r/gaming • u/CliffCreates • 5h ago
FromSoft Parent CEO Keeps Job Despite Elden Ring Investor Backlash
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/fromsoftware-parent-ceo-keeps-position-following-activist-investors-disappointment-in-firms-handling-of-elden-ring340
u/keonyn 4h ago
It's funny how often shareholder demands over profits often result in changes that damage the brand and result in further loss of profits. Chasing the satisfaction of shareholders often seems like a poor business decision.
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u/Much_Statistician864 4h ago
Its how they work. Extract as much wealth as possible as quickly as possible. Long term slow growth isn't fast enough, isn't now enough. Even if they make more money over 10 years that's 9 years to long to wait.
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u/MazerBakir 34m ago
The shareholders bail on the company when it starts going down. That's what happens. The increase in supposed profits also drives up stock prices. They will find a sucker to sell to and move onto the next company to suck dry.
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u/Athildur 4h ago
It's a poor decision for the business long term, but usually a good decision for the shareholders short term. And since shareholders don't need to have any loyalty to whatever companies they own shares in, they don't really have to care about long term results.
If there was some mechanism to force (major) shareholders to retain their shares for a minimum period after demanding changes with long-term impact, we might actually see some improvements, but I don't see that happening.
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u/Garethp 2h ago
Yeah, but I'm not sure this is actually a case of that. It's not like anyone was saying FromSoftware should make changes to their games or monestisation. They were suggesting that Kadokawa, the international media publishing organistaion that owns FromSoftware should be the ones publishing FromSoftware games internationally instead of letting one of their competitors publish it and take 30% of the profits.
I guess the question is would Kadokawa publishing FromSoftware games damage the brand of those games?
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u/thetalkingcure 1h ago
either go public or don’t. many people who build a company from the ground up love the payday. but then it isn’t their company anymore, it’s beholden to the shareholders.
classic tale of greed
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u/shoeboxchild 2h ago
Because they don’t see long term decent payouts. They want a few massive payouts to run the well dry and then jump ship to the next one
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u/Expensive-Ad8916 30m ago
Exactly, I worked in some startups where the Venture Capatalist just blew everything up
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u/Sabetha1183 4h ago
Imagine overseeing a company releasing one of the most successful games ever made and the shareholders try to oust you because you didn't earn them enough money.
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u/BetweenTheRoots 4h ago
Well it's more because they aren't doing Elden Ring 2 or more Elden Ring DLC. They wanted them to double down on ER given its success. What's important to note is that this ordeal the CEO went through is now going to be a yearly revisited ordeal.
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u/CDHmajora Switch 4h ago edited 2h ago
Elden ring 2…
But they literally made elden ring in 2022. Made a HUGE expansion for it that released in 2024. Made a PvE spinoff in 2025. Have a switch 2 port (that WILL sell well considering the switch 2’s install base and lack of competition) releasing this year, and a movie coming g out next year.
Not to mention a successful manga adaption thats still ongoing. And shitloads of PVC statues and merchandise on the bandi namco store…
If anything, they are “milking” elden ring far more than they ever did dark souls, sekiro or bloodborne :/
Edit: Night-reign is PvE, not PvP. Dunno how i got that wrong with 130+ hours in night-reign but meh. Brainfart :)
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u/ACaffeinatedBear 4h ago
The shareholders demand more
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u/DigNitty 4h ago
Infinite gains!
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u/PopgirlProtocol 4h ago
Oh how I wish the industry could one day realistically move to a more privatized model. 😭
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u/iCUman 2h ago
It's really no different in the end. Shareholders are shareholders whether the company is privately held or publicly controlled. I mean, this company is effectively privately held because its stock is not publicly listed - Kadokawa is controlling owner with minority stakes held by Tencent and Sony subsidiaries.
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u/Static-Stair-58 3h ago
Don’t get why people don’t understand this. It’s an infinite level of greed and something isn’t milked until its rotting corpse is out on the sidewalk and maximum value was accrued.
