Featured Image Credit: Square Enix via YouTube, Sega
Topics: Sonic
Renowned video game industry titan and Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka has been arrested for the second time regarding allegations of insider trading before a new Final Fantasy game was announced to the public.
Naka has been subject to a bizarre series of events that seem to have started with the development and release of the colourful platformer Balan Wonderworld. The game was the formal debut of the Balan Company, a subsidiary of Square Enix, and marked the launch of games outside of the publisher's norms, things that might not have been given the chance to survive as smaller ideas. Unfortunately, Balan Wonderworld was bad. Really bad.
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That wasn't Naka's fault, he asserted, and he claimed that he had been booted from the position of the game's director after there were internal arguments over Balan Wonderworld's quality. He sued Square Enix over that outcome, and now, he's been arrested twice for possible insider trading.
The first arrest was made regarding Naka's alleged purchase of 10,000 shares in the developer of Dragon Quest Tact before that game was announced. The second arrest occurred over Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier wherein the legendary game designer is said to have bought 144.7 million yen of shares in that studio.
Of course, this story is currently emerging and we don't have statements from Naka, the police department or the developers at the moment. That being said, an anonymous source has accused the game director of abusive behaviour as well as asking employees to work for free for a further two months to fix Balan Wonderworld's issues.
On the initial arrest, Square Enix said: "We have been fully cooperating with requests from the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission. As the investigation by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office is underway, we will continue to fully cooperate with the investigation. We deeply regret the great concern this has caused to all concerned. We have dealt with this incident strictly, including internal disciplinary actions taken against the suspected employees."