What do you think is the acceptable grace period regarding spoilers in a game?

[Deepwater]

Expecting internet strangers to know what you have and haven't read/seen/played is a bit obnoxious. People (should)know how the internet is. Obviously posting clear climax level spoilers of something that released yesterday, in a thread title is overboard but...

How am I supposed to keep up with what everybody has and hasn't been exposed to?

 

[Kyuuji]

Sure, I could just say "it's been a year, you should've played it by now" but I know I'm just being a dick and trying to excuse myself.

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You have more self awareness than a lot of posters here.

 

[Abhor]

Spoilers stay spoilers, always, unless they're general knowledge like Aeris' death.

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Agree with this. There is no grace period. Usually if I don't have immediate plans to play something I just avoid anything related to it, but I still expect to not see random spoilers in threads not explicitly about a certain game.

 

[Devilgunman]

It depends on the spoiler and the game.

Things like Aerith are practically like the end of Titanic or The Sixth Sense, general knowledge.

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There are people borne in 90s who have never seen these movies or play PS1 games.

Agree with spoilers stay spoilers. It's not that hard to use spoiler tag.

 

[Kyuuji]

Expecting internet strangers to know what you have and haven't read/seen/played is a bit obnoxious. People (should)know how the internet is. Obviously posting clear climax level spoilers of something that released yesterday, a thread title is overboard but...

How am I supposed to keep up with what everybody has and hasn't been exposed to?

Click to shrink...

How is this a hard concept?

Is what you're posting considered a spoiler and not a well known aspect of the media?

• If yes, wrap in tags or post in the spoiler thread(s).
• If no then post whatever

Doesn't take much common sense to distinguish honestly.

 

[Gold Arsene]

But most people don't just play video games. There's a lot of media and content in the entertainment world, from books to TV shows to movies to games etc. It's obviously impossible to experience everything worth discussing in all those mediums (Hell, even one for some) in five years.

I mostly just don't understand why people have these arbitrary "Spoil by" dates for entertainment. It's not that hard to be discreet when discussing big, revelatory moments that are better experienced as a surprise.

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Because some people don't like having to dance around spoilers that are well know by this point, just to try and talk about plot details.

Or what if we're discussing a sequel that freely spoils the previous game? Like if I wanted to describe the start of Kingdom Hearts 3 I pretty much have to spoil the ending of Dream Drop Distance. So do I just put all KH discussion behind spoiler marks?

What about Metal Gear Rising where Raiden being a former child soldier is a major point of discussion despite that being a late game revelation in Metal Gear Solid 2?

What about Persona 4 Arena Ultimax where a significant spoiler character is freely advertised by the company itself as DLC?

Where is the line?

 

[Kyuuji]

Where is the line?

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Common sense has been used to distinguish this for decades.

 

[Reyes]

Because some people don't like having to dance around spoilers that are well know by this point.

Or what if we're discussing a sequel that freely spoils the previous game? Like if I wanted to describe the start of Kingdom Hearts 3 I pretty much have to spoil the ending of Dream Drop Distance. So do I just put all KH discussion behind spoiler marks?

What about Metal Gear Rising where Raiden being a former child soldier is a major point of discussion despite that being a late game revelation in Metal Gear Solid 2?

What about Persona 4 Arena Ultimax where a significant spoiler character is freely advertised by the company itself as DLC?

Where is the line?

Click to shrink...

Pretty much, besides the discusion of what is a spoiler for some and what isn't.

Especially considering people have such inane definitions.

 

[Deepwater]

How is this a hard concept?

Is what you're posting considered a spoiler and not a well known aspect of the media?

• If yes, wrap in tags or post in the spoiler thread(s).
• If no then post whatever

Doesn't take much common sense to distinguish honestly.

Click to shrink...

Spoilers mean different things to different people. People got mad yesterday at a KH3 thread that referenced a vapor ware game that literally serves as an Easter egg. I just... stay off the internet?

 

[FlintSpace]

Never. But for people who aren't crazy about avoiding spoilers unlike me, it depends upon the game.

Say The last of Us - Never.
But AC4: Black Flag, - Maybe 1.5 Years.

