When Persona 5 was released in North America, Atlus USA was pretty adamant that there didn’t want anyone streaming the game. Let alone posting any gameplay footage of the game online. It was possible to do so long as you obeyed their rules, which including some vague ones. They wanted to protect the gamers who were in the process of playing the game and as we know, if the footage is available online, then someway, somehow, it will get viewed.
This apparently was misinterpreted and instead of Atlus’ request being one of a gentler toner, most took it as a hostile act. People were really upset about the request and took to just about any place on the net to talk and express their frustration. I’ll admit, we were in the camp as well. As a business move it made sense, but public relations felt the backlash of the internet. Those who went against their wishes ended up with their footage being hit with a copyright strike and/or taken down.
Well, Atlus has heard and seen enough and have given everyone a compromise regarding their no-streaming/video uploading restriction. They are now giving everyone the green light to stream and upload to their heart’s content, with one restriction. The game’s final act must not be shown, so anything past the in-game date of 11/19 must not be shown.
When Persona 5 launched, we put out a set of video/streaming guidelines that we hoped would limit online spoilers for fans who have yet to play the game.
To our surprise, we then saw numerous reactive news articles go up, opinion videos post, and received many emails asking us to please change our Persona 5 streaming/video policy. We recognize that our fans are the reason why the game is the major worldwide success it is, and we continue to want them to be able to enjoy the game without fear of being spoiled. However, we also heard your issues with the guidelines and have decided to revise them. Because we want to give players the most access to the game while respecting the original goal, we’re now asking players to refrain from streaming or posting video past the end of the in-game date of 11/19—when the main story gears up for the final act.
We also want to apologize to those of you who saw the previous guidelines blog post as threatening. We want to be transparent about what we do, and the reason we released the guidelines was to give streamers the right information up front. It was never our intention to threaten people with copyright strikes, but we clearly chose the wrong tone for how to communicate this.
Lastly, we want to thank our fans around the world for supporting Persona 5 and ATLUS. The game is a global success because of your passion for the series, and we’re happy that so many of you are enjoying it.
It feels like a compromise for now, but a big problem still remains. No one wants to start a stream or video series and take their audience on a journey for most of the game, but not finish it with them. What do the rest of you think?
Persona 5 is now available on both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3, in North America. This is easily my favorite JPRG in quite some time.
Source: Atlus Blog
