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[Holundrian]

Out of touch. Such a bummer. P5 still has dumb streaming restrictions too.
Honestly get with the times.

 

[Wiseblood]

Sure wish I could have shared my non-frame rate dropping best experiences with Persona 5 on consoles through streaming or even being able to take A FUCKING SCREENSHOT, but I guess they were just looking out for me too somehow there.

It was so dumb how every time you earned a trophy you would always get a "cannot take screenshot" message after the trophy notification.

 

[Eusis]

Please let us know what you think.

Ok, you're obviously just the messenger, but it's probably better to not send people out to try to talk nice about this stuff. Hell, I kind of expect you don't really agree with this, at least not to the "let's issue DMCA takedowns and C&Ds and all that crap" extent even if you do believe in the QA reasons. But I know I wouldn't want to shut down people trying to play that way (especially if they bought the game) for THAT reason.

 

[Lunar15]

Bad PR deflection from the fact that they did something they shouldn't have on very, very outdated and faulty logic.

Everything surrounding P5 has just been downright archaic. Atlus is paranoid as fuck and someone needs to talk some reason with the people making these decisions. They have to look around and see that they're largely alone on this.

 

[Xater]

Even if they ever made a PC version, I bet Atlus would try and crack down on the inevitable fan mods. They just want control of everything, likely from the Japan side.

They would try to find a way to prevent you from capturing footage.

Atlus Japan is so out if touch with reality it's ridiculous.

 

[Trago]

Just when you think this company couldn't be more out of touch, this shit happens.

 

[BigEmil]

PR damage controlling speak 101

 

[TyrantII]

This is a very even-handed statement. Though it won't stop people from emulating (their legally obtained rips).

I'm sure this will make Atlus US talk more seriously to Atlus JP about PC ports. I think that fans have had enough of the runaround by now.

Even handed statement.

Way stepping out the bounds of the DMCA to stop potential piracy.

 

[Deft Beck]

Atlas is so out of touch. Remember these are the guys that prevented streamers from broadcasting their game.

Classic example of leadership at a company that doesn't understand the industry they work in, their customer base, and how games industry is evolving toward.

Ironic that their latest game is all about questioning adult authority and challenging the frameworks of (Japanese) society yet the business surrounding the use and sale of the game is so traditional and allergic to the increasingly social and cosmopolitan gaming industry.

Even handed statement.

Way stepping out the bounds of the DMCA to stop potential piracy.

I meant that it doesn't use any incendiary language or blame pirates/the emulator devs directly.

 

[MUnited83]

This thread is scary.

All I'll say is I see both sides as valid things.

Emulation is very good for visual enhancements on old games you own and in many ways can make going back to old games more visually pleasing. Not illegal in the slightest.

However it does open up console exclusive games to PC pirates. And yes, PS3 and other consoles are hacked to allow piracy, but there's usually certain hoops most people aren't willing to jump through to access it. It's much simpler on PC.

As far as I stand, I'm conflicted in the whole debate, but Atlus is just stupid for DMCAing their Patreon and the Emulator itself. That's not okay.

I feel like Emulation wouldn't be a big issue if there was some period of time after the death of a console that Emulators could be released/made. But I'm sure there's arguments for that that could be brought up too.

It's a tough "fair for both sides" topic IMO.

What hoops? It's even easier to pirate on a PS3 than PC lol

 

[Stumpokapow]

Weren't there GAF moderators telling us Atlus didn't have a leg to stand on?

Three Pack of Life Pro Tips:

1) "GAF moderators" are individual people with individual opinions and unless we're relating to you GAF's rules there's nothing special or privileged about our opinions, and I don't even think of those of us who have participated in the discussion we agree on the details of either what should happen or what would happen if push came to shove.

2) Atlus making a blog post doesn't suggest anything about whether they have a legal leg to stand on, and to some extent "going public" is a political strategy to circumvent having to adjudicate the legal case. Also, the law system depends very little on whether you are legally correct and a lot about whether you are well resourced enough to bankrupt the other guy, because most cases are never tried to their final conclusion. This is essential to understand why literally anything happens in the justice system.

3) You have a brain that you can use besides expressing bewilderment at the conversation going on around you.

 

[vgamer1]

Weren't there GAF moderators telling us Atlus didn't have a leg to stand on?

EDIT: Read above.

 

[Akronis]

"Stopping emulation", again, assumes the predicate is piracy. There are dozens of instances of emulation being used to legally sell games, most notably by SEGA.

I recommend that people watch this talk by Frank Cifaldi about legal emulation.

I should've specified that I didn't mean to lump emulation in with piracy, just that for a lot of companies, emulation is equivalent to piracy.

 

[Peltz]

lollll

 

[PshycoNinja]

Meanwhile at Square Enix...