 

[Brakke]

It's obviously impossible to experience everything worth discussing in all those mediums (Hell, even one for some) in five years.

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That's why being precious about spoilers is stupid. The only way you'll ever actually achieve the pop culture literacy is to consume some of it secondhand. If what you want is the thrill of novelty... there's a lifetime worth of things you haven't played that can provide that.

How is this a hard concept?

Is what you're posting considered a spoiler and not a well known aspect of the media?

• If yes, wrap in tags or post in the spoiler thread(s).
• If no then post whatever

Doesn't take much common sense to distinguish honestly.

Click to shrink...

This isn't a standard at all. Nobody knows beforehand that something "is considered" a spoiler until someone complains. And people complain about all kind of innocuous shit.

 

[Regulus Tera]

One console generation

 

[Gold Arsene]

Common sense has been used to distinguish this for decades.

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Considering how some people complain about almost everything being a spoiler lately, you're gonna half to help me on this one.

 

[Kyuuji]

Spoilers mean different things to different people. People got mad yesterday at a KH3 thread that referenced a vapor ware game that literally serves as an Easter egg. I just... stay off the internet?

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No you use common sense to best determine spoilers and when to use tags.

 

[fracas]

I don't really care about spoilers, so none I guess

 

[Deepwater]

No you use common sense to best determine spoilers and when to use tags.

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I feel like people do use common sense and even then people will still end up being spoiled. What's common to you isn't necessarily common to me

When Infinity War came out I muted every keyword on twitter I could think of. I took necessary precautions to avoid spoilers because it mattered to me but I also didn't expect the world to cater to my situation.

 

[higemaru]

Be real. One year is enough. If you still haven't played that game after one year - it's your problem to avoid spoilers. It's possible, I played Bioshock Infinite three years after launch, and just abandoned every thread or news bit if the game was mentioned. And I went in witout knowing anything.

If you want to be mad at people because of Aerith death spoiler - just shut up.

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Yep, if you want to avoid spoilers long-term, that's gonna require some effort on your part more than anyone else's. I ducked Mother 3 spoilers for seven years which was especially difficult since I was such a big Smash Bros fan and people like to talk about Claus.

Also, I had someone spoil the entirety of Bioshock Infinite for me (I played it a month after launch), and my friend's spoilers had absolutely no context and barely even registered to me while I was playing the game. Those spoilers became part of your context for the game, and there's nothing wrong with that. It just means that you're approaching the game from a different angle than Joe Youtuber who goes in blind.

 

[Deleted member 896]

In general, I don't really think it's easy to come up with any hard and fast rules. Like if I'm having a conversation with one person who is about to watch the Sixth Sense for the first time and doesn't know how it ends I'll concede that it would be a dick move of me to spoil it for that person knowing that they are interested in watching AND also that they are somehow oblivious to the twist ending. But in casual conversation I think it's enough of a pop culture touchstone that if there was any reason to allude to the Sixth Sense I'm probably going to default to assuming that other people have either seen the movie and know how it ends or that they haven't and probably don't care anyway. Personally, I think this is mostly reasonable.

Now for people who don't think that's reasonable, I'm open to a give and take. However, my problem with spoilerphobia is over the years I feel like it's gotten to a point of overreach where I don't feel like a lot of people who flip out over being spoiled are operating in good faith anymore. The person who is running around outside the theater screaming "Vader is Luke's father" in 1980 is obviously an asshole. We can all agree on that. I think we can agree that erring on the side of spoiler tagging as much as possible on a forum like this is also probably the best way to handle stuff that might be spoilers.

But I also think it's important to recognize that the definition of what a spoiler even is has grown into something really ambiguous to me. This is alluded to in the OP and I think it really muddies the waters. Given that, I think the best way to generally operate is a give and take where people should genuinely try to avoid spoiling stuff, but also people who feel they've been spoiled could stand to take a step back, breathe in, breathe out, and not immediately flip out about how something is ruined when some of the times the spoilers aren't that significant or else might not even make much sense outside of the context of actually experiencing the work.

 

[Reyes]

Remember spoiler phobic ask to spoiler tag shit in officially released content like trailers....

