Square Enix now threatens to send players to jail for criticizing their employees

[CidHeiral]

Moreover, even if you disagree with that, was it neccessary to post that picture instead of rebutting it with your own argument?

There's nothing to rebut, you have no argument. Your posts are hysterical paranoid nonsense completely divorced from reality and your replies are a loop of "NUH UH!" No reply I could ever formulate would satisfy you because you've already convinced yourself that SE is going to burn people at the stake for the slightest criticism despite having zero history of doing so.

For the final time, anyone upset about a "please don't harass our employees" policy needs to take a long look in the mirror. This policy is a non-issue for well adjusted people.

[CidHeiral]

You're right, it was wrong of me to ever think there was anything wrong with this game and I should accept that it, and it's community, are perfect and above all criticism.

I don't know what I was thinking that the forum was for any sort of feedback and was in fact always meant to be a company and fanboy circle-jerk.

This is so over the top you sound like a teenager having a tempter tantrum.

"Please clean your room."

"Oh so you want me to WORK myself to DEATH?!?!? I guess this family HATES me and I should just DIE?!?!?!?!!"

Of course it's fine to leave critical feedback, that's what the forum is for. It's not fine to do so with personal attacks against people on the dev team. If you can't understand the difference I'm not sure what to tell you.

It appears I greatly misjudged you.

The feeling is mutual.

[Lilapop]

This is so over the top you sound like a teenager having a tempter tantrum.

"our opinions dont align therefore urs is over the top and ur just throwing a tantrum"

The forums are an echo chamber. If you deny this you're just delusional.

[Rueby]

Snip

I doubt such an extreme measure was necessary...I mean at worst your thread might get deleted/locked and if it got really bad you'll get a slap on the wrist.

This community suffers from toxic positivity. There's plenty of bad people in it too, no one is at the door checking 'are you a good person? you're allowed here, allow us to take your money'. In my experience, I've seen the most unhinged drama and unstable people from this game, however I've also met some chill people and I do understand that what I see/experience is but a fraction of what's out there.

I think an unhealthy relationship, perhaps parasocial?? got formed between the players and dev team. I think it's nice that they communicate with us and that's awesome, but I also think in many cases the game is run as a cash cow to fund SE's likely failed ventures. People see this and get upset, it is a sentiment that people feel like not enough gets poured back into the game. (whether this is objectively true or not, it's something I've seen people feel)

The ToS makes it so people who feel openly toxic just shut up in game (or risk getting banned) and this repressed toxicity likely leaks out in other areas too (usually outside the game). It gives the illusion of a sweet/welcoming community and it generally can be because you only see the positives in game (usually), I've had positive interactions and I've had people who get sassy/passive aggressive too while teetering on the edge of breaking the ToS.

Anything at either extreme is bad, I've had one of the worst experiences I've had in any game on this game (discord) but I acknowledged that these people were assholes and assholes exist everywhere in an online space, not everyone is an asshole of course.

But this game gave me first impressions of Tumblr the MMO, 5 years ago. The content is nonexistent that people get bored enough and start drama...I blame it on nothing to keep people busy.

That's just my opinion anyway..

Edit: I think it's good to criticize the game without going off the deep end, something I kinda feel is lacking on our side of the forum, alot of emotionally charged responses are here. I saw it in the time when the benchmark came out and people couldn't band together to collect their criticisms while JP had plenty of constructive well thought out critiques.

Same thing with the recent development, many people panicked over trying to stay rational. Compare our responses to JP side's response, and you can see the difference. People also set expectations, make demands which sets them up for future disappointment. We all poke fun about 'oh nyo noodle code, muh small indie company, yoshi PR man', I'd like to think there's some truths in the 'technical limitations' but I also think there are things that are half baked (viera/hrothgar) and actually is just laziness.

Is it SE limiting their budget? We don't know.

[Yshnal]

There's nothing to rebut, you have no argument. Your posts are hysterical paranoid nonsense completely divorced from reality and your replies are a loop of "NUH UH!" No reply I could ever formulate would satisfy you because you've already convinced yourself that SE is going to burn people at the stake for the slightest criticism despite having zero history of doing so.

