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[Frabba]

You'd be surprised.

These are actual replies to the Kotaku article on the subject. Looks like there is indeed a defense force for everything.

I kind of agree with Atlus too, but I think they're going about it all wrong. What they probably need to be working towards is getting the same protections against "Unauthorized broadcast" of gameplay footage as you have for movies. Let's get those FBI warnings added to the pre-title screen logos!

For me, live streaming is basically Rifftrax for videogames. The content provider ostensibly is trying to add something to the presentation, whether it be humor, behind the scenes details, etc. When you buy Rifftrax, you only get the audio overlay, you still need to go out and buy/source the actual movie itself if you want to watch along.

There are arguments to be made about allowing streaming affecting sales in both directions. I can understand why people are upset, even if I don't agree with them.

 

[Kazzy]

Also, it's almost as if they've forgotten just how important word-of-mouth and ground swell has been to the Persona franchise. It was honestly the consistent chatter, along with stuff like the endurance run that eventually turned me into trying the games, as I have no doubt it would have been for a lot of people.

 

[Mozendo]

Got it man. Since Atlus has been published their 'guidelines', I think streamers know what they need to share.

I would recommend they stream Mementos/dungeon gameplay (with Hard difficulty, lol), world activity, social links boost...etc not related to the core story.

People who are interested in the game aren't interested in just one portion.

 

[Eusis]

That makes Atlus USA complicit then, supposing that they know better and did nothing anyway.

They'd argue the case likely but get shot down.

Is it really worth losing your job over this? Well, some of us might be angry enough for that, but you shouldn't hold that against them.

 

[Ploid 3.0]

I've waited on this game for a while. I loved 3 and 4, and I was just wondering which version of 5 I should get. I'm not really in a rush to play it since I have a lot of games on my plate now, yet I play old favorite arpgs over them, but can only play so many. I will just wait on the PS3 version to drop in price, thenget it whenever. Well if the PS4 version is also cheap I'll just get that, I doubt it'll be lower than PS3 though. I don't even have Horizon yet (I would only want it for the best graphics ever. Not my kind of game anymore).

Stupid idea Atlus, you were supposed to be one of the cool ones. I don't personally want to see the game streamed too much, but I don't want this to catch on with all publishers.

Capcom: No more streaming tournaments unless you pay us a fee.
Sony: No more streaming any of story mode in our games past the first hour.
EA: No more streaming Mass Effect and Dragon Age.
Bethesda: Please someone buy mods from our app... We can hold streaming hostage and fine Nexus and other websites. We realize we have power over what you can share now.

 

[Ritzboof]

There are arguments to be made about allowing streaming affecting sales in both directions.

but i feel like the data for games doing well with minimal control over the media overwhelmingly outweighs any evidence that they do poorly because people dont need to buy them anymore. even if some people can testify that they didnt buy a game because they watched it, a couple folks have said this already, but the popularity and good will that you get by letting your game spread through media is massively more important than the few sale you might hypothetically lose

you get more sales anyways, not even just in the long run, but because people are actually seeing your fucking game and will buy it

 

[IronLich]

If they are so protective about spoilers getting out, perhaps they shouldn't have taken 7 months to bring the game to the rest of the world.

Again, this wouldn't be possible. ATLUS is not making money hand over fist, so they couldn't afford the resources for a WW release. Not to mention Atlus USA at the time had their hands full getting SMT4 Apocalypse out the door, among other things.

Now holding the JPN release back to match the WW release... that would be more realistic.

 

[Frabba]

but i feel like the data for games doing well with minimal control over the media overwhelmingly outweighs any evidence that they do poorly because people dont need to buy them anymore. even if some people can testify that they didnt buy a game because they watched it, a couple folks have said this already, but the popularity and good will that you get by letting your game spread through media is massively more important than the few sale you might hypothetically lose

you get more sales anyways, not even just in the long run, but because people are actually seeing your fucking game and will buy it

That's your prerogative. I don't know enough specific data either way. What I will note however is that businesses aren't concerned with just doing "well", they want to sell as much as possible. My personal feeling is that these decisions are not made in a vacuum, there may be data that we are not privy to that indicated making this decision was the best option for total sales. This conclusion may ultimately turn out to be incorrect, but time will tell.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

Stupid idea Atlus, you were supposed to be one of the cool ones.

