Going on 2 hours of radio silence after logging in to find my character in GM jail

[SerLuke]

Now I’m about to ask a question, just a question so I don’t want a big fight or anything, but how many bans have to happen because of parsing to make people not do it, or is this a hill to die on?

I mean personally if someone is parsing I think they assume the risk that they know it’s against the TOS(if they agree with the rule or not)and could be banned.

[JohnSpawnVFX]

Now I’m about to ask a question, just a question so I don’t want a big fight or anything, but how many bans have to happen because of parsing to make people not do it, or is this a hill to die on?

I mean personally if someone is parsing I think they assume the risk that they know it’s against the TOS(if they agree with the rule or not)and could be banned.

Why stop doing it when you can just not talk about it and keep doing it? The only people affected by it would be PS4 players.

[MariaArvana]

Now I’m about to ask a question, just a question so I don’t want a big fight or anything, but how many bans have to happen because of parsing to make people not do it, or is this a hill to die on?

I mean personally if someone is parsing I think they assume the risk that they know it’s against the TOS(if they agree with the rule or not)and could be banned.

All at once or over time? If you're talking all at once, they'd need to ban a very, very large amount of people and then have to justify whether the lost revenue from banning such a sizeable player volume would be worth it or not (spoilers: no.) While it wouldn't be a complete hill to die on, parsers are so wide-spread that they'd be tripping on that hill and would have to make sure they don't tumble to their doom as a result.

Their "don't ask, don't tell" policy is pretty perfect as far as what needs to be done. They know how popular parsers are, they know it'll cause insane backlash if they try to do anything, so they just silently look the other way while punishing anyone who isn't very bright and mentions them in-game.

If you're talking about over time, it'll never happen. People will just get smarter on how they speak about parsers, keep discussions 100% out of game, making sure to not even mention parsers in any shape or form to avoid giving Square any sort of evidence at all.

[van_arn]

Now I’m about to ask a question, just a question so I don’t want a big fight or anything, but how many bans have to happen because of parsing to make people not do it, or is this a hill to die on?

I mean personally if someone is parsing I think they assume the risk that they know it’s against the TOS(if they agree with the rule or not)and could be banned.

The problem with parsing is in its widespread use of players flagrantly ignoring the TOS. Square can't ban enough people to make a difference without hurting their bottom line, their community, and their content.

This is why prohibition fails; if enough flatly ignore a law, it becomes unenforceable due to the logistics of policing so many people at once. Same with TOS violations: if it would hurt Square more (in subs, retention, or participation rates) to enforce their TOS to the letter than just let it slide, then it slides.

Seriously, can you imagine how much damage content creators like Happy or Work to Game or Larry could do to this company if Square straight-up banned them all for using a parser? Square might be "justified" by their TOS, but there's still significant extralegal risk for them in going up against people that are this important in the community. And that's just three off the top of my head, not all of which I personally consider important.

Of course I would never parse, myself. That would be naughty.