For the final time, anyone upset about a "please don't harass our employees" policy needs to take a long look in the mirror. This policy is a non-issue for well adjusted people.

Your response employs several fallacies, including a strawman argument and ad hominem attacks. You keep misrepresenting my position by claiming that I have stated this policy will lead to the outcomes I’ve described, when in fact I’ve clearly argued that such outcomes can happen due to the policy’s subjective language. This distinction is evident in the language I’ve used, such as "can" instead of "will," and in the examples I provided to illustrate how this policy might be misused.

I have asked direct and reasonable questions, such as whether the policy explicitly supports my interpretation, and what makes your perspective different from those concerned about potential misuse. These are clear points that could foster constructive dialogue if addressed, yet you refuse to do so.

Moreover, your dismissive remarks and use of insults—such as calling my arguments "hysterical paranoid nonsense"—ironically reflect the kind of toxicity that part of the policy we’re discussing is supposedly meant to prevent. Additionally, you’ve entirely avoided responding to my counterarguments, including the points where I directly addressed your claims or provided clarifications. Ignoring all that does not strengthen your position; it merely highlights your unwillingness to engage substantively, or perhaps indicates that you lack valid arguments to support your position.

If you prefer not to engage, that's your prerogative, but resorting to insults and blanket dismissals doesn't strengthen your position. It detracts from any meaningful discussion and undermines the respect that should exist, even in disagreement.

Since it’s clear you’re unwilling to engage constructively and prefer to resort to insults and dismissive remarks, I see no reason to continue this conversation. I’ll leave it at that.

[Nestama]

I mean, the only discussion is: harassment is not criticism. Giving constructive criticism is easy. Just don't include insults, make dangerous threats, question someone's identity, intelligence, etc and you're fine. I've not been banned for giving other players advice in-game, so clearly I'm doing something right (I bring this point up because some people love to fearmonger by saying you can be reported/banned for giving advice).

And also that OP lied in the title.

[Mikey_R]

I have asked direct and reasonable questions, such as whether the policy explicitly supports my interpretation, and what makes your perspective different from those concerned about potential misuse. These are clear points that could foster constructive dialogue if addressed, yet you refuse to do so.

It does not and, ironically, you are being unreasonable in your interpretation of the rules. These rules have originally been put in place to protect their employees from harassment, which does have a specific legal definition, which is the one that would be employed in the policy. So, with the fact these policies are designed to protect the employees, I will go back and look at some of the claims you have made.

Starting with this post: Post 1

1. "For example, what qualifies as intimidating, a personal attack, or discriminatory can depend on the person."

If you do not attack a person specifically, you cannot, by definition, intimidate, personally attack or discriminate someone. This is the same as walking into a store, going up to a member of staff and start shouting in their face, calling them stupid and discriminating against them. n this example, the store has every right to not serve you at all and can kick you out. SO why would it be any different here? Harass the staff, be denied service and yes, this includes cases where you have either paid for a service or are paying a subscription. Just because you have paid does not give you the right to harass the staff.

2. " In other words, they can terminate your service just because they decided that you made too many posts asking for viera hats, or complaining about the English localization, or asking for more content, or asking for a previous worker to come back instead of some new one, etc"

Asking for Viera hats is fine, that is a reasonable criticism, other races can wear all hats after all. However, spamming the forum every day with the same topic over and over could be considered harassment, you already have a topic, keep it to that.

English localisation, as long as it is criticism, it is fine. If you then went and attacked the localisation team, calling them stupid or something, we then tread into harassment. You can criticise the localisation without attacking the team.

Asking for more content is fine. I can make a topic asking for relic weapons to start earlier in the expansion, as long as I don't attack the team for it.

I can ask for a previous member of staff to come back, no problems, as long as I explain why and don't harass the current one.

You can leave criticism/feedback as much as you like, just do not attack the employees over it.