Honestly, the writing has been on the wall for several years now.

Back when Catherine released, Atlus of Japan released an identical warning via Twitter
They did the same for Persona Q
And the fighting game
And Persona 4 Golden

Maybe Atlus never really ground down their goodwill after this many stupid 'fuck you social media' moments, but if you paid enough attention you knew that they weren't going to break tradition with P5. The pushback is finally louder than before because Atlus is intentionally crippling a distinguishing feature of this generation's consoles and that ain't cool. They were never cool.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Sad to see how disconnected from their fan base they are.

The type of people looking to watch a Let's Play are not doing so at the expense of playing the game for themselves. They are foolish if they think streaming is anything but a benefit to the public perception and popularity of a game.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

This is silly send what is there reasoning?

They believe people won't buy the game if they know it?

A lot of Japanese developers are weirdly protective about the stories they create. You'll often see it in strategy guides released over there around launch where they aren't at all comprehensive and only cover up to a certain point in the game so as not to spoil anything for the fans.

They really just don't get it at all.

 

[Ploid 3.0]

Honestly, the writing has been on the wall for several years now.

Back when Catherine released, Atlus of Japan released an identical warning via Twitter
They did the same for Persona Q
And the fighting game
And Persona 4 Golden

Maybe Atlus never really ground down their goodwill after this many stupid 'fuck you social media' moments, but if you paid enough attention you knew that they weren't going to break tradition with P5. The pushback is finally louder than before because Atlus is intentionally crippling a distinguishing feature of this generation's consoles and that ain't cool. They were never cool.

I skipped those games, I remember how cool they were with Demon's Souls, them bringing games over that we would be lucky to wish for, and other stuff. Maybe it's just Persona they are very protective of. Persona 4 was a long time ago, before the big streaming stuff I think.

 

[Dynomutt]

I've waited on this game for a while. I loved 3 and 4, and I was just wondering which version of 5 I should get. I'm not really in a rush to play it since I have a lot of games on my plate now, yet I play old favorite arpgs over them, but can only play so many. I will just wait on the PS3 version to drop in price, thenget it whenever. Well if the PS4 version is also cheap I'll just get that, I doubt it'll be lower than PS3 though. I don't even have Horizon yet (I would only want it for the best graphics ever. Not my kind of game anymore).

Stupid idea Atlus, you were supposed to be one of the cool ones. I don't personally want to see the game streamed too much, but I don't want this to catch on with all publishers.

Capcom: No more streaming tournaments unless you pay us a fee.
Sony: No more streaming any of story mode in our games past the first hour.
EA: No more streaming Mass Effect and Dragon Age.
Bethesda: Please someone buy mods from our app... We can hold streaming hostage and fine Nexus and other websites. We realize we have power over what you can share now.

I don't think it will but to play devil's advocate with content owners there is no implicit right to stream. What Atlus should have done was either curate/work out promo streams with top streamers or realistically let people know before they paid good money for the game to me this is a bigger deal. Ultimately this is about greenbacks.

I compare this to rebroadcasting major sporting events NFL, MLB, NBA explicitly own rights. NBA has been a but lax lately with many YouTube channels on the rise with post game clips as for them it helps grow the brand with their demographic.

I was actually surprised this hasn't happened earlier.

 

[ghostjoke]

Take note, Atlus.

 

[AdmiralMikey]

I'm curious to know if Japan has the same kind of LiveStream/Let's Play culture as we've fostered here in the US. It just seems to me that it's often Japanese companies who are the ones who actively fight against people creating videos and livestreaming their games, like Nintendo, Konami and Sega/Atlus.

