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.

  • fulg@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    My initial read of the headline was that Sony would now make it a policy to harass its customers that do not agree with the new plans…

    • andallthat@lemmy.world
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      Same! I got to the third paragraph of the article before understanding they were not planning to harass their customers (or at least not in new ways…)

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      Isn’t that what they announced when deciding future titles won’t be on discs? I thought that was them plainly telling us, “we will be harassing the consumers of our products going forward”.

      This is just the follow up where they’re saying “we won’t let you harass us back, because we are a big scary powerful corporation, and you are just a weak small individual.”

    • Brimstone@lemmy.ml
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      6 days ago

      Do they even make good products anymore?

      I mean besides PlayStation which they are trying to ruin 😅

    • DoctorWhoDMC@lemmy.world
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      I’ve lived with hardcore capital-G Gamers.

      Simply not buying the game is never an option. May as well be trying to get smokers to boycott tobacco companies until they make their product cheaper. Good luck on holding out.

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    7 days ago

    Has Sony just dared it’s entire customer base to take part in a forced boycott?

    The equivalent of somebody getting themselves barred from a pub/bookies/casino because they know that they can’t do it on their own.

    • PhoenixDog@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      They say Microsoft and Xbox start to take a tumble and said to themselves “How badly can we fuck ourselves too?”

      • Gsus4@mander.xyz
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        6 days ago

        Apparently, it is already out 😁

        Happy cake on fire day!

        eg here

        oh wait, no, here

        wait, no, here:

        no, it was actually the previous one, they look the same :/

    • ITGuyLevi@programming.dev
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      7 days ago

      I’m in! As long as I don’t have to get rid of my psx, PSP, ps2, ps3, and ps4. I promise not to give them another dime, or use any of their shitty online services… Though to be honest I started boycotting them about the time the first Destiny expansion was launched.

        • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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          5 days ago

          Long-term, yes, but you’re dealing with short term managers who DGAF about long-term issues, they’ll be long gone with their bonuses, leaving this shit for other people to resolve

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    We made a bad decision and people got upset.

    The problem according to Sony: the people.

    Get bent Sony, you put your front line workers through this bullshit, you don’t get to cry foul. How fucking stupid.

  • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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    Ah, yes. Desperately falling back on making a tone argument of all things is a sure fire indicator that somebody doesn’t have a single leg left to stand on. Sony’s decades-long pattern of behavior does not put them in a position to be able to enjoy that luxury.

    In other words: Get the fuck outta here with that.

    • Talcosis@lemmy.zip
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      IDK, some of those demands are absolutely reasonable. Nobody should be making threats or visiting their facilities.

      Just stop buying products connected to Sony. I did when they did the helldivers account thing back in the day. That’s why I never played helldivers, actually.

      • rumba@lemmy.zip
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        6 days ago

        Protesting outside facilities should be allowed. Though honestly pointless, just give them what they want and leave their ecosystem

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    7 days ago

    Like 95% of this I agree with. Don’t harass support people who have no decision making on this and are just trying to make a living.

    But

    unreasonable demands for compensation or apologies

    Fucking really? Asking for refunds is bad now?

    • THE_GR8_MIKE@lemmy.world
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      Japanese companies in particular are complete cocks when it comes to refunds. That’s why Nintendo and Sony will just outright ban you forever if you do a chargeback. Nintendo will then give you one final chance, even if you were hacked. Not sure if Sony does. Similarly it’s probably related to Playstation removing Cyberpunk for sale entirely when CD said to just refund it.

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        6 days ago

        Most compamies in my country will also have beef with you over that and I’m european. It’s more american thing with chargebacks IIRC. Most of folk here simply contact customer service/support and talk things out, more often than not getting a refund.

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          5 days ago

          “Talk things out?” What, like with a person?

          That’s why Americans lean on chargebacks.

        • THE_GR8_MIKE@lemmy.world
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          Yeah, probably. I wouldn’t care if my Etsy account got banned, though. A Playstation account with 4 figures in purchased games, however.

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        I mean, id ban you from my store on every platform if you do a chargeback. Do you now how rare that is? Do you know how expensive it is? Sure fuck sony but i get why they do it.

    • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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      I mean they are the customer facing entity of the company. Of course they are going to get angry customers calling in and voicing their grievances because of the actions of Sony.

      And that’s why they employ the cheapest labor to deal with it, it’s just a front, they don’t give a shit. What can the support staff do? Not much, I’d wager, and I’d wager that that shit rightfully would piss some customers off.

