It’s a sad fact, but the early theft of video games is becoming more and more common in the industry. Giant games such as Modern Warfare 2 and Halo: Reach are being picked apart and distributed far ahead of their street dates, with spoilers running rampant. For example, Modern Warfare 2’s “No Russian” level was leaked about a month in advance of people getting hold of the game, and many argued that the reveal of such a controversial mission spoiled the plot. Even larger gaming sites got in on the leak, making such videos a front-page deal, drawing even more attention.
So, we have a question for you, the community. When video games break their street date either through piracy or simple error, do you actively go hunting for spoilers? If you’re the sort of person who likes to stay pure, does it irk you to see gaming websites posting videos that give away elements of the game?
With MW2 I chose to view the ‘No Russian’ footage because it was becoming a major news item at the same time with a lot of websites discussing it.
But with Halo Reach I don’t want it to be spoiled because the only news coming out of it for large websites is that it was hacked, drawing attention to something that Bungie probably wanted kept under wraps.
But I suppose that every gaming site just wants to post the story to get the hits otherwise ‘someone else would have published it’.
I always try to go into the game pure, with no knowledge of the plot (besides the basic knowledge). I never go looking for spoilers because that just ruins the experience. I remember IGN posted an article about two weeks before Mass Effect 2 came out about the first 3 hours or so, which thankfully I steered away from. Had I read that article, the huge exciting and breathtaking twist at the very beginning would have been completely spoiled.
“many argued that the reveal of such a controversial mission spoiled the plot.” I lol’d. They coulda leaked the entire script and not given away the plot XD.
I avoid spoilers at all costs for games that I’m really excited for. I remember an alpha build of S.T.A.L.K.E.R was leaked, but it was totally useless and didn’t reflect the game at all.
Unless a game is story intensive, like Heavy Rain or Mass Effect, I don’t care about spoilers for games.
I’m not a big spender of single player games, i’m more of a multiplayer person, like TF2. So, if I know that I’m not going to buy it , I’ll just go ahead and spoil it.
Also, as a heads up, it seems that Mafia 2 got cracked and leaked a week or two from the release date, (which was yesterday)
I can’t stand spoilers, so I hide my eyes and try not to look at the spoilers. It is disappointing that people are so ravenous for spoilers even though a game is just a month away from being released in all its glory, and in fact just astonishes me. Ne’ertheless, the internet is an evil place and there are evil people in it. lol
And also, if you read the Bungie.net news blog, they have interviews with a bunch of reporters talking in depth about campaign missions and story details. Now that is stupid! Spoiling your game is never smart because EVERYONE likes to enjoy a story in its actuality, not have pieces of story already known, so I don’t know why Bungie is doing this to Halo Reach.