So there is a whole shitstorm that has blown up over
Atlus' Persona 5 "streaming rules". From the looks of it, Atlus USA knew this was going to blow up in their faces because they slipped in the line I have bold in below. As expected, the rules have had the exact opposite effect and now people are going out of their way to stream and post spoilers as one big middle finger to Atlus.
It's a sad situation really, the game is great and this was in no way necessary as those of us who really wanted to play through it wouldn't have bothered with it in the first place and those who were curious likely would have been drawn into buying the game from viewing streaming (as was the case with Persona 4 when it exploded into popularity thanks to the "endurance run" streams on Giant Bomb).
Since they disabled the share function on PS4, so you can't stream or share through it, I wasn't able to give my friend a preview of the game when he was wanting to check it out. I know he would have wanted to buy the game, but after we discovered why I couldn't shareplay it he was like "Fuck that game! That's bullshit!"
They're really shooting themselves in the foot with all this nonsense.
Ok, now let’s talk Persona 5 streaming and videos. Simply put, we don’t want the experience to be spoiled for people who haven’t played the game. Our fans have waited years for the game to come out and we really want to make sure they can experience it fully as a totally new adventure. Please read our video/streaming guidelines below:
Please, PLEASE do not post any specific plot points or story spoilers, and only talk about the game in broad strokes. (Good example: “The game deals with dark themes right off the bat, with a lecherous teacher and other corrupted individuals.” Bad example: “Players immediately run into trouble with the pervy teacher *spoiler*, whose actions go so far as to cause *spoiler*.”)
You’re more than welcome to talk/show Confidants, the new combat, the Velvet Room, the dungeons, etc. Just please keep in mind that as a singular story playthrough, viewers are *highly* wary of spoilers!
In-game Content Limit: Please limit video content through the in-game date of 7/7.
Video Content
*You can post however many additional videos you’d like, but please limit each to be at most 90 minutes long.
*No major story spoilers, and I’ll leave that up to your good judgment. If you need some guidelines, avoid showing/spoiling the ending segments of the first three palaces. While you can show initial interactions with Yusuke, avoid his awakening scene, and that whole deal about THE painting. Also, don’t post anything about a certain student investigator.
*I know I mentioned not showing the end of each palace, but you can grab footage from the Kamoshida boss fight. However, don’t capture video from the other major boss fights.
*Must not focus solely on cutscenes/animated scenes, should prominently feature dungeon crawling/spending time in Tokyo.
*You can post straight gameplay or have commentary.
Streaming Content
This being a Japanese title with a single-playthrough story means our masters in Japan are very wary about it. Sharing is currently blocked through the native PS4 UI. However, if you do plan on streaming, video guidelines above apply except length. If you decide to stream past 7/7 (I HIGHLY RECOMMEND NOT DOING THIS, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED), you do so at the risk of being issued a content ID claim or worse, a channel strike/account suspension.