Spoilers are nothing new for the gaming industry. For as long as the internet has existed, there have been a small number of people who would like nothing more than to ruin the surprise of events, especially game endings.
My first experience with this happened with Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain, a game that doesn't take kindly to spoilers. I remember reading a YouTube comment prior to playing the game which outed its "secret" antagonist. To say that it ruined the sense of surprise once I played the game would be an understatement.
As bad as that was, Persona 5 is a severe case. Spoiler content has been reported in numerous comment sections of related articles around the web, and social media has been flooded with spoilers regarding the game, including tweets and Facebook posts. These go well beyond what the industry is used to seeing, with dozens if not hundreds of bots automatically sending replies and quoted retweets with sensitive material to anything tagged with #Persona5 and affiliated hashtags.
This was particularly problematic in the case of a few tweets sent out by the official Persona 5 twitter account, which is now flooded with replies that spoil the ending of the game. An ending, mind you, that will require the average player more than 80 hours of work to obtain. Twitter has made no effort to remove these as of the writing of this article.
There is an explanation for this, as unreasonable as it may be. Atlus has employed strict anti-spoiler policies for Persona 5 that have outright disabled Share functionality on the PS4, going as far as issuing content ID claims, channel strikes, and account suspensions against gamers who steam the game on sites like Twitch and Ustream. This has outraged many gamers who enjoy being able to easily send screenshots to friends, streaming their playthroughs for other gamers to watch, and having access to simple record and edit tools.
Due to this, gamers like our reviewer for Persona 5, JamalR, have had to rely on $100+ capture cards to snap images and video from the game for use in articles. It might seem like a small inconvenience, but it effectively disables one of this generation's greatest perks.
While most gamers have responded to this by simply voicing their concern using text discussion and video, a select few have taken it as an opportunity to make a point by spoiling the game for as many people as possible in what they're calling a "protest".
It also doesn't help that Persona 5 has been out in Japan for nearly six months, resulting in information being widely available.
Whatever the case, take this as a serious warning that there are Persona 5 spoilers flooding the internet, and they would like nothing more than to ruin the game's biggest surprises.
