Sega has introduced that it has efficiently sued an unnamed individual answerable for (the next is machine translated) “extreme slanderous and insulting feedback on social media towards certainly one of our workers.”
In a Japanese press launch shared yesterday the corporate mentioned that, although it welcomes followers’ “encouragement” and “generally even harsh feedback about our services,” the harassment from the person in query crossed a line. It had additionally been sustained for “a very long time,” stopping the focused worker from getting on with their work “with peace of thoughts.”
“As there was no enchancment,” continued Sega, “we have now been compelled to take authorized motion.” The corporate managed to acquire the harasser’s id with the consent of the courts and promptly initiated authorized proceedings, a lot to the detriment of the harasser in query.
“We now have reached a settlement through which the topic pays damages to our worker, delete the slanderous and insulting feedback, and chorus from such actions in future,” says Sega. What’s extra, the company threw down the gauntlet towards anybody else who would possibly take into consideration concentrating on its workers in an analogous approach in future, saying they contemplate slander, intimidation, and harassment “to be critical human rights points that harm the dignity of workers and result in a deterioration of the work atmosphere.
“In an effort to respect all workers and shield their human rights, we’ll proceed to take acceptable motion based mostly on our Buyer Harassment Coverage once we choose any behaviour to be malicious.” In different phrases: Anybody who tries to drag the identical stunt will discover themselves answering to Sega’s legal professionals in court docket, too.
PCG reached out to Sega for touch upon this story, however it declined to supply one and pointed us again to the press launch.
Harassment of devs is a gargantuan however comparatively little-discussed downside throughout the complete video games trade, with a disturbing 91% of respondents to final 12 months’s Sport Developer Convention survey answering that abuse from gamers is an ongoing concern.
Though there have been different massive wins by studios towards harassers like this one, it is form of a drop within the ocean. Bungie managed to win $500,000 from a “racist shitstain” who harassed and threatened a Future 2 neighborhood supervisor final 12 months, however it had no perceptible impact on Future builders being harassed. Although it is by no means a foul factor when individuals who use the veil of anonymity to behave like monsters get their simply desserts, I believe the identical will, sadly, be true for Sega.
