Earlier this month, Atlus warned streamers to not broadcast beyond an early point in the game, seemingly threatening content claims and strikes for anyone who defied their wishes. Today, Atlus is walking some of that back.
Recognising that Persona‘s popularity can be partially attributed to streamers, Atlus says it has reconsidered how it will approach Persona 5 broadcasts. Previously, Atlus prohibited people from streaming beyond the 7/7 in-game date, something that upset some hardcore fans. While it isn’t a perfect solution, Atlus has decided to move that date back a few months:
We recognise 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 apologise 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.
Now if only we could use the PS4’s built-in share button… alas, the world will not be able to see my embarrassing attempt to date every girl in Persona 5.
Comments
12 responses to “Atlus Apologises For Persona 5 Streaming Restrictions, Loosens Them”
“Respecting the original goal” – there will be a subset of people who still will cry “censorship” even now, sadly.
Atlus may not be right to apologise, per se, but clearly it’s a sign of extending an olive branch to anybody who felt directly targeted or at risk.
This should never have elicited the kind of backlash it did, but now it’s the audience’s turn to either respond maturely, or watch more “opinion videos” with swearing weirdos in them.
Meanwhile, there are videos on youtube that show the final boss in the thumbnail.
If you are going to be this pedantic about it Atlus at least do what you said you would do.
I found it really hard to get into P4 (the story felt absolutely glacial, and I quit partway through the second dungeon), so was ready to just ignore P5. Enthusiastic discussion of it came up in a podcast I listen to, so I decided to look into it a bit more, and found a twitch stream of it. It spoiled the second boss for me, but I’m now 30 hours in and really enjoying it.
I find the blanket prevention of screenshotting and video capture baffling, too, considering the amazing visual style was half of what drew me into the game in the first place.
Jesus fuck, just how far does a company feel like it has to go to ‘protect’ people from being spoiled when they intentionally click into something that they should have every reasonable expectation will contain spoilers?
The anti-spoiler brigade is fucking nuts. Where’s the personal responsibility?
Unless this wasn’t actually about spoilers and was simply typical publisher control-freak issues like every other case of ham-fisted copyright abuse.
Agreed. Ive never had a video game spoiled for me. I just avoid reddit etc till im ready
I’d say the actual reason was very much one of, “If people can watch the whole thing on Youtube, then there’s no reason for them to buy it.”
Which to me is pretty sound reasoning for a company to not want their entire game broadcast to the masses. Naturally they can’t just come straight out and say that was the reason though, or they’d be labelled money hungry assholes even though they’re a business trying to do those silly business things like make money.
I’d say I was surprised nobody has really tried to enforce this before with any number of games broadcast to completion through Let’s Play videos, etc, but I suspect they didn’t want to have to deal with precisely what Atlus did here.
People dont watch live streams or lets plays because they dont want to have to buy the game. They watch them so they can see the reaction of the host to playing the game. If anything a persons favourite streamer/ Youtuber encourages people to buy the game. Ive bought plenty of games because ive watched a streamer play it fully. You only need to look at the PewDiePie effect on some games to see that a person streaming/ Putting up a lets play on youtube has positive effects on sales.
Not true.
I’ve watched a couple of games on Youtube to see the game, and there are entire channels out there dedicated to purely showing the story to completion with zero input from a host.
I freely admit that most of the Let’s Plays or such I watch are for those playing, and the game is largely irrelevant, but saying it doesn’t happen is simply incorrect.
As for the PewDiePie effect… I agree with that. A LOT of games absolutely benefit from Youtubers, Twitch streamers, etc. Its actually the prime reason I think letting people stream games can be overall more beneficial to a company than not, but if it is a game that is a straight story experience that becomes far less likely in my mind.
I dont’ think there is any sound reasoning for a game company to restrict people from sharing a game that they paid for except in one instance, where if other players would be in direct competition with others and the sharing would give an advantage of some sort. Even then it’s a little heavy handed.
Online games, sure… you abide by the rules of the online environment but in single player thats just overreaching. That you’re surprised that other game companies have done this before seems that you give all too much power and control to the companies that are merely entertainment publishers.
Besides the fact that the idea of trying to control your consumer base, especially the game community, is futile. The more you tighten the vice on them the more they will be determined to do the opposite. Most other game companies didn’t have to learn the hard way like Atlus did. Plenty of FAQs, reddits, forum posts and stuff that reveal far more than this anyway and they can’t police the whole internet.
I think they did the right thing in apologizing and their tone is more like what the gamers would have originally listened to. you get more bees with honey than vinegar. Ask us not to spoil the game, treat us with respect and without the authoritative attitude and you’ll find more gamers complying.
I just really want to take screenshots 🙁
This game is stylish as hell, it’s made for screenshots!
I’ve a much better appreciation for the tone of this message from Altus than the last message which essentially said “Don’t f&%kin’ do it, ok?!”
Seems like someone might have found their keywords. On the one hand it feels like they are slowly coming around to being amenable to the idea of streaming being a big part of modern culture, but on the other hand it feels like they’re just trying to look less like a villain. “You can come out of your room now, but you’re still grounded and can’t leave the house”.
I think someone in their PR department told them to change.