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

[AnotherHighlander]

https://www.vice.com/en/article/squa...ant-be-normal/

L O L

[LittleArrow]

Here's the policy from their site:
https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/c...nt_policy.html

Obviously the majority of this policy is already covered by the law. The instances they're describing are illegal already. People cannot legally stalk, violently threaten, or most of all attack employees / harass their place of business/home. However, there are 2 points in this policy that I believe causes concern; 1. "denial of personality," and 2. "Unreasonable and excessive demands for punishment of our employees"

Both of those basically read to me, as per the very vague language of this policy, there is a possibility that legal action could be taken against customers who call for employees to be fired. Again, I am not saying this is what it says, but as a customer, I am saying it seems to be that this policy could reasonably reach to that conclusion. [EDIT-Deleted additional commentary due to it being more of a rambling rant without adding further constructive ideas]

Needless to say, this is so extremely concerning to me as a customer. Of course, the majority of that policy is understandable. However, we all know how vague legal speak "unreasonable" can be stretched in the court of law. Especially when you take into consideration posts many of us make on multiple threads just trying to get attention to areas of the game we feel need attention and yet get ignored for literally years. How bad is that going to look over the course of years for every comment to be brought up. I would argue, at least in America, the first amendment covers most of the concerns that I had; however, the time and money a legal case would take to an average person is literally life changing in the worst possible way.

Personally, again, the policy reads mostly very reasonable albeit pretty unnecessary considering the law. However, this gives me incredible pause for ever considering purchasing their products again.

[EDIT] PR-wise, imo, this couldn't have been a worse move considering the low sales of SE's games, the terrible decision to push NFTs, and the heavily criticized state of FFXIV atm. Sadly, I agree with a lot of the criticism that is coming SE's way. For those small extreme minority of abusive consumers, yes, take legal action that's what laws are for. However, this policy reads as a blanket statement towards EVERY customer under the vague language. This is a real shame.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy4C5uTrAwI - Sungrand Studios
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnjH0n1wtn4 - SmashJT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIRsIYOMn0M - HeroHei

And there will be many more videos about this to come. Whether or not the majority of the policy is understandable and frankly obvious, it puts a really bad light on SquareEnix as a company to do this. Also, like or dislike the youtube commentators, the news is spreading very quickly and in a very poor light to SE, imo.

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My final thoughts from my final post in the thread. Just my opinion:

I assumed most general public opinion would go this way, and understandably so depending on the majority of the reasonable points made in the policy and what is illegal in most countries. However, outright supporting a company with vast amounts of capital, a full legal department, and vague legal language is not only shortsighted, it's ignorant.

This is what put our games from being fully vetted products with few bugs and a complete story to the micro-transaction riddled messes we have today. When will we learn giving these companies an inch will always end up in them taking a mile. Also, for everyone cheering at a company that is threatening their entire market thinking you could never be in that category is ridiculous. Saying mean things to someone over social media in America is called free speech. It is a protected right of its citizens. It is not unreasonable to deny anyone of their personality or call for non-violent repercussions be made against those who they feel have done them wrong. In England, you can be arrested for the same. There is a difference between illegal activities and nasty speech. That line is very blurred in countries that do not protect the speech of its citizens and those laws are drawn up by whatever political power is in place at the time, which is terrifying.

I figure most people here are very young. Take it from someone who's older; when you start to regulate speech with punishment, you may cheer now, but you'll cry when your side loses power and the tables are reversed. What constitutes as unreasonable is purely in the hands of the accuser and that is a very dangerous thing to cheer.

Lastly, I want to directly address the Stephanie Bryer situation. My personal thoughts on this actor's abilities; I didn't think they did a good job or a terrible job, I thought the writing was awful. I think opening up doors into careers is a good thing and everyone needs to learn. However, (allegedly b/c I think Bryer deleted this post) Bryer called for other voice actors to be fired due to a sexual orientation, which is discrimination. Just because it might have been discriminating in a direction you like, doesn't change the definition. By SE's own policy, Bryer should be taken to court or services should be cut off from Bryer.

That's the last post I'll make regarding this. At the end of the day, I don't even know if SE has any clout to stand on for the general public to care. FF7 sold well because most of us older games grew up on SquareSOFT. The rest of their games have been tanking. Then they threaten legal action in reference to illegal activity and employees having hurt feelings. Death threats are ILLEGAL and if I were Bryer, and this is as bad as Bryer says, I would go to the POLICE not my employer and start the legal process.

To be clear, I don't disagree with the majority of this policy. Obviously, SE can do what they want with their products. If they want to deny service to individuals who are committing illegal activities that is absolutely their right. However, the contrarian knee jerk of many posters here as well as the woefully ignorant and naive outlook people have thinking that the legal system cannot be stretched into ridiculous territories or people claiming to be receiving harassment when its actual criticism, is disappointing but expected.

[Infindox]

This is a bad written article.
The reason that SE did this is not just because of the XIV community. There's been people in other communities that have been harassing employees.
There's a dude in the VII fandom that threatened the main scenario writer for Rebirth on Twitter over ... Shipping wars.
Another one that has a huge boner for XV and had huge meltdowns when XVI and Rebirth did well and defends Forspoken.

It's not just XIV they probably did this for.

[BigCheez]

It says "harassment", not criticism. They also specify that this only applies where the harassment exceeds what is socially acceptable. You aren't gonna get banned and jailed for saying you think Yoshi-P is washed.

[AnotherHighlander]

It says "harassment", not criticism. They also specify that this only applies where the harassment exceeds what is socially acceptable. You aren't gonna get banned and jailed for saying you think Yoshi-P is washed.

I would agree with you were it not for the behavior of certain employees who exaggerate the criticisms they get or who insinuate that people disliking a particular soundtrack or story beat are racist.

[Jeeqbit]

You can lack confidence in a particular employee but at the end of the day... the buck stops with the person in charge. It could be the person in charge telling them what to/not to do, it could be the person in charge underfunding or understaffing them. It's up to the person in charge to make changes or fire a person.

That's why it's better to say "I think this feature isn't good" rather than attack an employee. Because then the person in charge can take that feedback and do what they think is necessary to correct it, whether that is firing or just increasing resources and flexibility.

It's always been against the forum rules even.

[BigCheez]

I would agree with you were it not for the behavior of certain employees who exaggerate the criticisms they get or who insinuate that people disliking a particular soundtrack or story beat are racist.

Do you have an example of an SE employee saying this? I've seen exactly 1 person make this claim and it was an unhinged "videogame journalist"/Twitter user, not an SE employee.

[Sunhwapark]

Does this means I can't say "whoever keeps only giving 100mp cost adjustments every 4 months to sch/sge should be fired", because it falls under undue demand ?

[AnotherHighlander]

Does this means I can't say "whoever keeps only giving 100mp cost adjustments every 4 months to sch/sge should be fired", because it falls under undue demand ?

It's funny how when game companies make bad games they start treating their players as the enemies. It's the players' fault they're not enjoying the game. Every little attack then becomes perceived as an existential threat.

[Oizen]

Yoshida bad.
Come get me.