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.
I understand the spoilers thing going on, but at the same time, trying to restrict streamers from showing your game in any way is a really bad decision. People will buy your game if they’re able to see how the game plays, get honest opinions from people that play it, listen to the music, see what the personas look like, see the general theme for the game, etc. Not to mention that people streaming the game is free advertising for it.
I’m a steamer, but after seeing how Atlus has handled streaming for persona 5, it has honestly made me not want to support the company with future purchases. I bought personas 1 – 4 Arena at least twice for each game (console release plus handheld versions). Persona 4 Arena was the original version and Ultimax version.
If other companies such as Square-Enix were to do this it would cause their fan base to abandon them. It’s understandable for portions of a game that has a copyright protected song or something like that, but what Atlus has done is far beyond that.
I’m seriously thinking of not supporting the company any more because of this horrible decision that you guys took against people that share memorable moments in gaming.
Remember that people that stream games buy those games. They aren’t hurting your company by posting videos, in fact they’re doing the opposite. They’re promoting your company and your product. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen a video of game footage of a title I didn’t know about and decided to buy that game because of the exact people that your company is taking action against.
I’m extremely disappointed in Atlus for the actions that you guys have taken against us streamers. I hope you guys learn from this horrible Injustice you put on people that but your product.
Will this include podcasts as well or just video of the game?