The authorities have noticed that Yuji Naka bought shares at suspiciously precise times.

FNN Prime Online reported that before Dragon Quest Tact was announced (it’s an iOS, Android game), the game developer Aimingben bought 2.8 million yen (about $20K) worth of shares. It is, therefore, no coincidence that one of the co-creators of Sonic the Hedgehog IP was arrested by the Special Investigation Department of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, as it smells like insider trading. It’s also worth putting it into context: Dragon Quest Tact was released in Japan in July 2020, so the authorities’ investigation didn’t end immediately!

According to the Special Investigation Department, Naka learned in January 2020 that Square Enix was working with Aiming, known for Caravan Stories, to make Dragon Quest Tact. Naka was working on Balan Wonderworld (which was then released in March 2021) for the Japanese publisher. He bought about 10,000 shares in Aiming at the time, speculating that the company’s stock would increase in value after the announcement of the mobile Dragon Quest game and that he could make money by selling the shares.

However, Naka was not the only one arrested. Taisuke Sasaki, another ex-employee of Square Enix, and his associate Fumiaki Suzuki were also handcuffed and suspected of insider trading. The pair had taken things further than Naka, having bought 162,000 Aiming shares for 47.2 million yen (around $340K) before Dragon Quest Tact was announced.

It is not the first case of insider trading in the gaming industry. In the past, in the case of Ubisoft, we heard that before Watch_Dogs was delayed, several people had turned to the French publisher’s shares and that there were also large sums of money moving back and forth. Naka’s case is sad because he was employed by SEGA for a long time and then moved to Square Enix, where he didn’t stay. After this event, he might not return to the games industry…

Source: Gematsu