 

[Deleted member 9135]

There's never going to be a universal consensus on this so I say do what you can to stay in the dark as long as you need to. Nuke your YouTube history, mute people on Twitter that love posting every second of every surprise they experience, don't wander into threads, etc

 

[Psychonaut]

Mechanics and systems are always fair game for spoilers.

Plot beats after the first 25% of the game get a one year grace period in my book.

 

[BGBW]

I find gameplay or secrets more interesting than stories, but luckily they tend to be easier to avoid if you don't go out of your way to look for them. Nintendo did get a bit bad during the Wii U era however and started revealing half their secrets during the run up to games, like the final unlockable character in 3D World. The problem here is you might avoid Nintendo's output, but people will insist that once it comes from an official source it isn't a spoiler and post it everywhere.

The biggest culprit in this day and age are the YouTubers who insist on posting spoilers day one with awful thumbnails. They've made being an arsehole an art form.

 

[Brakke]

The absolute lowest form of life is the person that's played the game himself but complains about spoilers for it. Like a Knight in armor sallying forth to defend the purity of the innocent.

 

[Genesius]

At some point society has to fucking move on and be able to have a conversation that doesn't dance on eggshells. If it's something that you're truly invested in to the point that knowing anything about it could ruin the experience, it should therefore be a priority to you. If you still haven't gotten around to it after a year, turns out you don't care about it that much.

People have just as much responsibility to avoid spoilers as people do to carefully mark spoilers. No one is holding a gun to your head to watch Kingdom Hearts videos.

 

[Velezcora]

You should always warn for spoilers before posting anything after the first few hours in my opinion.
It doesn't take much and won't kill you to put that in your video or article.
I cannot stand the assholes who act like everyone should have played EVERY old game purely because it's old. It's extremely insensitive to less economically able people. There is no excuse. Don't be a lazy asshole.

 

[Deleted member 33533]

Expecting internet strangers to know what you have and haven't read/seen/played is a bit obnoxious. People (should)know how the internet is. Obviously posting clear climax level spoilers of something that released yesterday, in a thread title is overboard but...

How am I supposed to keep up with what everybody has and hasn't been exposed to?

Click to shrink...

You're making it sound far more difficult than it actually is. If it's a significant plot spoiler or something that is intended to be a surprise that many would not know going in, just spoiler tag it.

Because some people don't like having to dance around spoilers that are well know by this point.

Or what if we're discussing a sequel that freely spoils the previous game? Like if I wanted to describe the start of Kingdom Hearts 3 I pretty much have to spoil the ending of Dream Drop Distance. So do I just put all KH discussion behind spoiler marks?

What about Metal Gear Rising where Raiden being a former child soldier is a major point of discussion despite that being a late game revelation in Metal Gear Solid 2?

What about Persona 4 Arena Ultimax where a significant spoiler character is freely advertised by the company itself as DLC?

Where is the line?

Click to shrink...

You're being disingenuous here. There's no "dancing" around spoilers. It's really quite simple to avoid spoiling a game but you're making it sound like such a burden.

Context obviously matters. People who don't want to be spoiled on a game generally do not enter discussion threads about their direct sequels. If they do, that's really on them. Now if you're in the KH3 OT spoiling major plot points of KH3, then yeah, don't do that. If you're just in some other thread, don't spoil KH3 there either. There's a spoiler thread specifically for KH3 if you feel the need to discuss it openly.

You're acting like this is an unreasonable thing, like this line is just so impossible to draw. It's really not. Just be considerate.

You have more self awareness than a lot of posters here.

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I think there's a sense of "got mine/fuck you" going on here. Like, now that I've played/watched the game and know everything, I should be able to just talk about it wherever I want with no concern to other people. And it's easy to rationalize your attitude by calling the people you disregarded as spoilerphobes who are unreasonable. They're the one's with the issues, not me. I don't know, who cares? Why not just be considerate to others as a default? Does it really make your life that much harder?

 

[TheBaldwin]

Try and avoid as muchnas you can, but i think after a few weeks or months, you can talk about gameplay aspects or opening story missions.

Just dont blurt out end game spoilers for games if they are story heavy, espcially if they were niche games that are niw getting popular or if a remake is coming out soon.