 

[Nzyme32]

Well emulation of hardware is certainly not illegal. Illegally pirating games is though. For people like me actually buying the hardware and games and then emulating years after the hardware is obsolete, I feel it valid for me to mess with what I already own in my own way privately. More so, it's far better in quality than having to dig out old hardware and then not have any inputs that work on the new TV. Emulation is pretty much the only way I can play my old PS2, Wii and GC games.

Even if they ever made a PC version, I bet Atlus would try and crack down on the inevitable fan mods. They just want control of everything, likely from the Japan side.

I like how currently Square Enix are in a "hold my beer" kind of mood with FFXV on PC. As we tend to see over the years, it just takes a few of these cases where there is a success and the sales are good and lots of others start to dig into the platform and experiement (badly at first, as with many of the OG ports in mid 2000 to 2010). Assuming Atlus Japan never bothers, at least an every increasing amount of companies in particular from Japan are opening up to the idea and finding success being on all manner of platforms.

 

[Lunarwhale]

Weren't there GAF moderators telling us Atlus didn't have a leg to stand on?

They don't.

What Atlus didn't mention in this PR release is that they actually failed to get the Patreon taken down, and the developers just removed screenshots and mentions of P5 from their site out of goodwill.

There have been lawsuits about the legality of emulators in the past. The best Atlus could do is force them out of business via legal fees.

 

[Alexander DeLarge]

Weren't there GAF moderators telling us Atlus didn't have a leg to stand on?

Yes and they're right. Not only is emulation legal, the emulation of anything required for local play is legal as well so their DRM argument was nonsense as well.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/new-dmca-ss1201-exemption-video-games-closer-look

 

[fireflame]

I have noticed that AtlusUSA have enabled pm function for people who are not followers or followed, meaning that they are being open to discussion. Maybe they are genuinely going to listen to feedback, this is the first time i see a pr account with mp enabled.

 

[Sami+]

You could start by announcing a PC version and maybe politely asking the RPCS3 team to remove the game from their site instead of immediately threatening (completely baseless) legal action and giving your fans nothing

you know just a thought

 

[Knurek]

Let's get serious here, even if they released a game on PC, it'd be on WinStore, to block user access to game files, with Denuvo and few other DRM solutions and, obviously, always online with a motherboard based single use licence.

 

[GhostTrick]

The last part of their statement also bothers me...



Where is the dialogue in the first place?
Isn't a dialogue supposed to go both ways?
Where do we leave feedback and get more than an empty PR reply? They don't even have a semi-competent PR person for this dialogue anymore, or if they have, they certainly don't let him/her talk...

Last time there was a dialog, it didn't ended well...

 

[Eolz]

I have noticed that AtlusUSA have enabled pm function for people who are not followers or followed, meaning that they are being open to discussion. Maybe they are genuinely going to listen to feedback, this is the first time i see a pr account with mp enabled.

Uh, that's an interesting one.
Not the first pr account to do so, but they didn't have it before. Feeling bad for the people that'll open angry dm to no moderation.

edit:

Last time there was a dialog, it didn't ended well...

Hey I remember that. At least he gave some explanation later on.
That was shitty, and his EU talk went absolutely nowhere, but at least there was a dialogue.

 

[Nights Owl]

What hoops? It's even easier to pirate on a PS3 than PC lol

I should mention that I typically meant on newly hacked consoles, such as low Firmware versions or really bizarre things (like back when you had to cut a certain part of your PSP battery, which was friggin' weird.)

I'm also not 100% up to date in PS3 hacking since the last time I looked at it was around the first year it actually became possible. So forgive my ignorance/stupidity in that regard.

I don't even know why they released P5 on PS3 if they cared about piracy that much. Maybe the fact that the amount of people who own a PS3 but not a PS4 would buy the game more than the people who have a PS3 for piracy, but I actually have no idea what their line of thought for that was.

 

[PokéKong]

Just saw this great take in a tweet: https://twitter.com/FioraAeterna/status/912751590854893568

So how exactly does a company with a 2 million copy selling game go about breaking down the numbers and figuring it's worth their time to go around squeezing every drop of blood from every single rock, firing every legal resource at their disposal at any possible venue which may in theory lower some questionably significant number of extra sales?

 

[Deft Beck]

I should've specified that I didn't mean to lump emulation in with piracy, just that for a lot of companies, emulation is equivalent to piracy.

Correct.

Like I've been saying, ideally, games should be out on as many platforms as it can feasibly be. This is the competitive advantage for Ubisoft, Activision, Square Enix, etc. and it seems to serve them well.

Meanwhile, Atlus wants to pretend that it's 1996.

 

[Tain]

Whatever, Atlus. This was extremely lame.

