New Square Enix harassment policy includes potential legal action against gamers who harass its employees

Square Enix published its new “group customer harassment policy” on Jan. 10, laying out the publisher’s approach to denying service to abusive customers, including the option to file lawsuits against those who attack its employees. “Should Square Enix determine that an individual has engaged in an action against one of our employees or partners that exceeds socially acceptable behavior or is harmful,” the policy states, “we reserve our right to cease providing support services or to refrain from providing our group’s products and services. Where such 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.” The policy breaks harmful behavior down into two categories: harassment and undue demand. The former includes acts of violence, abusive language and intimidation, and discriminatory speech, while the latter focuses on unreasonable requests for monetary compensation and excessive demands of employee punishment. If you’ve spent any amount of time online and watched how parts of the gaming community interacts with developers, none of this should come as much of a surprise. In fact, Final Fantasy 14 producer Naoki Yoshida recently had to come forward and beg players to stop lobbing transphobic abuse at English voice actor Sena Bryer over her portrayal of Wuk Lamat in the Dawntrail expansion. Square Enix’s policy is part of a larger movement in Japanese society to fight a growing culture of customer harassment. As reported by The Japan Times, the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare presented and approved a report in Dec. 2024 that, if made law, will require companies to protect their employees from “behavior by customers, business partners, facility users and others that goes beyond what is socially acceptable and harms the environment for workers.” Other Japanese companies like Sega, Level-5, and Rakuten have implemented identical policies over the last year as well. Sega even took legal action against someone for “slander and extreme acts of harassment” of one of its employees via social media, announcing in July 2024 that the defendant had been ordered to pay undisclosed damages to the victim. A similar case played out in 2023 when a Washington court awarded Bungie almost $500,000 in damages from a Destiny 2 player who harassed one of its community managers. Both victories could set important precedents for future proceedings.