The rise of social media has made it a lot easier for developers to interact directly with fan communities in a way that simply wasn’t possible in previous console generations. However, that has quickly proven to be both a good thing and a bad thing. There’s a lot more openness now than there previously was between game creators and fans, but some of those fans have abused these open lines of communication. According to a Japaneseย press release (which was machine translated by PC Gamer) Sega has successfully sued one social media user for “excessive slanderous and insulting comments on social media against one of our employees.”
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This isn’t a case where someone just said something negative once about a video game. Instead, Sega claims that the harassment had been going on for “a long time.” From the phrasing of the press release, it sounds like the person was posting these comments anonymously. However, Sega was able to obtain the identity of the person through the courts, allowing them to go after them for damages. A settlement was reached, and the alleged harasser will have to “pay damages to our employee, delete the slanderous and insulting comments, and refrain from such actions in future.”ย
This is clearly a bold move on the part of Sega, and it will be interesting to see if other companies decide to follow suit. Over the last 10 years or so, harassment of employees from video game companies has become a widespread problem throughout the industry. In 2021, former Rare community manager Daley Johnson revealed that her team received so much abuse on social media during the launch of Sea of Thieves that “Rare hired in a psychologist to give us group therapy.” Earlier this year, Marvel’s Spider-Man model Stephanie Tyler Jones similarly reported harassment she received from fans of the game, both online and at her place of work.ย
Hopefully Sega’s actions will result in less of the rhetoric and cruelty that so often follows the employees of video game companies on social media. At the end of the day, it’s great to have passion about video games, but when that passion results in people being harassed, or feeling unsafe, it’s simply not okay. At the very least, the threat of legal consequences just might get people to think before they hit the send button!ย
Are you happy to see Sega take action to protect its employees? Should more video game companies do the same? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter atย @Marcdachamp, on Bluesky atย @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram atย @Dachampgaming!
