Cognition Dissemination: Atlus Doesn’t Understand the Internet
Persona 5 released this past Tuesday, and reviews and discussions about it are dominating video game websites, message boards, and social media, and for good reason. The title was around five years in the making, and the franchise’s fanbase has been waiting for a new installment since Persona 4 released over eight years ago. But the game and Atlus themselves are also being discussed for other reasons, in how the company tends to stick to conservative conventions often to the detriment of fans and themselves; another sign of that manifested this past week.
Shortly after the game’s release, the company posted a lengthy explanation regarding why they don’t want players streaming too much of the game. They’re incredibly concerned about the experience being spoiled for other players, despite (Warning) ironically listing a significant early spoiler at the bottom of the page. While they’re not entirely against players posting videos of the game, they requested a 90-minute length at most for each one. They also asked that players not show any Persona awakening sequences, or story-related conclusions to the dungeons. Also, none of the videos can explicitly focus on showing the story. As you can see, they’re very concerned.
In fact, they’re too concerned. Plenty of games are streamed after release, yet there are few complains about players possibly being spoiled by them — even in Japan. It’s easy to avoid seeing too many videos for a game in advance, and many YouTubers and Twitch streamers tend to be more courteous than you might expect. But Atlus decided that players didn’t need that kind of freedom with this game, and is doing their best to police how players venture through it, while pretending the last decade of streaming and sharing enhancements never happened.
To further prevent this, the game also blocks the PlayStation 4’s Share functions past the first 30 minutes. They could have prevented some of their aforementioned streaming issues by allowing these functions, but preventing key story sequences from being shown, similar to many other games. While Persona 5 is far from the first game on PS4 to block the Share functions (Tales of Berseria, which released from Bandai Namco in late-January, did the same), it’s peculiar how they went above and beyond to prevent this.
Though Persona 5 is likely to sell well regardless, streaming and sharing the experience with friends and strangers through social media can help expand a game’s audience. Take Sega’s Yakuza 0 as an example, which released in January this year. Plenty who would have otherwise skipped it purchased a copy when they saw how colorful its dialogue was after seeing screenshots and videos posted on Facebook and especially Twitter. The same is somewhat happening with Persona 5, but that’s been more difficult than it should have, since players either have to stream the game to their PC to capture screenshots or take off-screen pictures. Atlus would have benefited by making this easier.
This is far from the first time Atlus has demonstrated some archaic ideas and a desire to control what their users do. Take what happened with Persona 4 Arena on PlayStation 3, where the game was region-locked to prevent Japanese players from importing the American version for a cheaper price. It was the first and only PS3 game to have region restrictions, and made playing the title a hassle for European players, whose domestic version didn’t arrive until nine months after the American one. They somewhat learned from this mistake with sequel Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, which contained no such restrictions, but they removed the Japanese voice option from its Story Mode.
There was another incident in mid-2015, when the Japanese release of Persona 4: Dancing All Night included the second trailer for Persona 5. It came with a request from Atlus that asked players not to share the trailer online, as they knew it was one of the game’s biggest selling points. Of course, players took that as a challenge. The company swiftly deleted YouTube uploads, which led to them posting it on other video and filesharing services. It wasn’t difficult to find when it was posted online.
I’m not far into Persona 5 at the moment, but it’s been an enjoyable experience. And there have been a few times where I’ve wanted to share portions of the experience with online friends and acquaintances, as its script has some humorous parts, but it’s too much of a hassle to whip out the phone to take a picture. Sure, that’s partly because the PS4’s screen-capturing features have spoiled me, but the results also wouldn’t be as clear. As explained above, I’m far from the only one in that position.
It’s clear Atlus doesn’t realize that trying to control their players’ actions is actually detrimental to the expansion of their audience, and they’re stubbornly stuck in a time where these functions didn’t’ exist. Given the earlier Yakuza 0 example, perhaps Sega can talk some sense into them, considering they acquired them three-and-a-half years ago.
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Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
