Monster Hunter Wild Backlash highlights how the death threat to Dev becomes a major issue in Japan

Capcom's Abuse Comment Barrage Monster Hunter Wilderness I have been getting it from Japanese fans recently, and recently it has attracted not only the attention of Japanese gaming media, but also people's attention Sankei Shibunthe main mainstream newspaper. But Monster Hunter Wilds is just the tip of the iceberg. Threatening comments, especially those targeting individual developers and company employees, have become an increasing problem in the Japanese gaming industry, with many major companies having specific policies for customer harassment over the past few years.

In Sankei's article, Hideki Yasuda, an experienced gaming industry analyst at Toyo Securities, weighs the topic. He noted that while there are always unsatisfied players who make abusive comments, companies have focused their ads on creators in recent years, turning individuals into targets. Needless to say, the prominent and (misleading) belief in today’s social media, that what you call anonymous on the internet plays a role in radical comments.

However, gaming companies have reminded people that threatening individuals online can have very real legal consequences. On July 4th, Capcom did it Official announcement Regarding “Our company’s measures to target customer harassment (slander, defamation, etc.)”, guidelines have been established to deal with customer threats. Capcom's announcement was released on its Japanese website and despite its emphasis on customer opinions and comments about the “and service” of the “subject” of games and services, it confirms various incidents of threats and personal attacks on its employees (sometimes people of specific individuals).

Capcom notes that such actions pose a “safe working environment and the physical and mental health of all relevant employees, and may also cause inconvenience and problems to other customers.” Capcom said in its policy that it may refuse to provide support or services to customers “out of the scope of socially acceptable norms” and may also take further measures, including legal and criminal proceedings to target malicious offenders.

So far, this specific customer harassment policy of CAPCOM has been published only in Japanese. Games’ global websites and social media have not made such announcements. This suggests that the policy is directed to defamatory and threatening comments in Japanese, with timing indicating that this is in response to the harassment associated with Monster Hunter Wild. Capcom also recently canceled a speech on performance tuning for developers at Monster Hunter Wilds, which is scheduled to be held on July 24 at Japan's annual CEDEC (Computer Entertainment Developers Conference), which is likely due to concerns about these threats to game creators (Source: Source: itmedia).

Monster Hunter Wilds Steam Review Rating It's “mixed”, and recent comments are “overwhelmingly negative”. This is mainly due to how the game runs (or is not in some cases), especially on PCs. Reviewers, no matter what language they write, reported similar problems, even if performance deteriorates, startup crashes, and other difficulties in running high-spec games. Regarding the actual game, it’s easier to call a self-proclaimed “series fans” than past titles, the mechanic’s streamlinedness, and (current) lack of final game content.

Despite many constructive criticisms about Monster Hunter Wild written in Japanese that point out flaws, problems, and raise questions about issues that Capcom needs to solve, threats to developers themselves, from minorities that seem to be voices, seemingly more common in Japan.

Why is this? Compared to overseas, Monster Hunter is a very popular and well-achieved franchise in Japan. As a result, the series has many enthusiastic fans, and Hype is especially high in the launch of next-generation entries. So the people behind Monster Hunter, like longtime series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto, are well known to fans. For example, Tsujimoto Appears in promotional videos For Monster Hunter Wild prior to the release, there may have been some viewers taking part in visual interviews about the upcoming game features, just like a personal commitment to the last game (positive comments call for Devs to “bow” in their apology). In the case of Monster Hunter Wilder, it seems that the combination of social media, unfulfilled expectations, and familiarity with game developers create a perfect storm in which parts of Japanese fanatics feel angry and disappointed enough to threaten the creator themselves.

This personalized threat has also become a problem for other large Japanese game developers. As Sankei Shimbun highlighted, many Japanese gaming companies have adopted similar policies over the past two years, including Bandai Namco, Square Enix and Sega, to resist harassment from customers, reminding people that they will adopt legal and criminal proceedings to protect their employees.

Last July, Sika Legal action was taken Oppose a person who is overly insulting employees on social media. It reached a solution where the compensation paid by the offender vowed to remove all questionable comments and not participate in such behavior in the future.

These threats also have a publicly visible impact on gaming companies' activities. Capcom is not the only company affected. Before, Nintendo had to Postpone two in-person esports events and cancel Nintendo Live 2024 Tokyo A 27-year-old man due to repeated deaths and bomb threats submitted through Nintendo Japan's online lookup form Later arrested). As Kyoto Animation Arson Attack It shows that companies cannot ignore the possibility that some people may actually hurt or kill people when they act toward their own online threats.

Although online abuse of gaming companies and employees is a global problem, it seems that Japanese gaming companies are currently increasing harassment of Japanese-speaking employees. Interestingly, check out whether these client harassment policies and the participation of attorneys and police in more extreme cases will have any impact on reducing this behavior.

Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg by Getty Images.

Verity Townsend is a Japanese freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for Game News website Automaton West. She also wrote articles about Japanese culture and film for various publications.