In a change that piqued the curiosity of many a thirsty NieR: Automata fan, Square Enix posted an update to the game’s official website–almost three years after its original 2017 release date. Unfortunately, the update was merely to the NieR: Automata official streaming rules and guidelines for the game. Most likely a few fans were given hope by creator Yoko Taro’s retweeting of the update:
発売して３年半経って英語版ガイドラインが更新されるニーアさん。 https://t.co/FGlADVHAVI
— yokotaro (@yokotaro) November 30, 2020
Ultimately, though, there’s not much news to the update. The NieR: Automata streaming guidelines are almost exactly the same as they were before, except for a single addition: An English sentence directing international users to… the English-language official website, where the streaming guidelines can be found at the bottom of the page. And that’s really it.
The guidelines themselves are fairly permissive, for what it’s worth. There are, of course the usual rights assertions, but there are no restrictions on what is and isn’t allowed to be shown, unlike Atlus’ notoriously tough rules for Persona 5. Other rules include a directive not to extract the game’s music, or post video content created with the sole intent of allowing others to listen to the music (sorry to the hundreds of playlists on YouTube collecting Nier: Automata‘s music tracks). And, of course, redistributing game content via unapproved media (such as, say, an unofficial book) is off the table as far as Square Enix is concerned. Finally, Square Enix reserves the right to issue cease and desist notices at will, and for pretty much any reason.
The above is all standard stuff, although considering that the guidelines themselves were only posted in English in August 2020, there are probably plenty of videos and streams out there which may be retroactively in violation of the rules. In case you’re planning your own NieR: Automata broadcast, consider reading up.
NieR: Automata is immediately available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. NieR: Automata Masterline figures will be available in 2022, but are very expensive.
