Sony went on to say that it takes a “firm stance” against such behavior, which includes examples like “persistent and repeated, or prolonged, demands, excessive or unreasonable demands for compensation or apologies, and abusive language, threats, slander, and other similar behaviors.”
Other examples included “forcing someone to prostrate themselves” and “visiting our offices or related facilities without permission.” If any such behavior is confirmed, Sony says it may “restrict or suspend customer service” to protect its employees — and, if necessary, contact “police, lawyers, etc.” to take legal action or begin criminal proceedings against them.
I always thought this stance to be interesting, because it reminds me of soldiers in a conflict. The arguments are that the enemy rank and file are just doing their jobs, they have a family, the actual evil bigwig is out of reach, etc.
But also, are you just going to do nothing and let them steamroll you? They’re choosing to continue to work at that business, and are the only “frontline” that you can interact with. The fact that the business made a policy specifically addressing this common complaint, means it actually reached the ears of someone in power.
I’m not encouraging violence or anything of course. But, by design, there’s nobody else to voice your displeasure to. The only other option is to quietly accept their changes and be ignored.
If they didn’t want angry people calling, maybe they shouldn’t make terrible decisions?
You have the option to not continue to buy their products.
I don’t buy their games or consoles, personally. But I also don’t call Sony to complain, so I’m very much an outsider’s perspective on this.
You shouldn’t abuse or kill without need the enemy in war either. Doing so tends to be a war crime.
Yelling at and abusing people does not further your cause. I guess them going on a mental break, killing themselves or quitting does harm Sony, but the harm to them and society is much worse.
It likely doesn’t even harm Sony. Most companies outsource their customer service to 3rd party call centers.
Or a third option: you know, just vote with your wallet. To follow on your analogy and borrow from a famous quote: “[War is] a strange game. The only winning move is not to play.”
But yeah, I know that gamers will never do that. So, the abuse will continue unabated, and corps will own them more and more.
That falls under being ignored. Most people will only realise it’s a big deal if enough noise is made about it. Sony would maybe lose 10% sales from people quietly quitting, but still profit from the decision long-term. Right now the news article was only written, and we’re only talking talking about it, because enough people made a fuss. That’s how protests work; they’re not convenient or polite.
This isn’t a war, the customer service people aren’t walking through your home grabbing your games to throw in a fire. Harassing them isn’t going to have any effect on the corporate direction. If you want to get the decisionmakers’ attention, stop buying their products. If you keep sending them money, you’re basically just paying for the privilege of screaming at some minimum wage workers.