It seems to me like there's a lack of understanding between how westerners view/handle gameplay streams and videos and the threat that the Japanese publishers believe they pose.

If I want Persona 5 to be spoiled for me, then that's my decision, not Atlus'.

 

[Frabba]

I'm curious to know if Japan has the same kind of LiveStream/Let's Play culture as we've fostered here in the US. It just seems to me that it's often Japanese companies who are the ones who actively fight against people creating videos and livestreaming their games, like Nintendo, Konami and Sega/Atlus.

It seems to me like there's a lack of understanding between how westerners view/handle gameplay streams and videos and the threat that the Japanese publishers believe they pose.

If I want Persona 5 to be spoiled for me, then that's my decision, not Atlus'.

Or it's the decision of the random angry children who are carpet bombing discussions on this topic with P5 ending spoilers.

 

[Graciaus]

A company setting a price for their product isn't really the same thing as a company dictating what consumers can do with their product whilst threatening action if they don't follow along.

So the reaction is suitably different.

Not really. They set the price higher because they could and people would pay it. They took the feature away and people will still buy it. The few boycotts won't outway the many.

 

[Weltall Zero]

That's a funny way of saying "having moral standards"

I admit I don't have much respect for moral standards that don't change an undesirable situation one bit.

My reasoning is: I'm not usually the guy that screams "boycott!" at every thing i don't like especially if i already bought the product (it's actually the first time), so if this made me so mad to actually do it i think that people more sensible on the matter are doing the same, adding all the people up i hope to reach a statistical relevance to change things around.
If my line of reasoning is somehow flawed and I end up being a lone wolf in this whole debacle so be it,

If there is a flaw in your line of reasoning, it's that it has nothing to do with how many people boycott the game or not. A single person contacting Atlus and unambiguously telling them why you are enraged about this decision will have a much better shot at actually doing something than a few thousand people not buying the game and not saying a thing.

i'm still proud of not encouraging and funding such a bad game from such a bad company.

If you think the game is bad, then by all means not buying the game is the sensible thing to do. I was under the impression you were specifically pissed about, and wished to change, a certain policy.

On the other hand, if feeling proud is more important to you that actually affecting future outcomes, by all means keep voting with your money, as long as you are aware that what that vote says is "don't make any more games like this".

 

[LeleSocho]

I admit I don't have much respect for moral standards that don't change an undesirable situation one bit.



If there is a flaw in your line of reasoning, it's that it has nothing to do with how many people boycott the game or not. A single person contacting Atlus and unambiguously telling them why you are enraged about this decision will have a much better shot at actually doing something than a few thousand people not buying the game and not saying a thing.



If you think the game is bad, then by all means not buying the game is the sensible thing to do. I was under the impression you were specifically pissed about, and wished to change, a certain policy.

On the other hand, if feeling proud is more important to you that actually affecting future outcomes, by all means keep voting with your money, as long as you are aware that what that vote says is "don't make any more games like this".

The game becomes retroactively bad because stuff like this makes me not enjoy it not because it was boring or something like that (though it took me an hour to fix a glitch in the audio which was quite annoying tbh ).
Don't worry about it though, Atlus already had my personal thoughts on the matter trough proper channels, returning the game was just icing on the cake.

 

[AlexFlame116]

Indifferent about the streaming aspect, but goddammit- let me take screenshots of the game.

This right here. I had no idea about this endurance run being a thing until now. I found out about Persona 4 due to a magazine. Though I can see how much this affects people, I'm not cancelling my preorder cause streaming the game was never going to be something for me. It still absolutely sucks though. Especially the fact that I can't take pictures of my game.

I'm sending a letter to Altus UP. If they are the culprit, then I sent it to the right place, if they aren't, then at least they'll be aware.

The game becomes retroactively bad because stuff like this makes me not enjoy it.

....well, at least it's your money so you can do what you want with it. But this doesn't mean that the game is "bad". It was your decision though. I won't say more on it.