Im glad the yakuza community hasnt openly spoiled any of the later games yet

 

[the dream of waking]

I think you should always been respectful and aware of the fact that others may not have experienced what you have experienced in the entertainment world, and may want to enjoy it fresh. In other words, always best to assume (unless you know otherwise) that details could tarnish an experience for someone, and act accordingly.

 

[Deleted member 2317]

I dunno. When did Snape kill Dumbledore?

After the Sopranos ended, the entire world talked about it on the radio the next day. Where was their DECENCY?

Expecting internet strangers to know what you have and haven't read/seen/played is a bit obnoxious. People (should)know how the internet is. Obviously posting clear climax level spoilers of something that released yesterday, in a thread title is overboard but...

How am I supposed to keep up with what everybody has and hasn't been exposed to?

Click to shrink...

Bingo.

Also, spoilers lmao

 

[808s & Villainy]

Spoilers stay spoilers, always, unless they're general knowledge like Aeris' death.

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Can't tell if this is sarcasm or not

 

[Kirksplosion]

It sounds like you consider these things you mentioned to be in a gray area in terms of spoilers. I'd personally say there's no point in risking spoiling any of those things then. It's not that difficult to discuss Raiden's past without dropping a quick and simple [MGS 2 Spoiler] tag at the top of the post. Or if in person just dropping something like "Do you plan to play...?" before going forward into spoiler territory.

I mean, look, spoilers aren't the end of the damn world. I'm overly cautious with them because, personally, I find that it sucks ass to be spoiled on something that would have been a fun/surprising reveal. I guess I've always found it a very low effort task to be courteous about spoilers. A low effort that can, for some, make a huge difference for how much they enjoy a thing.

 

[Deleted member 41931]

Is the game part of the zeitgeist?

If yes, like say Vader being Luke's father, then it's fine. Even if you haven't seen Star Wars, you probably have heard about this from something/somebody else already. So the FF7 you gave is fine. If no, then just give a warning about spoilers first.

 

[Gold Arsene]

It sounds like you consider these things you mentioned to be in a gray area in terms of spoilers. I'd personally say there's no point in risking spoiling any of those things then. It's not that difficult to discuss Raiden's past without dropping a quick and simple [MGS 2 Spoiler] tag at the top of the post. Or if in person just dropping something like "Do you plan to play...?" before going forward into spoiler territory.

I mean, look, spoilers aren't the end of the damn world. I'm overly cautious with them because, personally, I find that it sucks ass to be spoiled on something that would have been a fun/surprising reveal. I guess I've always found it a very low effort task to be courteous about spoilers. A low effort that can, for some, make a huge difference for how much they enjoy a thing.

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But again where is the line drawn? If I'm talking about Persona 4 Arena a game that takes place after Persona 4 am I excepted to still spoil P4 spoilers? Because sometime it looks like people expect you to do that.

The trailer for Avengers Endgame literally spoils almost all of Infinity War so am I still expected to not talk about that?(not even getting into the monkey wrench the Spider-Man Far From Home trailer throws into the whole thing.)

 

[Kirksplosion]

The absolute lowest form of life is the person that's played the game himself but complains about spoilers for it. Life a Knight in armor dallying forth to defend the purity of the innocent.

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TIL I'm the absolute lowest form of life.

Fuck.

 

[Deleted member 33533]

Pretty much, besides the discusion of what is a spoiler for some and what isn't.

Especially considering people have such inane definitions.

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That's why being precious about spoilers is stupid. The only way you'll ever actually achieve the pop culture literacy is to consume some of it secondhand. If what you want is the thrill of novelty... there's a lifetime worth of things you haven't played that can provide that.



This isn't a standard at all. Nobody knows beforehand that something "is considered" a spoiler until someone complains. And people complain about all kind of innocuous shit.

Click to shrink...

Spoilers mean different things to different people. People got mad yesterday at a KH3 thread that referenced a vapor ware game that literally serves as an Easter egg. I just... stay off the internet?

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Considering how some people complain about almost everything being a spoiler lately, you're gonna half to help me on this one.

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I feel like there's a middle ground that many of you are just refusing to acknowledge.

