Atlus warns Persona 5 streamers not to spoil the game

Atlus has issued some strict streaming and video content guidelines for Persona 5 players, going so far as to threaten content creators with account suspensions if they fail to stick to the rules.

“Simply put, we don’t want the experience to be spoiled for people who haven’t played the game,” the publisher wrote on its website. “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.”

While content guidelines are par for the course for reviewers with early copies, these are some heavy stipulations for the average consumer. Chief among them: Streams and uploads of the long-awaited role-playing game must not reference “specific plot points or story spoilers.” That means no scenes of teens romancing other teens, no funny side quests and no tearjerking twists, all hallmarks of the Persona games.

Players are only allowed to show gameplay up through the early-July portion of the game, with the cutoff set at July 7. Anything they upload is limited to 90 minutes in length as well, as long as those videos don’t show any big boss battles or ending dungeon fights.

These are all technically asks on Atlus’ part, not hard and fast rules. If Persona fans want to show off as much of the game as possible, spoilers be damned, that’s their prerogative. Be warned, though, that Atlus is happy to hit anyone who’s caught showing off parts of Persona 5 it wants to keep obscure with a copyright claim.

“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,” the publisher explained.

Atlus is already making it extra difficult for players to share their Persona 5 playthroughs by blocking the PlayStation 4’s native sharing functionality. That’s been present in the game since it launched in Japan last fall.

By that same token, story and gameplay spoilers have also been online for several months now, so players know how to find them if they really want to — Atlus would just rather anyone playing Persona 5 seek their own way out.

The good news is that this isn’t necessarily standard policy for other Atlus games to come, the publisher said.

“That being said, Persona 5 is a super special case for us and we’re in ongoing discussion about how our policies may evolve in the future,” the note concludes.