 

[Replicant]

This game is released during the busiest time of the year where there are lots of quality games coming out.

This will make the game undesirable to anyone else other than the fans. They could have appealed to other gamers but this kind of "do what we ask you do or else!" just makes people bitter.

 

[SolicitorPirate]

I kind of agree with Atlus too, but I think they're going about it all wrong. What they probably need to be working towards is getting the same protections against "Unauthorized broadcast" of gameplay footage as you have for movies. Let's get those FBI warnings added to the pre-title screen logos!

For me, live streaming is basically Rifftrax for videogames. The content provider ostensibly is trying to add something to the presentation, whether it be humor, behind the scenes details, etc. When you buy Rifftrax, you only get the audio overlay, you still need to go out and buy/source the actual movie itself if you want to watch along.

There are arguments to be made about allowing streaming affecting sales in both directions. I can understand why people are upset, even if I don't agree with them.

Is there? Like I am genuinely unaware of any game that did well on the streaming scene which then went on to underperform in sales.

 

[guybrushfreeman]

Was really surprised to see this announcement - like many ppl here I got into Persona 4 after watching the endurance run.

I honestly wonder how much they're willing to invest in terms of enforcing this rule. I imagine it's somewhat costly to have someone go through all of the popular video streaming sites on the internet and issue DMCA takedowns for each piece of content that streams past 7/7 in the game from now through the forseeable future.

Edit: Take it with a grain of salt, but this was part of some internal research we conducted at Twitch on how streaming affects game sales: https://blog.twitch.tv/https-blog-twitch-tv-game-creator-success-on-twitch-hard-numbers-688154815817 - definitely have a look at it critically if you're interested in the ways that streaming impacts playing habits in games!

Thank you for sharing. It's useful to have that analysis

Edit: People should really pay attention to that link as it directly discusses many of the points being brought up in discussion here

 

[Colocho]

While I'll never understand the appeal of the streaming culture, this is just fucking ridiculous.

 

[Murgatroyd]

Who cares. Just play the game. Devs spent many years, many man hours, and lots of money to make it. It's great, worth every cent it costs. Don't shit all over them and their work.

People not buying the game now just because of this are dumb. All the madness in the world these days, and this is the "hardcore shit" to get all white hat dramatic over is some BS.

If you are a streamer for a living, sorry this is making it harder. But it's their right to do it. You can work around it, though it sucks jumping through hoops.

If you don't buy many games and just watch streams of others playing, i have no sympathy for you that you can't see for free the entire game you were probably not going to buy. I know streaming must be your generations television, so It must feel like if the series finale of Twin Peaks was not shown because a fucking baseball game went overtime. Bad times.

 

[KyleCross]

I'm just surprised how many people think they have the right to stream games when they actually don't, most companies just let it happen.

 

[SolicitorPirate]

Who cares. Just play the game. Devs spent many years, many man hours, and lots of money to make it. It's great, worth every cent it costs. Don't shit all over them and their work.

People not buying the game now just because of this are dumb. All the madness in the world these days, and this is the "hardcore shit" to get all white hat dramatic over is some BS.

If you are a streamer for a living, sorry this is making it harder. But it's their right to do it. You can work around it, though it sucks jumping through hoops.

If you don't buy many games and just watch streams of others playing, i have no sympathy for you that you can't see for free the entire game you were probably not going to buy. I know streaming must be your generations television, so It must feel like if the series finale of Twin Peaks was not shown because a fucking baseball game went overtime. Bad times.

I care because as a fan of the genre, I have a vested interest in seeing high quality JRPGs succeed.

Persona 5 is in a unique position to grow the franchise and reach an audience that Atlus games rarely reach. And rather than nurturing that growth, Atlus seems to be doing everything in the power to handicap it

 

[munchie64]

Who cares. Just play the game. Devs spent many years, many man hours, and lots of money to make it. It's great, worth every cent it costs. Don't shit all over them and their work.

