Was if Elden Ring not successful enough? It seems so: Because the head of Kadokawa is supposed to take his hat – investors want that.
At first glance, it sounds like an absurd report. Elden Ring is one of the most successful games of recent years and has opened up the Souls genre to a whole new audience. However, Takeshi Natsuno, the CEO of Kadokawa, to which the developer FromSoftware belongs, is under pressure from shareholders.
The accusation: They simply have not made enough profit from Elden Ring.
Elden Ring even had a further offshoot with Nightreign:
What is the CEO being accused of? Investors’ criticism is directed at the CEO for not capitalizing enough on the massive success of Elden Ring. Because although Elden Ring was a global success and considered an extremely good game, it did not help the company to operate particularly profitably. This is reported by Reuters.
How does Kadokawa respond? The management states that replacing Takeshi Natsuno would lead to stability issues. Because currently, Kadokawa is trying to implement some reforms, and the CEO should not be replaced during this.
How likely is this? Although Oasis Management, as the largest shareholder of Kadokawa, holds “only” just under 14% of the shares and therefore still needs to convince many others to vote against the CEO, the scenario seems likely. Because Kadokawa has recorded relatively poor results in recent years. The return on equity fell from 9.4% in 2022 to only 0.5% last year – and again fell short of Kadokawa’s own forecasts. The demand is therefore also supported by ISS (Institutional Shareholder Services), which advises investors to vote against the current CEO.
For this reason, it seems plausible that a larger portion of shareholders will come to the conclusion that the current CEO is no longer viable and must be replaced if existing investors are to remain invested. Last year, the CEO still had a 90% approval rating from shareholders – what will happen this time remains to be seen. Oasis Management had already drawn attention beforehand – with rather curious ideas about how to better monetize games. Luckily, that hasn’t happened so far.
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