Yuji Naka, creator of the legendary Sonic license, has just been heavily sentenced by Japanese justice this Friday, July 7 after insider trading.
Sonic has been making a strong comeback since last year. With the release of Sonic Frontiersthe little blue hedgehog has shown that he still has it under his feet and he intends to continue at the same pace in 2023. In June, players were able to (re)discover 16 games from the saga in remastered versions thanks to when compiling Sonic Origins Plus. During the Summer Game Fest 2023 of the same month, Sonic Superstars, a 2D game that revives the spirit of the first games in the series, has also been unveiled, warming the hearts of the most nostalgic players. While Sonic is doing very well, the co-creator of the series, he has just been sentenced to a prison term and a particularly heavy fine by the Japanese justice.
Sonic creator gets jail time and hefty fine
This Friday, July 7, Yuji Naka, co-creator of the saga sonic, was convicted by the Tokyo District Court of two insider trading charges. to a sentence of two and a half years in prison with a probationary suspension of four years, which will allow him not to end up behind bars. Added to this is a first fine of two million yen, or approximately €12,800, and a second of 171 million yen (1 million euros) for “lack of remorse”.
Yuji Naka is accused of having earned more than 20 million yen, approximately €140,000, by buying shares of the Aiming studio in 2020, knowing that the studio was working with its own employer, Square Enix, on a game not yet known. announced at the time, namely Dragon Quest Tact. Yuji Naka had bought 10,000 shares of the studio for 2.8 million yen, realizing a very nice capital gain on his investment. The same year, the Japanese carried out an operation of the same ilk by buying shares of Ateam Entertainment for 144.7 million yen (€100,000), once again thanks to confidential information on a title that Square Enix n had not officially revealed: Final Fantasy 7: The First Soldierwhose servers shut down last January.
Yuji Naka, an atypical career
Yuji Naka rose to worldwide fame in 1991 with the release of Sonic The Hedgehog. At SEGA, the last licensed game he is working on is Sonic Riders, in 2006, before the license continued its history without him. Arrived at Square Enix in 2018, he had lived a particularly tumultuous history with the Japanese firm. Six months from the release of his new game, Balan Wonderworldhe had been thanked by Square Enix, leading him to sue the company and settle his accounts in public.