People not buying the game now just because of this are dumb. All the madness in the world these days, and this is the "hardcore shit" to get all white hat dramatic over is some BS.

If you are a streamer for a living, sorry this is making it harder. But it's their right to do it. You can work around it, though it sucks jumping through hoops.

If you don't buy many games and just watch streams of others playing, i have no sympathy for you that you can't see for free the entire game you were probably not going to buy. I know streaming must be your generations television, so It must feel like if the series finale of Twin Peaks was not shown because a fucking baseball game went overtime. Bad times.

Ah the old "why are you upset over this and not the real terrible shit" fallacy. I promise you, this problem is not taking away any time from my problems with social or political or whatever issues particularly in my country.

Now that that's out of the way, your insistence on asking "who cares" when half your post discusses reasons for people TO care is a little unfair don't you think? I care because in the modern day, this is a backwards business decision that effects the games community and may set a bad precedent.

I don't see many people shitting on the game itself, but just like Atlus technically have a right to do this (which people are very happy to keep mentioning like it makes it any less consumer-unfriendly) we have a right to try and make a noise about bad practices to stop them from happening again.

 

[Aurizen]

I think sony should change shareplay to work with all games and not give dev's control over what is shared or not. Shareplay is a deciding factor is someone who wants to buy a game.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I don't get why Atlus in the West feels the need for long-winded explanations to cover the asses of Atlus JP.

Just say "Japan doesn't allow it and we have no power to decide anything, so this is how it is. Sorry. Please direct all complaints via fax in fluent written Japanese directly to our Japan office" and call it a day.

 

[Modoru]

Given all the controversy, I decided to make a joke vid, if anyone would like to use;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0hqJD7tsjs

 

[Gentleman Jack]

Given all the controversy, I decided to make a joke vid, if anyone would like to use;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0hqJD7tsjs

Sega will still copyright strike you for competing with their search results

Spoiler

jk

 

[King Gilga]

as long as you are aware that what that vote says is "don't make any more games like this".

That's their problem not his.

Who cares. Just play the game. Devs spent many years, many man hours, and lots of money to make it. It's great, worth every cent it costs. Don't shit all over them and their work.

Naw, fuck them lots of people spend many years, many man hours, and lots of money to make plenty of products that doesn't mean they automatically deserve your money.

I like taking screenshots of my games, and I won't give my money to a company who takes that away for no real reason other than to be assholes. They don't deserve my money.

 

[pariah164]

Slept on this; still feel it's bullshit.

I don't own a PS4, nor do I have the funds available to buy one, so yeah, an LP was how I was going to experience this game. I don't think this will change things much though; someone is gonna upload the whole game, and eat the DMCA/strike if they have to.

 

[CircusOfClouds]

Just watched the first episode of the super best friend's P5 LP. Atlus has NO IDEA how hard LPs like this promote the game. They pretty much just orgasmed throughout the episode

 

[MindGamingMantis]

Sony really needs to fix the way their sharing works. What's the point of implementing features if devs can disable them?

It's a big part of what makes the ps4 awesome, and devs disable it just because they don't want people to see their game lol.

Fuck that. This isn't 1998 or 2004. That said idc if LPers can't make money off of another company's ip.

 

[Fancolors]

Is there? Like I am genuinely unaware of any game that did well on the streaming scene which then went on to underperform in sales.

https://blog.twitch.tv/https-blog-twitch-tv-game-creator-success-on-twitch-hard-numbers-688154815817

This is the only data I could find on the effect streams have on game sales, and it comes from Twitch, so it might be a tad biased. It is also important to note that most of them are multiplayer.

I wish we had a more conclusive study on streams may affect purchases. They are the reason I got into visual novels, despite everything with the genre being the worst to generate sales from streaming.

 

[charlequin]

There are arguments to be made about allowing streaming affecting sales in both directions.

Yes, but one of them is wrong.

