Video Games

Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka claims Yu Miyake forged evidence in Square Enix insider trading case

What a social media comeback to make after his sentencing

Marco Wutz

Yves Tennevin

Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator Yuji Naka got handed a suspended prison sentence of 2.5 years by a court in Tokyo last year in addition to a fine of over $1.2 million USD for two instances of insider trading during his time at Square Enix, where he directed the ill-fated Balan Wonderworld.

He was arrested two times over the process of the investigation against him and refrained from communicating on social media since November 2022 – but now he’s back, slinging mud at his former co-worker Yu Miyake. Miyake is known for his work as the producer of Dragon Quest at Square Enix and recently changed roles in the company, moving on to oversee its mobile game division. Naka posted an article about this topic and added an acerbic comment, in which he claimed that Miyake forged evidence against him.

“It seems like it's finally happening,” he wrote as translated by GLHF’s Georgina Young. “As the person who submitted a memo full of lies to my trial (and I have evidence of this), I think it's better he leaves sooner rather than later. I have never met the new president, but it seems like he's a good person.”

Naka used his knowledge of upcoming game announcements – Dragon Quest Tact and Final Fantasy 7: The First Soldier – to purchase stocks from two development studios – Aiming and ATeam – in order to resell them at a higher price later.

He admitted this during the first trial in March 2023, only to put up a flimsy and desperate defense later on, but to no avail. As noted by the prosecutors, Naka showed no remorse for his crime. It’s certainly an impression that his social media comeback reinforces – not only is there no apology for his behavior, his first action is to levy a severe accusation against someone in public and very boldly claim to have evidence for it. There is no proof for that, naturally.

Things around Naka may have been silent in the last few months, but it looks like that’s about to change once again.

Published
Marco Wutz

MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg