[Reacting to reports of Sony establishing customer harassment policy] Sony is doing this just now because of a new amendment to Japanese labor laws (労働施策総合推進法) that makes it the employer’s duty of care to protect workers from customer harassment (カスハラ), effective 2026-10-01.
Nintendo’s had customer harassment policy since 2022, Sega 2023, Bandai Namco 2024, Square Enix and Capcom 2025. SIE is not only late, but seemingly forced to act just to be compliant.
Kotaku and a few other reports I saw did not identify the true cause, but went to great lengths linking it to the disc media controversy. Take this 364 word article for instance, 195 of it is condemning Sony, 46 words of sympathy for the workers, and 0 telling people to cut it out. I know times are tough for media, but I hope that the necessary click/sub chasing and the duty to illuminate can coexist.
[Originally posted on 2026-09-01 Pacific Time]