 

[Phu]

Just watched the first episode of the super best friend's P5 LP. Atlus has NO IDEA how hard LPs like this promote the game. They pretty much just orgasmed throughout the episode

That episode is almost heartbreaking seeing them love the game so much.

 

[Xater]

Fuck Atlus.

Can the Japanese games industry please try and finally get with the times? The rest of the world has already decided that streaming is cool and proven that it benefits your games.

 

[Eusis]

I skipped those games, I remember how cool they were with Demon's Souls, them bringing games over that we would be lucky to wish for, and other stuff. Maybe it's just Persona they are very protective of. Persona 4 was a long time ago, before the big streaming stuff I think.

It's important to remember there's a distinction to be made between Atlus the NA publisher and Atlus the Japanese developer. Atlus USA is generally great about listening to fans and going the extra mile within reason while Atlus the developer... is probably a typical console Japanese developer, honestly. A very good one, but still have these bullshit hang ups. Note how for games Atlus published but didn't develop they'd frequently try to go dual audio, while with their own games it's like pulling teeth to get those options.

 

[FluxWaveZ]

It's important to remember there's a distinction to be made between Atlus the NA publisher and Atlus the Japanese developer. Atlus USA is generally great about listening to fans and going the extra mile within reason while Atlus the developer... is probably a typical console Japanese developer, honestly. A very good one, but still have these bullshit hang ups.

There's further distinction to be made between Atlus, the Japanese developer, and Atlus the Japanese publisher. The creative teams making Persona 5 aren't the ones who are then making the decision to restrict Sharing features for the game.

 

[Eusis]

There's further distinction to be made between Atlus, the Japanese developer, and Atlus the Japanese publisher. The creative teams making Persona 5 aren't the ones who are then making the decision to restrict Sharing features for the game.

This is true. Most likely the creative teams don't care or try to have fun with some of this nonsense (just look at that Teddie spoiler thing. Nevermind... something... very very early into P5) but the higher ups will have their heads in the sand.

 

[Goldboy]

Was so excited to play the game, then watch the Super Best Friends playthrough, until this happened. It's not the end of the world, but Atlus lost a ton of good will from me and many others with this decision.

 

[ffvorax]

I don't care but, this is just stupid... Atlus is living in the past.

People must be free to do what they want with the game, and all this will just give people more motives to give spoilers just for make fun of them.... :\

 

[Meffer]

Sucks but we gotta respect their wishes.

No way in hell.

 

[Weltall Zero]

The game becomes retroactively bad because stuff like this makes me not enjoy it not because it was boring or something like that (though it took me an hour to fix a glitch in the audio which was quite annoying tbh ).

I don't quite understand how outside policies unrelated to a game itself can make it "bad", but I also acknowledge "bad" is subjective so if that's how you feel, that's how it is.

Don't worry about it though, Atlus already had my personal thoughts on the matter trough proper channels, returning the game was just icing on the cake.

Excellent! Let's focus on that and encourage people to also do the same.

That's their problem not his.

I think you're confusing "not being a problem for someone" with "not being someone's obligation to fix". Forbidding the game to be streamed is obviously a problem "for him" and not "for Atlus", who set the policy in the first place. In order for the policy to change, it needs to be a problem "for Atlus", and the only way to do so is to let them know why you're boycotting the game (indeed, that you are boycotting it at all). I would think it's not rocket science.

 

[xuchu]

Lol

 

[Avallon]

So this game has been sitting pretty high on Twitch. I'm not watching, but what's the deal?

Is everyone ignoring Atlus or are they only streaming up until 7/7?

I doubt it's the latter.

 

[Gai Murakumo]

Just watched the first episode of the super best friend's P5 LP. Atlus has NO IDEA how hard LPs like this promote the game. They pretty much just orgasmed throughout the episode

I watched that episode yesterday and before that with the Podcast before all of these shenanigans it was going to be a daily LP because of how long it was going to take. When I saw Part 1/3 I was like what?!? Then I remembered what Atlus is doing and I was so saddened especially seeing how hyped they were in this first part.