Nelson Hum talks about spoilers in gaming

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Maybe I wouldn't have cared as much normally, but for the past few weeks I was in anti-spoiler mode. You see, I was gearing up to play Metal Gear Solid 4, a game renown for its deep and engrossing storyline. I was doing my best to avoid any leaks or major plot points in the story as I wanted to experience all the twists and turns first hand. To stay out of the loop though, I avoided any reviews of the game before it came out.

Why? I didn't trust any of the writers.

While most reviewers are good about putting spoiler warnings in their reviews, there can be little sentences and asides that may reveal pieces of information you didn't wish to know. I'm not innocent in all of this: I've written a few reviews in my time so I'm sure I might have given away a few details here and there. However, I'm so obsessed with the Metal Gear mythos I've tired my best to not read reviews on it.

I'll have to admit though: I did tempt fate and read one review, but I escaped mostly unscathed.

Funny thing is, I should have applied this philosophy to other areas as well: I was reading an entertainment magazine last week and I became enraged, disappointed, and crest-fallen. No, I wasn't reading the latest on Amy Winehouse and the downfall of her "career" or the latest happenings on The Hills. I read a bloody spoiler.

It began innocently enough: I noticed a quick blurb about the upcoming Season 4 DVD release of a show I watch. I'm only at the end of Season 3 so I was interested the little paragraph about the next DVD release. To my horror, the quick three sentences that followed let me know a series regular killed himself.

Thanks a lot!

To make things worse, several possible spoiler announcements form E3 has been leaked as well. Arghhh! Is someone trying to take all the surprises out of my life? I get to go to the damn thing and some yahoo forgets to close out his e-mail, resulting in a leak?! The thing that angered me was that the link to the leaks had spoiler info in it. WTF Internet! I can understand their mentality as most readers love to get the inside scoop, but would it really have killed them to make a separate page with all the info on it? I know I'm coming from a different perspective this year because I'm going to the thing, but I would have rather been surprised at E3 rather than reading about it early.

I guess we live in a time now where we have to know everything immediately. Like a movie trailer nowadays, it seems like every major plot point, feature, and secret has to been given away before the final product is out.

I don't know about you but I'd rather be in the moment and experience it for myself rather than be given the Coles Notes version.