The irony here is almost too much to process. ELDEN RING has sold over 30 million copies, its Shadow of the Erdtree DLC moved another 10 million units, and the multiplayer spinoff Elden Ring Nightreign added 5 million more on top. By any measure, FromSoftware is printing money. So why are Kadokawa's investors furious?
Because, as far as activist shareholders are concerned, Kadokawa CEO Takeshi Natsuno has been letting that money walk out the door.
The profit leakage problem
Oasis Management, now Kadokawa's largest single shareholder with nearly 14% of the company, has formally called for Natsuno's removal ahead of Kadokawa's 2026 annual general meeting. The core complaint is what Oasis calls "profit leakage": the idea that Kadokawa keeps handing over a significant chunk of Elden Ring's revenue to third-party publishers instead of keeping it in-house.
Here's the thing: Elden Ring is published by Kadokawa (through FromSoftware) in Japan, but Bandai Namco handles global publishing. Every copy sold outside Japan means a portion of that revenue goes to Bandai Namco rather than staying with Kadokawa. When your game has sold 30 million copies worldwide, that slice adds up fast.
Oasis described FromSoftware as a "crown jewel asset" and argued that Kadokawa "continues to leave a meaningful share of the economics from its titles with third-party publishing partners, creating a significant and ongoing loss of value for all of Kadokawa stakeholders."
A CEO who reversed course on self-publishing
What makes this especially pointed is that Kadokawa previously committed to self-publishing under an earlier mid-term plan, and even raised capital in 2022 specifically to fund that goal. Natsuno then backed away from that commitment without giving shareholders a clear explanation. That reversal is what Oasis keeps coming back to.
"CEO Natsuno has since retreated from that commitment without providing shareholders with a clear explanation, economic framework, or decision criteria for how and when Kadokawa will improve gaming economics," Oasis wrote in its formal press release calling for the vote against Natsuno.
The Elden Ring situation is not Natsuno's only headache. A 2024 data breach cost the company millions, which did nothing to build shareholder confidence. A hoped-for acquisition by Sony also fell through, settling instead into a relatively modest strategic alliance in which Sony took a 10% stake. Investors who had anticipated a full Sony buyout were left disappointed.
Natsuno survived, but the pressure remains
Natsuno did survive the AGM vote and will keep his position for now. The actual vote tallies will take several days to confirm, and if his support has dropped sharply from the 90% approval he received at the 2025 meeting, the pressure to implement changes demanded by Oasis and other activist investors will be significant regardless of whether he keeps the title.
What most players miss in stories like this is what they reveal about the business layer sitting above the studios they love. FromSoftware makes the games. Kadokawa owns FromSoftware. Oasis owns nearly 14% of Kadokawa. The decisions made at that top level, about who publishes where and how profits flow, shape what resources FromSoftware has access to and, eventually, what games get made.
Hidetaka Miyazaki himself recently referenced "yet to be announced" games while commenting on the Kadokawa controversy, which suggests FromSoftware is heads-down on new projects even as the boardroom fight plays out above them.
The key here is that this dispute is fundamentally about whether Kadokawa will build the infrastructure to own its own global distribution, or keep relying on partners like Bandai Namco. That decision will define how much of the next FromSoftware hit Kadokawa actually keeps. For players, the more immediate question is whether boardroom turbulence affects FromSoftware's development pace or creative independence at all. For now, the studio appears insulated. But these things have a way of trickling down.
If you want to revisit what all the fuss is about while the suits argue, the full ELDEN RING guide collection has everything you need to get back into the Lands Between.