Which is where we get into 'unreasonable', legally speaking, something is reasonable if it is accepted by the general population that it is considered publicly acceptable to do. I would guess in the vast majority of the world it is acceptable to leave criticism and feedback, however, it is not acceptable to attack employees. Going back to the store analogy I made earlier, you can, 100%, go to a member of staff, ideally one at customer services so it goes to the right place, and say, there is something I do not like, here is why, can you please look into it. This can be taken away and looked into and decided on whether to address it or not. Perfectly fine so far. Again, start shouting and screaming at them etc. it then become harassment, and you can be denied service.

Which brings me to the comment about content creators. As long as they review the game and criticise it without attacking anyone, that is perfectly fine. If you make a bad choice in a game, and everyone is saying X and Y is bad because of this, it is all just feedback the devs can use to, potentially, improve the game. If you, however, add into it how the devs are incompetent and stupid and that is the main theme of your video, then you get into harassment territory.

As you have likely noticed, there is a clear line. Do not attack the employees.

In one of your later posts you then ask the question: "In regards to nobody getting banned for just complaining and criticising, would you put your neck on the line over it?" My answer, yes. Nowhere in the policy does it say you cannot criticise/leave feedback for the game. It is all about protecting the employees. Be respectful when leaving the feedback, you have nothing to worry about.

[Merrigan]

toxic positivity

The expression has become so fashionable on this forum that I get the impression it's used for everything and anything. Asking people not to freak out IG, to keep the drama out of the game platform, and in general to phrase requests politely is not toxic positivity. The fact that it spills over into other channels is another problem, but by no means a bad thing. I'd rather have Kevin shouting on Discord than in my PF, thank you very much.

A small side note, but this topic confirms one thing: it's actually far more common on this forum to be negative than the other way round. I keep seeing people complaining that the community is full of insufferable fanboys incapable of swallowing the slightest criticism, when in reality most of the topics are the same: it's those who defend a minimum of SE, sometimes with a lot of nuance, who get the crap beaten out of them.

[Gwenkatsu]

Kai Havertz (german soccer player working for an english club) missed some good opportunities in a game against a rival club, and his club lost. Following that his pregnant wife got hate posts where people expressed their hope for a miscarriage, and threatened to come to her house and kill her newborn baby. Because of a soccer game /smh/
This is the world we're living in today. And I'm all for rules that protect people from hateful sickos like that. Send them to jail or (more suited) an asylum, ban them from social media for life, whatever it takes.
But no company on earth will ban you cause you asked for cosmetics in a game, changes in story, gameplay, localization, or what ever.
And regarding this thread's title: SE does not make the laws (even not in Japan as far as I know) - so they're surely not in the position to send anyone to jail.

[CidHeiral]

So all your yapping about how I just want a free pass to attack people over the game? Kindly blow it out of your fucking ass, because that's NEVER what I wanted.

Huh? You said you called Yoship a liar and I said don't personally attack the devs if you don't want to face the music. Here are your own words and mine:

there's just cause to believe it could get nuked and I'll get in trouble for it because I still had the audacity to call Yoshi-P a liar and suggest Square-Enix doesn't care anywhere near as much as some people want to think.

You're admitting to personally attacking the game director then acting surprised now that you might get in trouble for it. Leave your feedback in a calm and rational manner and you'll have nothing to worry about.

I am genuinely at a loss for how you could interpret that as me saying you want a free pass to attack people.

And beyond just purging past posts, I don't plan to ever speak here again because it's not only a waste of breath because Square-Enix doesn't care about/doesn't condone any negative feedback anyway, but I have to deal with a crappy as hell community including people like YOU accusing me of shit I never said or did, and how that opens me up to being harassed or threaten myself by others when we both know there's a bunch of goddamn freaks out there using third-party programs to make that as easy as possible, and at least a portion of those people are zealous and aggressive white knights.

Only thing left to do now is private my Lodestone for whatever good it'll do me, drop my sub before February hits, and get the hell away from this game because I do not have the same trust you place in this company or community, not anymore.

I now understand why you've had such difficulty grouping with other people. Good lord.