But this speed of communication can also hinder the internet, especially regarding video games. In the past couple of days, the developer build of Gears of War 3 was leaked onto a torrent site. Now this leaked game holds immense spoilers, since it isn't really supposed to come out for another 2 months. It's made me wonder, what is the protocol with spoilers and video games?
Spend more than 10 minutes looking up a game online and you're bound to run into some spoilers. I was actually looking up something for Bioshock, when I went through it last year, and had the unfortunate spoiling of the end of the game. It really ruined a lot of the Bioshock charm for me once I kept playing, having already known the big plot twist. After that incident, I rarely look anything up on a game I'm currently playing. It's so difficult to not see spoilers, especially when you don't know what they are.
It's a tricky situation, especially in video games. You've got some people who have already beaten the game and want to discuss the ending, and there's always people who are just picking it up. It's hard to make both parties happy in a place as accessible as the internet. You can't control what people post, but you can monitor where they post it.
Once you've gotten past all of the internet spoilers, occasionally the game itself spoils something for you. I am currently about 3/4 through Final Fantasy XIII. It's my first Final Fantasy game and I love it so far. After they announced FFXIII-2, I immediately downloaded the trailer only to find that gave away a lot of the ending of the first one! I was not expecting spoilers in a trailer, so I didn't even know to skip it.
What I'm really getting at is to live spoiler free in our world, you basically have to live in a rock. And that doesn't really sit right with me. I think that the video game community has so much respect for games (and their plot), that there should be an alternate system in place regarding spoilers. I don't really have any answers, but I can see the problem. I guess the only thing I can do is make Assassionista as spoiler free as possible.
As always,
LadySnip3r
PS. Have any of you had any BIG game moments spoiled before you could play them? Please remember just to say the game's name, not the actual spoiler (we wouldn't want history to repeat itself). What do you do to avoid spoilers?
4 comments:
Good post. It seems general gamer etiquette dictates that the poster in a forum labels or posts containing spoilers with the [SPOILER] tag as a courtesy to others. It would be nice to see this expand to other mediums such as a trailers...
To answer your question, I too had a Bioshock spoiler ruined for me. It wasn't anything as big as the ending or anything, but it was story related...
-theoneobstacle
To build on what was said above, I think that the best thing is to frequent sites that at least attempt to use the spoiler tag, but as you said, it's genuinely unavoidable - if you don't play through things in a timely manner. I don't. I'm horrible about backlogging, as is anyone who really loves to game.
I have to make the case that when a game has been out for a while, the time factor should lend to decreased expectations on avoiding spoilers.
For instance, I've not finished Red Dead Redemption yet, but while in GameStop just this weekend, I overheard the two employees talking about it and they spoiled the -BIG- spoiler at the end. Now, I don't know when I'm going to get to it, but I do know that the spoiler in that instance actually will have me picking up the game to FINISH it.
Is is okay to assume that 2 years after release, people may have actually played a game, or should we always be mindful of talking about it out loud?
Same thing with trailers.
Also, what's the reasonable expectation of discussion without a spoiler? Is it directly related to how long a game's been out?
(Also, I have't played Bioshock, so thanks.)
@K0h4ku:
I totally agree with you. 2 years to me seems totally appropriate. Unfortunately, a large portion of gamers wouldn't abide by that (I'm talking about the type of gamers that download all of their games before they're released, you know what I mean). It's so frustrating not to be able to discuss a game you're going through with fellow gamers with fear of it being spoiled.
I still haven't finished Red Dead either, so thank you for not sharing that spoiler:P
Amnesia: The Dark Descent. :[
Ended up watching a Let's Play instead.
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