Atlus's Heart Open To "Persona 5" On PC?

Sep. 27, 2017

Atlus’s Heart Open To “Persona 5” On PC?

Recently, game maker Atlus filed a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) take-down notice against the developers ofRPCS3, a PS3 emulator on PC, for advertising their popular JRPG,Persona 5on theirPatreon page.

The notice threatened to terminate the entire development of the emulator application, but even then its team refused to give into Atlus’s demands. So, as advised from Patreon itself, all references ofPersona 5were to be removed on their crowding funding page, which resolved the issue according to emulator’s team over atReddit.

“RPCS3 is not designed to enable illegal activity. We do not promote piracy nor do we allow it under any circumstances… And whatever people may wish, there’s no way to stop any playable game from being executed on the emulator.” Says ssshadow. “We find it very interesting that Atlus would immediately try to shut down the Patreon page without any prior communication.”

In copyright law, game emulators usually fall within the gray area, as the software itself isn’t infringing on any party’s IP, but the running and owning of illegal copies of game ROMs do. RPCS3 inclusion of updates with the hopes of runningPersona 5on PC meant that funds would be generated. This most likely rubbed Atlus the wrong way as another entity would be making profit from their beloved IP.

In an announcement that soon followed, Atlus stated their reasons for issuing the DMCA, explaining that they wouldn’t want the first experiences of new players to be riddled with instability, frame-rate drops, and crashes that could potentially harm the users machine. Especially on a version they didn’t oversee, and one that would not meet their standard of quality.

Atlus goes on to acknowledge the passion of PC gamers clamoring for aPersonatitle on the platform. In response, they remarked that they’re paying attention on the matter, but without making any promises, so far.

You can read the full statement from Atlus, below:

“You might have heard earlier today that we issued a DMCA takedown notice involving emulation developer group RPCS3 and their Patreon page. Yes, it’s true. We settled upon this action for two reasons:

1. We believe that our fans best experience our titles (like Persona 5) on the actual platforms for which they are developed. We don’t want their first experiences to be framerate drops, or crashes, or other issues that can crop up in emulation that we have not personally overseen. We understand that many Persona fans would love to see a PC version. And while we don’t have anything to announce today,we are listening! For now, the best way to experience Persona 5 is on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3.

2. We appreciate the awareness generated by the emulation community for Persona 5 and know that it is a fantastic example of how much people are loving our game. We want to keep bringing you titles like Persona 5. Unfortunately, when our content is illegally circumvented and potentially made available for free, in a format we do not think delivers the experience and quality we intend, it undermines our ability to do so by diverting potential support from new audiences.”

You can also read our review ofPersona 5

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Atlas’s behavior in this case has been disgraceful. DMCA takedown notices are for removing copyright files, not for shutting down funding. There were zero files, infringing or not, hosted at Patreon. The emulator was hosted at the RPCS3 website, which is completely independent of Patreon.

In other words, whether the emulator “infringes” isn’t even relevant. Atlas sadly acted the way a lot of Japanese publishers seem to act (remember Sega sending out YouTube DMCA notices for all the top “Shining Force” listings on YouTube, including one that had no images of the game at all, so that their new trailer would top search rankings?), as if the copyright laws mean whatever they want them to mean.

I was going to buy Persona 5, either when it came to PC or when there was a decent sale on PSN. Atlas lost that sale.

I had also been looking forward to 13 Sentinels which, after forever, is coming out in Japan next year, and, I was hoping, the US sometime later. Now I’m not so sure. I certainly would have paid full retail on it, but not I’ll at least wait for a deep sale.