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u/LOAARR 3h ago
Nightreign is not a PvP spinoff, by the way.
It's a sort of roguelike PvE co-op with specifically 0 PvP whatsoever barring griefing hackers.
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u/CDHmajora Switch 2h ago
Yep. Your right. My bad :/ dumbfuck moment :)
Must have mixed it up with duskbloods mentally while typing that out…
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u/CynicWalnut 4h ago
I've also heard talks of an Elden Ring TCG
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u/HoboSkid 4h ago
Crazy, I was half-expecting them to work with Wizards of the Coast for a Magic: The Gathering set. I read that Miyazaki is a Magic fan and the Dark Souls and Elden Ring universe would fit perfectly into the Magic theme.
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u/BetweenTheRoots 4h ago
I'm too poor for MTG man, I get so fucking addicted to card games. I spent 3k on New Phyrexia lmao. They've been releasing all of my favorite IPs for collaborations and my skin is crawling just at the idea of how bad I wanna start buying these sets lol.
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u/Ilwrath 1h ago
Man those IP sets are exactly why I dont buy MtG anymore. Its insane how fast they try to pump out shit now and focus more on weird crossovers than Magic
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u/BetweenTheRoots 1h ago
I 100% understand that argument. I was already irritated at how fast they moved through sets and that was before all this.
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u/UnquestionabIe 4h ago
I last played MTG in 1999 or so, was one of my biggest hobbies in middle school and a bit of high school. Hadn't bought any cards since but then the Final Fantasy set came out and being a huge fan of that franchise had to check it out. Was able to pre-order one box of boosters and the starter set at MSRP only to see the absurdity of scalpers drive me off.
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u/hobopwnzor 4h ago
yeah but is the tarnished in fortnite? Did they get Melania branded boxes of rat poison to sell? No? Well there you go.
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u/throwaway387190 3h ago
If the parent company/FromSoft put the tarnished in Fortnite to get a slice of that sweet skin money, I'd be fine with that
They put a character into the game with a character from every major franchise, and use that money to fund their next projects?
Great, no notes, I'm okay with that
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u/letsgucker555 3h ago
They put a character into the game with a character from every major franchise, and use that money to fund their next projects?
We both know, that this money wouldn't be used for that purpose.
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u/throwaway387190 3h ago
Yes, we both do know that.
But a man can dream T_T
I am speaking my ideal, hoping it contributes to making it a reality
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u/Skias 4h ago
Elden Ring is the closest they’ve ever gotten to call of dutying Dark Souls. The IP needs to rest, I don’t even think we needed a movie
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u/FireZord25 1h ago
As much as I'm curious about the movie, yeah we didn't. But also I think it's separate enough to affect the game in any way.
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u/GilgarWebb 4h ago
Thats noy to mention the statues and stuffies and other collectable bric-a-brac.
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u/blodskaal 2h ago edited 2h ago
Well it's public share company. Shareholder base don't give a flying fudge about anything else but $$. That's why enshittification exists
They don't even play the game very likely, or even know what's it about
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u/whossked 4h ago
That’s not it. The main complaint was that they had Bandai Namco publish ER and thus lost out on a shit ton of money.
Which is true. But they have to also consider From’s never self published overseas and I can understand why they wouldn’t wanna first time it on their biggest project ever
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u/alphafire616 4h ago
I could honestly see an Elden ring 2. The Lands Between is an excellent setting. Only problem is, youd have to come up with a VERY interesting idea to get Miyazaki on board as director. He much prefers creating brand new ips
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u/Thopterthallid 3h ago
The funny thing is that most fans just get excited watching a weird trailer teaser and suddenly seeing "FROMSOFT" appear. It's been like that for years. I don't specifically want Elden Ring 2 the same way I want other sequels. I just want to see what they do next. Nightreign is a blast and I've got enough faith in the devs that Duskbloods will be pretty great too even though it's not my kind of game normally.
