Square Enix has entrenched a new anti-harassment policy in its various workplaces, to better protect staff from attacks by abusive ‘fans’. The policy highlights that feedback is essential to the “advancement” of Square Enix’s products and services, but anything constituting harassment will not be tolerated, moving forward.
“There are instances where certain customers take actions directly or through our support centres, or towards our group executives, employees, partners who are involved in the creation and distribution of our group products and services, that constitute ‘customer harassment,’ such as denial of personality, violence, defamation, intimidation, advance notice of wrongdoing, advance notice of obstruction of business, harassment,” Square Enix said.
“Such actions do not only prevent our employees and partners from engaging in their work with a sense of security but also causes disruptions to other customers. Square Enix will not tolerate harassment and will take action as necessary.”
Should customers become abusive or initiate harassment against employees, the company has now entrenched the “right to cease providing support services or retrain providing [Square Enix’s] products and services” to these people. In addition, where “action is egregious or with malicious intent” Square Enix “reserves its right to protect its employees and partners and to take legal action or criminal proceedings upon consulting the police and/or lawyers.”
Read: More Square Enix games will be cross-platform in future
The company has defined a range of behaviours as constituting employee harassment, including acts of violence or violent behaviour, abusive language, defamation, slander, personal attacks, persistent inquiries, trespassing, discriminatory speech and conduct regarding race, ethnicity, religion, family origin or occupation, infringement of privacy, sexual harassment, and stalking.
It has also barred undue demands, such as unreasonable changes or exchange of product or request for monetary compensation, unreasonable response or request for an apology, excessive requests for the provision of products and services, and unreasonable and excessive demands for punishment of its employees.
As noted, the policy put into place aligns with Japanese law, and is also applicable globally “in accordance with local laws and regulations.” That it has to be put in place at all is an indictment of the current state of the games industry, and the entitlement that some gamers feel.
There is a clear line between engaging with a video game developer or publisher reasonably, and stepping over that line into harassing behaviours. As some have pointed out on a Reddit thread, Square Enix developers Kazushige Nojima and Hajime Tabata have both reported fan harassment in recent times, with Nojima even expressing fear over a recent harassing incident.
Going forward, it’s likely many developers will (or should) put into place similar policies, in order to protect staff from the increasingly hostile behaviour of certain video game players. The reality is if you can’t engage with video games in a sensible, mature manner, you shouldn’t be playing them at all. A bit of respect goes a long way, and if you can’t show that, developers certainly have the right to withhold their products and services.