When you think “insider trading”, you imagine a white-collar man on Wall Street, not really a video game developer. And yet. On November 17, Yuji Naka was arrested by the Tokyo prosecutor. The crime of the creator of Sonic is said to have bought 10,000 shares of the developer Aiming just before the official announcement of the mobile game Dragon Quest Tact. Two other Square Enix employees were also arrested.
On December 7, he was arrested again for a similar crime. He reportedly bought 144 million yen worth of shares in developer Ateam Entertainment just before the official announcement of the mobile game Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier. He has just been indicted.
It would be really stupid to end up in prison for free-to-play for smartphones. We hope for Yuji Naka that the Tokyo prosecutor did not play Balan Wonderworld and particularly the Switch version because he would risk the death penalty. But Yuji Naka’s biggest crime is releasing games for the StreetPass Mii Plaza and not calling them Naka Trade Mii Plaza.