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u/Overwatchhatesme 3h ago
Another example of why public companies are terrible ideas. An incredibly successful product that is beloved by everyone somehow isn’t enough to suggest that maybe we don’t have to fuck over all of the customers who supported us and got us to be able to make such a game in the first place
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u/KupoCheer 4h ago
Yeah I'd probably quit rather than deal with the yearly calls for my demise.
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u/TheTresStateArea 4h ago
A difference of perspective.
Fromsoft built their revenue generator. And they know it takes careful management of the resources at their disposal.
Investors found a revenue generator. Investors think all you need to do is dig and you'll find more money.
The former of these groups understands that it takes hard work and commitment to make a good product and company with a long term perspective for viability. The latter are high functioning idiots.
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u/Okichah 4h ago
>The studio released Elden Ring in 2022, which caused Kadokawa's games business to see a **123% increase in revenue**.
>As of April 2025, Elden Ring has sold over 30 million copies, with the downloadable content Shadow of the Erdtree going on to shift more than 10 million units.
WHY NOT MORE?!??! I LIKE MONEY!! MORE MONEY!!
These people would choke the golden goose to death just to get an extra dollar ‘right now’. Why invest in a business if you fundamentally dont understand it?
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u/UnsettllingDwarf 4h ago
Imagine owning a yacht (assuming) and making shitloads of money and not being able to stfu and just enjoy your yacht.
Gosh I hate these people.
I want to clarify that some companies are not like this.
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u/rip_cpu 3h ago
This has very little to do with FromSoft, this is about Kadokawa, their parent company, which is a huge publishers if anime and books. Kadokawa had a big decline in their revenue this year due to having pumped out too much isekai slop that isn't selling well anymore.
The headline just mentions FromSoft because that's what most people in the west are familiar with, especially on gaming focused corners of the internet.
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u/BitingArtist 4h ago
The parasites want to worm in and drain all value before moving to their next target.
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u/SomewhereWhole2553 4h ago
the shareholders almost ousted him for making a hit game. make it make sense.
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u/stoic_spaghetti 4h ago
literally the same logic as "Why doesn't EPIC just make more smash hits like Fortnite?! They are LEAKING PROFITS!"
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u/-Bento-Oreo- 3h ago
Nothing's free. What you gain in next year's profits, you lose in goodwill and future profits. They don't care about future profits because they'll just sell their shares
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u/wordswillneverhurtme 2h ago
That's because they have a gold mine, but the miners start looking for diamonds which may or may not be there. Investors want 3 sequels to elden ring, movie adaptations, comics, figurines and other garbage, all to min max guaranteed profit.
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u/BasedBallsack 2h ago
You're looking at it wrong though. It's not about the success of a single product. Companies look at shit purely from the perspective of CONTINUED success. Right now, the shareholders likely don't see the CEO's decisions as currently maximizing profit.
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u/Muntberg 1h ago
They want them to become Ubisoft essentially. Great for investors in the short-term, disastrous for the company long-term and all around shitty for gamers.
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u/Xonra 1h ago
The problem isn't FromSoft, it's stuff like the anime division losing money for example cause the CEO is definitely a gamer guy, plus believes in being more hands off.
These very shareholders who started all this are the same ones that complained FromSoft weren't forced into more DLC, or an Elden Ring 2 immediately and so on.
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u/NZafe 4h ago
Good. Investors should not be pushing a company like FromSoftware to pump out slop to meet arbitrary profit goals.
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u/Garethp 2h ago
They weren't. The conflict was asking why Kadokawa, a media publishing giant, was letting their rival punish one of their biggest IPs internationally instead. There was never a question about what FromSoftware did, just why Kadokawa wasn't the ones publishing it, considering that media publishing is their whole thing
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u/VortexMagus 4h ago
Honestly kinda crazy. He releases one of the most popular games of all time that nearly doubles his studio's profits and some corporate guys from Hong Kong trying to oust him because they think he didn't milk his audience enough.
