A source at Square Enix told Yahoo Japan, “He (Naka) was treated well during his tenure at the company”.
He was given a monthly salary of about 1.15 million yen, the highest rank within the company. After joining the company, he was given the position of senior manager and immediately given the task of developing a new 3D action game. However, Naka was so concerned about the quality of the game that he got into trouble with members of the development team. After that, he was ordered to leave game development and was fired in April of last year (2021).
Naka vehemently resisted this “punishment” by Square Enix. After leaving the company, he filed a civil lawsuit claiming that the work order was illegal and invalid as an abuse of his rights, and that he had suffered tremendous emotional distress, and demanded the payment of 5 million yen in compensation.
However, The court decision stated that Naka had given strict orders to Arzest, with whom he had co-developed the game, and to the team members.
Even if there is a problem with the Labor Standards Law, we want you to work on weekends.
We want to push back the release of the game by one or two months, and we want Arzest to handle it for free during that time.
In addition, Naka clashed with members regarding a project to have a YouTuber perform the game’s music. He sent several e-mails such as the following.
Why are you attacking me?
Is it a pleasure? Is it funny? Is stopping me your life’s purpose? Don’t you think you’re being ridiculous?
When the team members sent e-mails in response, they claimed that the content of the e-mails constituted harassment.
On March 29 of this year, the Tokyo District Court dismissed all of Naka’s claims. After the ruling, Naka tweeted to Square Enix, “They don’t care about games and game fans.”
It was about six months later that the Special Investigation Department arrested Naka. He was in the midst of spearheading a development team to create a new 3D action game when he was conducting insider trading.
The former colleague says:
Why would he betray the company that bought his talent…? He is a creator at heart, so he must not be familiar with stock prices or insider information. Maybe he didn’t think too much about it and did it at someone’s instigation.
The possibility of an indictment is almost nil, since the Special Investigation Department arrested him. But in the case of Naka, since it is his first offense and the amount of money is small, he will probably be given a suspended sentence.