 

[Novel Mike]

Both arguments are true for every game ever made on every system ever made, so unless there's a part 2 blog post that explains why unique among the tens of thousands of commercially published games ever made, only Persona 5 needs its own rules. Only Persona 5 needs takedown notices for Twitch. Only Atlus games need to use the region locking functionality. Only Persona 5 needs emulator takedowns.

The best part about this is that Atlus USA benefitted immensely from all the things they tried to stop. Persona 5 Twitch takedown notices? One of the things that made the series gain such a huge following was long-play streams of the earlier games in the series. Region locking? The whole reason Atlus USA had one of their biggest hits ever, Demon's Souls, was because of high import demand for the game. Emulator takedowns? The culture of fan translations is why anyone has ever heard of half of Atlus' shit.

Absolutely fucking embarrassing. You reap what you sow, dumbasses.

So much truth!

Also I call bullshit onto the false idea that emulation=piracy. I've bought several Japanese games in order to use emulation and fan patches to play them in English. Shining Force 3 (all 3 scenarios), Tales of Veserpia, several Super Robot Wars games, ect. I could have easily have found many of those games illegally if I wanted to but I wanted to support these companies who make these great games and I know I am far from alone on that. Shining Force 3 is literally my favorite SRPG of all time, any time I can bring it up and introduce it to people I do and I would never had a chance to even know of its existence if not for emulation.

I've put up with a lot of what I find to be as bullshit from Atlus as of late. As Stumpokapow said, the streaming guidelines with Persona 5 that they enforce to take down videos and streams, the region locking on many of their products, and now this. It's not as if Atlus has a leg to stand on legally from what I understand either, they have no right to do this its a bullying tactic because its likely the guys behind this emulator couldn't raise money to actually fight a lawsuit even if Atlus knows they would lose.

I personally can't see myself supporting this company any longer. Atlus makes many games I do truly enjoy but if this is what they want then so be it. I don't care if this comes from the Japanese company or not, I will not give them my money as long as they continue to take stances like this and bully small groups of their own fans to get away with it.

 

[androvsky]

I mean, no company wants any game to be illegally emulated.

I guess it's a good thing these emulators are legal then. The only illegal thing happening is people decrypting the game disc through holes in the PS3 OS, and that's not illegal everywhere.

Sony vs. Bleem already established the legality of emulators, plus there was even a decision about the legality of Bleem using screenshots of Sony's games running in their emulator which the court also found to be fair use. And this is a commericial emulator a company was charging money for, and the lawsuit came after the passage of the DMCA. I don't see where Atlus even begins to have a valid argument against RPCS3 in any capacity.

 

[TheMadMan007]

All Atlus did is make me aware of this new PS3 emulator. Thanks Atlus!!

 

[Plumpbiscuit]

What Atlus didn't mention in this PR release is that they actually failed to get the Patreon taken down, and the developers just removed screenshots and mentions of P5 from their site out of goodwill.

Ah gotcha, the Patreon page is still up. Makes me wonder why Atlus even bothered to release that blog statement if they knew they failed the DMCA takedown?

There have been lawsuits about the legality of emulators in the past[/URL]. The best Atlus could do is force them out of business via legal fees.

I've seen other Patreon pages be taken down such as modders who make content for games, is this the same kind of situation where RPCS3 are liable for takedown for profiting off emulation though?

 

[s_mirage]

I was going to question exactly what it would take for Sega to bang some heads together over at Atlus. After all, Atlus's actions combined with their apparent refusal to entertain PC ports is damaging to their reputation, and is needlessly shutting out a potential revenue stream. Then I remembered that Sega Japan seems to have made similar decisions of its own (Youtube takedown fuckery, lack of ports of internally developed Japanese Sega titles, etc).

Sega, Atlus, KT... seriously, what is the problem that some Japanese publishers have with the PC?

 

[Knurek]

I don't even know why they released P5 on PS3 if they cared about piracy that much. Maybe the fact that the amount of people who own a PS3 but not a PS4 would buy the game more than the people who have a PS3 for piracy, but I actually have no idea what their line of thought for that was.

Well, they also release games on 3DS.
3-a fridge magnet and a $5 NDS flashcart to jailbreak in 15 fucking minutes-DS.

 

[daegan]

they’re 100% right to go after screenshots and videos of the game running in an emulated state IMO. the patreon itself is really distasteful but, Atlus JP’s lawyers seem intense as hell so that has to be how that happened. I feel bad for those at USA today.

 

[muteki]

Will have the exact opposite effect.

 

[Stumpokapow]

they’re 100% right to go after screenshots and videos of the game running in an emulated state IMO.

Please change your avatar, it is an unlicensed use of the copyrighted property of Oni Press. It is really distasteful.

 

[Darknight]

Wait WHAT??!!

Fuck Atlus, same to Konami. Anyone want to get the ball rolling?

 

[Plum]

Whilst it's true that the ability to play downloaded ROMs via emulation opens up games to even more potential piracy , going after the emulation itself will do, and has never done, anything. It's a boneheaded move that will just do the opposite of what they wanted, it's just silly.