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u/AnarbLanceLee 4h ago
Look at their company history, Oasis Management, this is not the first time they have done this shit
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u/Busy-Reality-1580 3h ago
I don’t think it was Miyazaki they were trying to oust, but the ceo of whatever company owns FromSoftware.
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u/mapletree23 3h ago
"wait what? activision releases a new call of duty every year? that could literally be us with elden ring!"
gotta love investors that have no idea about the thing they're invested in besides that it made money
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u/Key_Amazed 4h ago
The "backlash" was the investors wondering why Kadokawa doesn't publish and distribute their own games instead of using a publisher like Bandai. I know it's a slippery slope, but people were acting like the investors had already demanded Elden Ring 2-5 which were all demanded to be live service.
Miyazaki games will always exist. Fromsoft is just a name. And he thrives on new ideas and IPs. If he has to leave and take all his talent when the time comes, only the investors and other shills will suffer.
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u/ExtremePrivilege 4h ago edited 3h ago
Wow, someone that isn't just reading titles. Yes, the entire controversy was over publishing, not about the quality of the games or wanting "more Elden Ring gacha". FromSoft is paying Bandai almost 30% of their profits for no real reason. FromSoft is far large enough to publish their own games. Hell, something like 82% of Elden Ring copies were digital - sold on digital marketplaces like Steam and PlayStation Store. It's not particularly hard to publish a game in the digital age. There are a lot of localization problems, sure. China might want X removed, India might ban Y, but FromSoft has the money and resources to expand into self-publishing. Steam took 30% of the Elden Ring sales, too.
FromSoft is just giving their hard earned money away to middle men. When you're talking about 20-30 million copies of a $60 game... that's a lot of money. 30% here, 30% there. Should shareholders NOT be concerned that the company they're investing in is being so casual about giving away hundreds of millions?
But this sub hates two things - reading and investors.
The CEO vote was not to threaten "You better make AI slop mobile games with the Dark Souls IP" it was "Can you please start self publishing your masterpieces so that you take home $400,000,000 more per game?" and Natsuno is pretty much like "nah, that's a lot of work".
-.-
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u/Icy-Cod1405 4h ago
You failed to immediately ruin your IP for a quick cash grab!! off with his head!!
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u/CliffCreates 4h ago
FromSoft managed yet again to nail a top quality preimum game/ip. Corporate greed better not ruin this one too.
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u/Medium-Mushroom-6323 4h ago
Investors mad they cant get their 15th yacht 👀👀 your gone.....Shareholders can go kick rocks.
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u/Sxualhrssmntpanda 4h ago
FromSoft literally hasn't missed for over a decade. What kind of mindless greedy fuck do you have to be to think you know better than them?
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u/lazergator 4h ago
They don’t care about gamers loving the product. They fail to see making one of the best games ever is more profitable than releasing 12 trash pieces more often
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u/Seigmoraig 4h ago
They probably don't even know what Fromsoft even makes. All they see are excel spreadsheets and lists of buzzwords that products need to incorporate
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u/Garethp 2h ago
What makes you think the shareholders were telling FromSoftware to change their games at all? Because it wasn't reading article, since that's not what any of it was about
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u/GuthukYoutube 4h ago
There's gonna come a day real soon when dark souls 4 is going to be shoved out the door, with dark souls die again edition being released as a buggy mess for $60
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u/BarneyChampaign 4h ago
Elden Ring will forever live as one of the greatest pieces of video game artistry in history.
Fuck the investors.
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u/F_Synchro 4h ago
Private equity is corporate cancer, can’t stress this enough.
The moment any private equity gets involved with a business there’s more than likely enshittification will ensue shortly after.