Just because some people will treat every little detail as a spoiler and get upset, does that mean "fuck anyone who cares about spoilers, I'm just gonna spoil whatever I want?"

With the internet and social media, it is sometimes inevitable that people get spoiled on certain things but that doesn't mean you shouldn't at least try to be considerate about that. I don't think people will get half as mad if you unintentionally spoil something minor as opposed to you spoiling stuff because "it's been X amount of time, you should've played it already."

This is like simply the difference between making a thread titled with the name of a final boss of a game thus spoiling their identity and just titling it "My thoughts on ____'s final boss." People do this on Youtube all the time and rationalize it with "you shouldn't have watched the video if you didn't want to be spoiled", despite the thumbnail and title doing that on its own. The person easily could have just made a thumbnail that didn't show off the final boss and just left the name of that boss out of the title but they simply didn't care. These are things that take little effort and in the end make more people happy. So I don't know why there's such resistance to at least trying to be considerate of spoilers.

 

[Foldedpencil]

One second after I have personally finished it. Try and respect it people.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

There is none. Is it really that hard to use spoiler tags?

I had a plot twist in Wind Waker spoiled for me a few weeks before the remake came out...

 

[Commodore64]

If it's a new game you shouldn't spoil without tagging or prefacing your statement with a warning. If it's a game from 1997 it should be on you to avoid certain conversations until you're up to speed. I expect the Final Fantasy 7 remake OT is gonna be bad for this as folks are gonna discuss the differences between the remake and the original.
There were a couple of times in the red dead 2 OT where I clicked on a spoiler thinking it would be mid game stuff and got real end game spoilers. It was entirely my fault. And if I hadn't played the original I shouldn't have gone in the thread, you can't put the entire discussion behind spoiler tags.

 

[Genesius]

If it came down to it I'd say a year at absolute most. Being considerate about it after that year is nice bonus, but certainly not warranted.

People keep lobbing the term "deserve" around when it comes to non-spoiled entertainment, and maybe where I'm fundamentally butting against that idea, as someone who has been in the entertainment business, is that entertainment is fundamentally "extra". It is "more". We talk about healthcare or clean water or decent wages, sure talk about "deserve". Talk about which Star Wars man does a thing in a 40 year old movie, no one "deserves" anything.

Infinity War is like the second or third highest grossing movie of all time, and it is readily available on demand, on Blu-ray, on Netflix, and just about anything that has a screen on it. So no, I don't feel particularly obligated to make sure that the person who hasn't seen infinity war yet has an experience as pure white as the driven snow. There has been plenty of opportunity, and at some point it's on the person that hasn't seen the thing yet, not on the millions and millions of people who have.

 

[not_swift]

Yelling Snape Kills Dumbledore at Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Midnight Launch Parties is actually totally fine.

Spoiler

It depends on the context. In some places, the expectation is to be light on spoilers. In other places, talking about ending twists is totally fine and acceptable. It all depends on the expectations that people have at different places.

 

[GamingRobioto]

Plot spoilers should always be marked IMO, without exception, I don't care how old the game is. Even like the obvious ones like FFVII, the game is being remade at the moment and new/young gamers who won't have played the original before will not appreciate a bunch of 35-40 year olds ignorantly plastering it over the internet.

 

[Not Spaceghost]

I think the context is what matters more than anything.
If you are talking to someone who is actively playing or considering playing something for the first time then obviously don't spoil regardless of how old the game is.

But in some games the story just feels more important than in others.
Like spoiling the story in Devil May Cry 4 is insignificant compared to spoiling the story in Life is Strange.

For example Persona 4 is like 10 years old, I am still going to spoiler tag that game.
On the other hand FF7 is like 22 years old and I am probably never going to bother tagging spoilers for that game.

 

[Brakke]

It's extremely insensitive to less economically able people.

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Embarrassingly bad take.

When I was a "less economically able" kid, I read FAQs for games I couldn't afford for fun. Today you can watch any game full thru on YouTube.

If you can't afford (in cash or time) to keep up (and literally nobody can), then don't *choose* to care about spoilers.

I feel like there's a middle ground that many of you are just refusing to acknowledge.

