With the upcoming port of Persona 5 Royal to non-PlayStation consoles, Atlus have issued a set of guidelines for players to follow in streaming the popular JRPG – and thankfully, they’re a bit more relaxed than the ones issued alongside the game’s original release.
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Atlus re-released said guidelines on October 13th in a blogpost published to their official website.
Opening with a brief summary of their rules, Atlus laid out the basic tenets of their requests, beginning with the “basic rule [that] streaming and gameplay of Persona 5 Royal will be allowed once the game is officially available in your region.”
“Since Persona 5 Royal is a worldwide release, we ask that players include a spoiler warning in their video titles or descriptions, so that all users can enjoy the story at their own pace,” they add. “Please respect your fellow players and be mindful of the content you post.”
Further, Atlus ask that players “refrain from posting” the game’s ending segment, “uploading background music tracks, or stream with the specific purpose of distributing the game’s music”, and provide both them and parent company SEGA with proper copyright attribution on any published content.
On top of these requests, Atlus’ guidelines also feature a number of ‘precautions’ that players should take in using any footage from P5R in their own content.
These include refraining from “re-recording or distributing another user’s playthrough video”, “distributing the [game’s] music data”, and “requiring compensation to watch the recorded/livestreamed content.”
Atlus also asks that streamers “do not slander any third-party users or organizations during any videos or livestreams [featuring P5R],” nor “do not engage in any illegal or illicit activities, or activities that may be considered inappropriate for the public.”
The content barred by this last request include “Any acts that jeopardizes the safety or intending functions of any product or service provided by the company” and “Tools and services that allows for cheats, cracking, improper access and modification, as well as circumvention of restrictions placed on the backend side.”
The publisher then states that “Should the company reach out to you directly, please be sure to immediately make the video in question unavailable for the public to view.”
“There may be instances where the company will deem certain videos/ livestreams as inappropriate, in these cases, we ask for your cooperation and understanding when we ask to have these videos removed,” they continue.
However, in a worrying aside, Atlus also note that “there may also be instances where we may unfortunately not be at liberty to disclose the specific details as to why a certain takedown request must be issued.”
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Finally, Atlus clarifies that they “do not guarantee that posting or recording a video/ livestream does not infringe upon the copyright of any third-party individuals or organization.”
“Any legal disputes that occur as a result of videos or livestreams involving our content must be handled directly between the uploader and third-party individual or organization,” they detail. “The company will not financially compensate anyone for any losses incurred as part of any such dispute.”
As noted above, these streaming guidelines for P5R, while still fairly restrictive, pale in comparison to those released for the base release of Persona 5 in 2017.
These original rules barred players from such activities as streaming past the in-game month of July, uploading related videos longer than 90 minutes, and giving “major story spoilers”.
Confusingly, the publisher provided few concrete rules for this last point, instead asking the players to rely on “your good judgment”.
All-in-all, though these new P5R guidelines are more relaxed in relation to its predecessor, it is still strange to see these rules put in place for a worldwide phenom of a game whose core plot is going on six-years old.
An updated version of the base game which adds more story and gameplay content to the original experience, Personal 5 Royal was originally released for the PlayStation 4 in 2020, before being revealed as an upcoming addition to the ever growing line-up of titles available Xbox Game Pass at the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase 2022.
Set to re-release on PC, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox consoles on October 21st, Persona 5 Royal will be the first of three Persona titles set to receive more widespread ports in the coming months, with Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden getting their respective re-releases early next year.