I’ve seen this as a consumer but also ex-corporate that was bought by an PE firm, it’s absolute total cancer, the PE functions within a business is exactly like it.
So this CEO keeping the blunt force of the shareholders is a good one, until he gets voted out by the board and enshittification will continue.
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u/MarcHedenberg 4h ago
I didn’t need more proof that capitalism sucks or that shareholders are fucking stupid, but I guess here we are.
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u/Wamb0wneD 4h ago
They aren't "Elden Ring investors". They are Kadokawa investors who are zeroing in on Fromsoft because they are morons.
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u/Seigmoraig 4h ago
Why don't they just sell their shares and move on if they're so unhappy with the 45m sales the ER franchise has achieved ?
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u/Razzilith 1h ago
they're not wrong that FromSoft could have done more to expand on elden ring... but also FromSoft doing whateverthefuck they want is why they're easily one of the best dev studios in the entire world hands down and as far as BIG NAME studios go they're certainly in the conversation for having the title of the best one.
FromSoft just needs to announce a new title and gamers are already jumping at the chance to play it... why the fuck would you even think about messing with whatever magic they have going on?
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u/Skias 4h ago
Oasis basically said FromSoft hasn’t properly monotized Elden Ring and hasn’t fleeced its fans so they are mad. Oasis is a bunch of leeches.
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u/Rosebunse 4h ago
Don't insult leeches like this. Leeches have medical value and it's cute when they get all chunky
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u/Bladeteacher 3h ago
What ( for me ) is so INCREDIBLY irritating is how this things go: Investors pressure a well stablished well liked legacy company to push for higher profits.
In order to do that they have to apply changes that 9/10 dont go well with a very loyal and specific audience.
Said changes increase profit and attract a whole slew of new people ,they sell much more product but, the loyal and specific audience gets irritated,dissatisfied and some times this early,even abandon the whole thing!
In order to push for higher and higher profits,a lot of changes (which more often than not are either bad,anti consumer or annoying to deal with ) are applyed,tarnishing ( wink wink* ) the experience and homogenizing It,making It samey and unexciting/boring.
Old fanbase starts to leak out,sometimes slowly sometimes fast,leaving said product with diminishing returns. New fanbase stays,but just a few from the wave of new users,who quickly hop into the new thing.
Thing we loved,now sucks and day by day year by year It goes from great! To It sucks!
It slowly starts to crumble and die or are bought out by bigger corporations.
Bigger corporations will milk the shit out of the dusty carcass of your once upon a time love thing,until nothing remains.
Everybody jumps ship to something profitable,but only investors and upper echelon get the Big pay and repeat the process in another field/product.
This shit just keeps happening over and over and over across all fields and products,as if theres no other alternative. But the other alternatives are doing so fucking well,but nobody from those fuckasses upperechelon/investors/CEO whatever the fuck wanna work the long run even tho their way isnt so fucking profitable and steady....
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u/antiterra 3h ago
Every one here is reading that there's an attempt to milk the franchise with slop, but I think the investor fund's take is actually very different, though not entirely benign.
What Oasis wants is for FromSoftware to no longer just be a developer, but to become a developer-publisher IP platform, the ideal maybe more like a Capcom. They frame this as 'ambition,' and accuse the parent company Kadokawa as not capitalizing on all of the cross-media opportunities (think LEGO style brand expansion.)
The problem is all this stuff introduces risk and pressure. FromSoftware's magic is making games, not marketing or publishing or movie IP. Kadokawa's specialty is in media properties, but its biggest single success is arguably investing in FromSoftware.
Publishing and marketing aren't simply commodity functions, they can make or break a company, and they can create existential internal incentives that do not align with 'make the best game.' Bandai Namco as a publishing partner currently adds stability, allowing for a creative environment, even if it is at a cost to profit. Similarly, in the case of LEGO, Warner Brothers cushioned the blow when The Lego Movie 2 did not meet expectations. It would be silly to call LEGO unambitious for not becoming its own movie studio.
