Sonic Creator Yuji Naka Arrested, Allegations Case Details

Yuji Naka was arrested on 17 November 2022, as he was charged with an accusation of Insider Trading. Yuji is a Japanese video gamer programmer, designer, and producer. He was the head of the Sega Studio Sonic Team.

Naka was the lead programmer of the original Sonic The Hedgehog series on the Mega Drive in the early 1990s.

The programmer has also helped in the development of various games such as Nights into Dreams, Burning Rangers, and Sonic Adventure.

In 2022 he sued Square Enix before the release of Balan Wonder as they removed him. And in late 2022, Naka was arrested twice on suspicion of Insider Trading at Square Enix.

Yuji Naka Arrested Allegations Revealed

The Japanese Game producer, arrested on Friday, 17 November 2022 is also the creator of the Sonic the Hedgehog Video Game series for insider trading in shares.

Furthermore, while he was employed had purchased 10,000 shares in Aiming for about 2.8 million Yen in January 2020. Similarly, two extra Square Enix workers were arrested on the charges that they purchased 162,000 shares between December 2019 and February 2020 for about 47.2 million Yen.

Yuji Naka Arrested for Insider Trading.(Source: Eurogamer)

In addition, again on December 7, he was again arrested on the suspicion of purchasing shares of ATeam, Final Fantasy before its initial release which was worth 144.7 million Yen.

The programmer has accepted his guilt and even told the curt ‘no doubt’ that he did what he was accused of. The punishment of Yuji has still not been public. Still, given his insider trading accusation which is highly prohibited by the Financial Instrument and Exchange Act of Japan, he will receive a severe punishment so he probably might still be in jail.

Yuji Naka Case Details

On November 17, 2022, the video game world was shocked by the news of the Sonic game creator being arrested on the charge of insider trading. Insider trading refers to the practice of using non-public information to make financial trades that gives an individual an unfair advantage in the market.

According to reports he had bought 10K shares in Aiming for about 2.8 million yen, as well as there, were two other Square Enix members were also arrested as they also bought 162K shares for 47.2M yen before the initial release. The scam doesn’t end Yuji was again arrested for buying shares of ATeam before its initial release.

In addition, the creator has agreed to his guilt and admitted to the charges against him. He has apologized for his actions and also expressed regret for any harm that has caused to his colleagues and industry.

Further information has not been provided by the police of what punishment he received or the amount of fine he has paid, but it is for sure that he is facing a severe punishment as insider trading accusation is extremely prohibited by the Financial Instrument and Exchange Act of Japan.

Yuji Naka Wikipedia Bio

Yuji was born on September 17, 1965, in Hirakata, Osaka, Japan. His birth sign is Virgo. He was a talented boy since his childhood as he used to learn programming by replicating and debugging video game code printed in magazines.

Furthermore, he is a car enthusiast, In November 2004 he competed in the round of six of the Kumho Tyres Lotus Championship in Tasmania.

He started to work at Sega in around 1983, where he was assigned to design maps and check floppy disks for Road Runner for the SG-1000. He got his first major project in 1985 GIrl’s Garden which he and a fellow composer Hiroshi Kawaguchi created as a part of their training process. The game got published as their boss got impressed.

Sega’s president wanted the company to have a flagship game to compete with other game companies, so Naka created a prototype platform game that involved a fast-running character rolling in a ball through a winding tube, the idea of a hedgehog was created from his high school notebook.

Sonic the Hedgehog was released in 1991 and it was a hit, it helped to gain the popularity of the company in North America, but Naka was dissatisfied as he got little credit for the game so he quit and was hired by American Sega Technical Institute, where he led a tea to develop Sonic the Hedgehog 2 under the condition that game must have dual players.

Currently, he announced that he was removed as the director just before the release of Balan Wonderworld as they had disagreements over its stability. He stated that Square Enix and Arzest did not value games or game fans.

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