      They’re literally employed as an abuse filter.

      AI chat assistant incoming in 3…2…1…

  • JoeTheSane@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Well, hell. Let’s all get banned by them so they have a real count of how many customers they are losing.

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    I’d say just stop buying that shit, but Americans have no self restraint at all. They pre-order digital fucking games to get a pair of cosmetic boots or some stupid shit.

    • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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      Americans have no self restraint at all.

      lol he thinks the stupidity is isolated to america.

      bro, wake up. enshittification didn’t start there or end there.

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    7 days ago

    That leaves only one available option for protest. I don’t think they want to funnel everyone into moving away from PlayStation entirely. Or maybe they do, maybe xbox infiltrated and is taking them down from the inside, wait, where’s my popcorn…

    • myyass@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Moving away from Sony as much as possible. I may or may not use questionable websites to watch anime and movies. and I sold all my Sony stuff except a PS3 and Headphones, which will also be sold.

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          That’s good for some but usually these websites arise as soon as they go down. It also makes for a grey area since you don’t have the media on your hard drive. That’s why Sony tries so hard to shut them down and push their crunch hole subscription. I think they shot themselves in the foot already enough that just not buying their stuff is effective. The silent No Thank You approach is really effective pretty much for everything.

          • hraegsvelmir@ani.social
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            I think they were implying you should put custom firmware on your PS3 so you could just play pirated games on it, rather than selling them.

    • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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      Sony is making it so easy for Xbox to take the crown again. I really hope Microsoft can follow through and don’t fuck it up, we need competition, not for Xbox to take themselves out of business and turn Playstation into a monopoly.

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    I’m so glad I never gave any serious amount of money to Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo.

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    ITT: People who don’t understand how call centers work.

    It is very rare for companies the size of Sony to maintain their own call centers for frontline customer support. They contract with a call center to run a campaign for them.

    For these call centers, the huge campaigns are their life blood, and they won’t do anything to upset the client. Your complaints are very likely not being passed on.

    Furthermore, the candidate pool for call centers is anyone desperate enough to work in a call center. The amount of homeless agents is high enough that scabies and bed bugs are a common problem on-shore.

    So, by calling and being abusive to a CS agent, there’s a decent chance you’re abusing a homeless person for absolutely no benefit.

    The only reason Sony cares is because turnover from abuse and tied up agents costs money.

    • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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      “You fools! You’re not even talking to us, you’re talking to a homeless person! We will never hear what you have to say!”

      • Xella@lemmy.world
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        Lmao this is fucked up. I hate that I’ve sunk so much money into digital PlayStation games. At least I have benefitted somewhat. 1 digital game = 2 games for myself and my spouse. So I have somewhat saved money in a way. Fuck.

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            Won’t they still need to phone home when you try to play them? Digital only means having the files won’t matter if they hit a remote kill switch on your ability to boot it up.

            • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works
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              6 days ago

              Once a game has been downloaded and the console has been online with it installed after the refund window has closed, it should be given a perpetual license if then taken offline and never need to phone home again.

            • Texas_Hangover@lemmy.radio
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              7 days ago

              I’m not entirely sure of the specifics tbh, but I have moved full digital games to an HDD and back with no issues. I dont have any “connection required” games personally.

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      I don’t think the kinds of people who still complain on CS via phone are the ones giving sony a PR crisis on Twitter

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      Call center work sucks, but dealing with people who are upset is in the job description.

      If the organization is fucking up, of course you should give them grief in whatever manner available to you. Temper your anger at the lowliest of pawns, sure, but not so much that you don’t leave an impression.

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      It also really fucks up their metrics for contracts with call centers. They can’t tell which ones are bad or good and cannot make informed renewal decisions. It’s pretty damaging and costs a lot of money.

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      Yea if you’re a soldier for the enemy you should expect to get shot. Them being homeless and exploited by the enemy doesn’t mean people being ripped off should just take it.

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        “a soldier”? What kind of bonkers rhetoric is this?

        These are people trying to help people get into their accounts and stuff. They’re not going around trying to ban physical sales of games, or conspiring to raise prices for gamers.

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        That’s a condemnation on society, not the people trying to survive.

        Plus, it would be more like shooting the soldier’s answering machine.

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    Fuck I hate this shit. Loved my playstations and now its all ruined. I bought so many games on sale and used.