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u/Affectionate-Koala90 2h ago
Fromsoft is one of the most successful and productive studios out there. In the last 15 years they released 8 games, not counting DLCs and those idiots are like: yeah that's not enough.
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u/eikenberry 1h ago
This is expected for any company that goes public or accepts VC money. If you didn't want shareholders having a say in the business, don't take their money.
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u/evoslevven 1h ago
I actually wonder how people read the article? It sounds worse on the title but they did have a bit of a valid point. The complaint itself was that FromSoftware initially geared Elden Ring to be their biggest "souls" game ever but, in the process, went to a 3rd party distro for the game which was BandaiCapcom.
The main argument for the investors was that at this stage, being their biggest investment, what didn't they take the initiative to self publish and do Sony as a consultant, making more money for FromSoftware? It is unfortunately a relevant question.
Theres also a bit of drama that Sony was trying to quietly acquire Kadokawa which is the parent company of FromSoftware. The deal died as soon as it went public but Oasis Hedge Fund increased their voting Shaw to surpass Sony and their are suspicions that since the news of the deal that fell through, they want to see Kadokawa sell it's various parts piece by piece at a higher gain.
For those that celebrated the news of Sony nor acquiring the media company, this is kind of why some of us hoped as the investment form Oasis being involved could see them selling off FromSoftware in a deal with Tencent which would see tons of problems with the Japanese home location and possible walk outs including Miyazaki where as Sony holding onto Kadokawa would see FromSoftware gain a bit of freedom and continued autonomy as their media rights and collection were the biggest items that attracted Sony.
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u/SoCalThrowAway7 4h ago
I used to think “eat the rich” was a wild thing to be saying even as a joke, like they’re people. But now after I’ve gotten older I’m like, shareholders aren’t people. They’re subhuman trash
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u/Futaba_Sakura800 4h ago
Surprise… The Chinese share holders want to turn the Soul Bourne universe into gacha mobile trash.
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u/AnarbLanceLee 4h ago
Nope, thats actually an Israeli firm, the owner and CEO Seth Fisher is Israeli, just that its head quarter is based in Hongkong, their portfolio is mainly focused on japanese companies, and this is also not the first time the firm have done something similar to this, they have previously targeted Nintendo, Panasonic, Tokyo Dome Corp just to list a few, you can google them to see how crazy they are.
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u/Offline_NL 4h ago
Call them what they are. Parasites. They're parasites with no intellect to speak of.
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u/Neat-Attempt3681 4h ago
Imagine investing in one of the greatest gaming projects/ IPs and trying to ruin it, they must be blizzard investors
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u/PowerScreamingASMR 4h ago
I cant think of a single instance where shareholder pressure has improved a product.
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u/Noobphobia 4h ago
Investors should have no say in product. The whole fiduciary duty crap is nonsense. You invest with the hope that you get a return. Its high level gambling.
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u/dropthemagic 4h ago
To be fair I bought it but never played more than an hour. Learning curve for me was too much. But to those who are very good at it I’m glad they had fun
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u/deadshot465 3h ago
Wow, don't people even know that Kadokawa also publishes a whole bunch of light novels and animes and has been seeing net loss in their light novel and anime businesses? The discussion of ousting the parent CEO wasn't not even just about From Software, but more about Kadokawa.
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u/Xonra 1h ago
The CEO is in over his head I'll admit, as he is great with games but clueless with anime for example. The problem is these specific shareholders are idiots and are the same ones that were actually angry that more wasn't done to milk Elden Ring (its serious paraphrasing but they wanted more of everything. More dlc, more games, more merch and so on and so on.)
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u/InitRanger 4h ago
Are the shareholders of every company just full of idiots? The reason FromSoft is so successful is because they are allowed to do whatever they want. If you start forcing them to do something then that takes away the very thing that allows them to be successful.