Click to shrink...

I don't negotiate with terrorists.

 

[CloseTalker]

Depends on so many things. Situations like a certain death in FF7, which has essentially reached meme status at this point, I'm not bending over backwards to keep a secret anymore. Or the movie Se7en, where the box scene and ending twist are infamous to the point of being separated from the movie. But generally, if a conversation doesn't require me to spoil something, I won't.

It's tough, there's no real rule book, so people kind of need to play it case by case, but there are definitely situations where I'm in the camp of "yo, this shit is 10+ years old and the spoilers are infamous, I'm not gonna dance around it".

Spoiler culture is one of my absolute least favorite things. Some people are so vehemently authoritative about it. That said, people are human, and while I don't think it's fair to assume that everyone has seen/played the same things as you and you should go around talking freely, I also think people need to chill the fuck out a bit and realize finding out certain plot elements of something that's been out for a good long time, but you haven't played yet, isn't something you can realistically get angry over

 

[Kirksplosion]

The trailer for Avengers Endgame literally spoils almost all of Infinity War so am I still expected to not talk about that?(not even getting into the monkey wrench the Spider-Man Far From Home trailer throws into the whole thing.)

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I don't know about "expected to", just more like hey...maybe consider not talking about those specifics just in case?

I won't be watching the Endgame trailer. I like going into the movies I plan to see completely blind. Some movie trailers reveal more than I'd like, so I just avoid watching them if I know I'll be seeing the movie regardless (like Endgame).

As an aside, I could definitely see an argument about Infinity Wars being in the Cultural Knowledge gray area because it was a behemoth of a property, an event unto itself. I wouldn't complain that much if someone were to discuss Infinity Wars spoilers in depth this far out because of that. So, yeah, maybe this is one of those exemplar gray areas for people who don't mind if they're spoiling something, but again, those massive cultural touchstones are rare exceptions (Empire Strikes Back, Infinity War, FFVII, etc.).

 

[KarmaCow]

The absolute lowest form of life is the person that's played the game himself but complains about spoilers for it. Like a Knight in armor sallying forth to defend the purity of the innocent.

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It's especially funny when that person's whining ends up putting it into a context that makes the otherwise innocuous comment a spoiler.

 

[VectorPrime]

I've seen people flip out over someone so much as mentioning that a plot twist exists.

spoilerphobia is dumb as hell

And I have no idea what spoilerphobia people would do if they were transported back to the 70s and 80s when movie trailers were the way you found out a movie was coming out and they were all specifically designed to spell out the entire plot. Somehow society survived and still enjoyed movies.

 

[Yasuke]

I tend to take it on myself to avoid spoilers for content I really care about. It's a common courtesy thing, but expecting strangers on the internet to censor themselves for you has always struck me as highly illogical.

On my own twitter page, I tend to give people a weekend for new movies, one week for games, and no time at all for a television show before I start just tweeting whatever the hell I want (without directly mentioning anyone, unless I know for a fact they've consumed whatever content already). I don't have to do that, but it strikes me as just being decent to those around me.

Even then, you still get complaints from people who think you should wait a month or more, and I always just kinda shrug my shoulders and say that's tough.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Just mark spoilers

Marking spoilers or asking "have you seen/read/played ____ yet?" is easy and in no way impedes any discussion I take part in.

If your mindset is "you can't 100% avoid spoiling stuff for people," realize that mindset is immature in all contexts (e.g. "You can't live forever, so why exercise?")

It is "I'm not a part of this system"-level vicarious embarrassment for me seeing people try to argue against marking spoilers.

In general, I don't really think it's easy to come up with any hard and fast rules.

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Based on the rest of your post, it sounds like "try not to be a dick" is your hard and fast rule. It applies to every scenario you described, and it doesn't seem like you're of two minds about this at all.

The fringe cases where someone attacks someone else for something that isn't reasonably a spoiler don't really change that it's a better practice to mark spoilers. Seems less like a chicken and egg situation and more of a cycle with an easily avoidable beginning.

 

[dabri]

Spoilers stay spoilers, always, unless they're general knowledge like Aeris' death.

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Hey now. Spoilers