keep my judgments to myself. We as a board can speculate all day, but we'll probably never know. ...that said, I'd fucking love to know, but. Y'know?
Naka's been indicted by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office alongside Taisuke Sasaki for the Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier case.
I'd imagine they're trying to make an example of him - "don't talk shit about your former employer, or they'll burn you to the ground".
For a moment, I was questioning the whole thing, but then I realised this Japanese work culture we're talking about
This exactly. This is reminding me a lot of how people were claiming Konami did similar things to Kojima way back in like 2015/16 after the whole PT/MGSV debacle. Basically trying to bully him into submission.
https://www.eurogamer.net/sonic-co-creator-yuji-naka-gets-prison-sentence-for-insider-trading Well, that’s a lot more than I expected considering the apparent prevalence of insider trading in Japan. Unfortunate for his kids and family.
Sorry to see this outcome. Obviously, nobody here has any idea about his claims. I have mixed feelings on the topic of insider trading as previously indicated. But if he did it, then he has to accept the risks of being punished. Hoping for the best with his family.
From the comments, it looks like Eurogamer misreported this - those are the numbers the prosecution are seeking, but the verdict won't come through until July.
Stupid gaming journalists. They really are a dime a dozen. Okay, so I guess this means he hasn't been sentenced yet either. I guess we shall see what happens.
Oh, I’m decently hopeful then. Prosecutors tend to ask a good bit more than what ends up actually happening (…usually). Yeah, I’m mixed on whether or not I believe insider trading should inherently be illegal, but we live in a world where it is. So it is ultimately an unfair practice within the existing system and Naka knew the risks associated, whether or not this was targeted retaliation by Square Enix and everyone else is doing it anyway.
Martha Stewart managed to come back after an insider trading conviction and prison time, so I don’t think this marks the end of Yuji Naka