The best way to combat Persona 5 piracy on PC would be to release a PC port, simple as that.

 

[Vamphuntr]

Pretty disappointing. Atlus USA continues to make bewildering decisions. That time when they've warned streamers they would take down their stream if they showed too much of the game was embarrassing too.

If only they had put as much effort proofreading their P5 script as they are when screwing people over...

 

[paperspace]

⁣

 

[cj_iwakura]

I wouldn't be surprised if this is an Atlus Japan decision and Atlus US is just trying to do damage control on something they have no say over, just like the streaming thing.

That's the only possibility. They're not an independent entity.

 

[Deft Beck]

Wait WHAT??!!

Fuck Atlus, same to Konami. Anyone want to get the ball rolling?

Let's not start #FuckAtlus. I've always viewed #FuckKonami as spiteful.

I want to be constructive. #AtlusPC.

Here's something I direct messaged to @AtlusUSA if you want to send them a similar message:

Let me be one of many, many people who are likely to say to your company that trying to shut down an emulator over one of your games is one of the most backwards things that I have ever seen. Not only is that incredibly petty, but strikes me as overbearing and dangerous to the entire legal enterprise of game emulation and preservation.

Now, this is a vital opportunity to talk to corporate and have them seriously consider a PC port of Persona 5 and potentially other games. If you can't do 5, do Persona 4 Golden. Anything to get your foot in the door and engage with the modern Western gamer, who might not have a PS3, a PS4, or a Vita. Or, anyone who didn't have an interest in JRPGs who might primarily game on PCs.

It's the least you could do, and it's a great opportunity. Don't mess this up instead of letting yourself fall further behind.

 

[Akronis]

I was going to question exactly what it would take for Sega to bang some heads together over at Atlus. After all, Atlus's actions combined with their apparent refusal to entertain PC ports is damaging to their reputation, and is needlessly shutting out a potential revenue stream. Then I remembered that Sega Japan seems to have made similar decisions of its own (Youtube takedown fuckery, lack of ports of internally developed Japanese Sega titles, etc).

Sega, Atlus, KT... seriously, what is the problem that some Japanese publishers have with the PC?

I honestly think some Japanese devs think that PCs aren't used for gaming or something.

 

[AcceptableGhost]

Fuck off Atlus, what a terrible company.

 

[GhostTrick]

Whilst it's true that the ability to play downloaded ROMs via emulation opens up games to even more potential piracy, going after the emulation itself will do, and has never done, anything. It's a boneheaded move that will just do the opposite of what they wanted, it's just silly.

The best way to combat Persona 5 piracy on PC would be to release a PC port, simple as that.

Yeah, but Atlus don't want people to play Persona 5 on PC. So releasing it on PC defeats the purpose. You'll notice the DMCA didn't strike a piracy website with Persona 5 illegal copies or a website explaining how to use illegal backups on PS3. Heck, the DMCA excuse was "it shouldn't be played on PC".

 

[kadotsu]

I bet they never used any emulation on stuff like SMT for iOS.

 

[Pie and Beans]

It was so dumb how every time you earned a trophy you would always get a "cannot take screenshot" message after the trophy notification.

Heard it in Morgana's voice every time.

 

[MUnited83]

they’re 100% right to go after screenshots and videos of the game running in an emulated state IMO. the patreon itself is really distasteful but, Atlus JP’s lawyers seem intense as hell so that has to be how that happened. I feel bad for those at USA today.

No they aren't. They literally do not have the legal right to go after it.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Atlus: Old School Fun, Old School IP Management

 

[shiyrley]

I have noticed that AtlusUSA have enabled pm function for people who are not followers or followed, meaning that they are being open to discussion. Maybe they are genuinely going to listen to feedback, this is the first time i see a pr account with mp enabled.

I sent them this:

Please release Persona 5 on PC. We just want to play your game. If you are worried about people having a "bad experience" with the emulator, well, the only way to avoid that is to release a better, official version yourselves. You can't stop PC people from playing your game, it's physically impossible, but if presented with a better option, they will gladly take it. And worrying about someone playing the PC version on some terrible PC with framerate drops is like worrying someone will play the PS3 version in some horrible old tube TV from the 90s. Someone, somewhere will do it, you can't avoid it and it doesn't make the product worse or give a bad image of the product. People love and buy Japanese games on PC, just provide support for 60 (and more if possible) FPS, arbitrary resolution, make it run decently and don't include some draconian DRM. That's it, you're set, enjoy the sales.

And please leave emulators alone. If you want to look good to your potential/future PC customers you can't just DCMA stuff because you don't think they provide a good enough experience of your product. Provide the intended experience yourselves.

Will it serve any purpose? lol no

But I had to try