Capcom cancels Monster Hunter performance lecture as ‘staff face threats from players’
Capcom recently said its staff received threats
Capcom has cancelled a planned lecture about the development of Monster Hunter Wilds. This comes days after the company had to issue a statement due to several direct threats made to Capcom staff over the game’s performance.
As reported by Automaton, the talk, originally titled “Monster Hunter: Wilds runs smoothly! Everything you need to know about optimization,” was originally supposed to be held at CEDEC, Japan’s largest game developer conference. The talk was planned to discuss Capcom‘s recent advancements in performance and optimization.
However, following the talk’s announcement, and performance issues with Monster Hunter Wild introduced as part of the recently released Free Title Update 2, the publisher received such severe social media backlash that it has now cancelled the lecture.
While Capcom didn’t say directly that the cancellation was related to the harassment, the timing of the statement following the cancellation seems to imply that the two are linked.
On Friday, the company released a statement reading, “We take customer opinions and requests seriously, as they are indispensable for improving our products and services, and we strive to improve quality.”
“On the other hand, we have confirmed instances of slander, libel, denigration, intimidation, threats to harm or disrupt business, and harassment against our executives and employees by name.”
The Japanese development giant goes on to warn that should this behavior continue, the company plans to take legal action.
“Furthermore, in severe cases, we may contact the police or lawyers and take legal action, including criminal proceedings.”
The performance issues that sparked this uptick in harassment have already largely been fixed thanks to a quickly-deployed patch, however, some players are still reporting problems in extreme cases.
