Don't you just hate people like this?

[SoManyCrimes]

Any game, novel or movie relying on the revelation of a massive "twist" at the end and on which your enjoyment of the whole thing depends...usually isn't going to be very good. It's the first resort for novice writers who think it's extremely clever, and the last for writers who can't think of anything better.

I'm not sure we're talking about spoiling twists, really... not sure where you picked that up from.

Of course we are. The OP's experience was ruined by someone posting a short comment on what happened at the end of a game.

I'm not sure why that follows. A twist is a particular kind of surprise, something that makes you rethink assumptions about the plot. Whether that's good storytelling or cheap gimmickry is another issue, but not every surprise ending is a twist. And neither is every spoilable ending that can be summed up in a single phrase.

If a story is about whether X survives against all odds, the fact that X dies at the end can hardly be considered a twist or even much of a surprise. It was always a possibility. But you still wouldn't want to know about it before you started. Plenty of good stories maintain their tension by dangling two equally likely resolutions in front of you.

 

[karma9308]

I'm get agitated when I get something spoiled for me. I don't go on a hellish bender of destruction, murdering everyone in my path, but I do go "Why'd you do that!?" My brother is really bad at it. Hell I walked in the door one day and he just shouts at me (Halo 4 spoilers)

Spoiler

"Cortana dies at the end."

I'm glad I wasn't interested in the game, or I would have been pissed.

 

[Angie7F]

I am lucky. I dont have very many friends so no one really ever spoils anything for me.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Any game, novel or movie relying on the revelation of a massive "twist" at the end and on which your enjoyment of the whole thing depends...usually isn't going to be very good. It's the first resort for novice writers who think it's extremely clever, and the last for writers who can't think of anything better.

I'm not sure we're talking about spoiling twists, really... not sure where you picked that up from.

Of course we are. The OP's experience was ruined by someone posting a short comment on what happened at the end of a game.

I'm not sure why that follows. A twist is a particular kind of surprise, something that makes you rethink assumptions about the plot. Whether that's good storytelling or cheap gimmickry is another issue, but not every surprise ending is a twist. And neither is every spoilable ending that can be summed up in a single phrase.

If a story is about whether X survives against all odds, the fact that X dies at the end can hardly be considered a twist or even much of a surprise. It was always a possibility. But you still wouldn't want to know about it before you started. Plenty of good stories maintain their tension by dangling two equally likely resolutions in front of you.

They do indeed, but what kind of story is completely ruined by the revelation of the ending? I've seen movies where the character dies or lives against the odds at the end. I've seen 127 hours several times and none of those times was the movie spoiled or the tension lessened by my knowledge that the guy survives at the end. Why? Because it's a well made movie and and well made movie has more to it than a surprise or twist or whatever else you want to call it, which is the sole appeal and any revealing of it destroys that appeal.

 

[SoManyCrimes]

Any game, novel or movie relying on the revelation of a massive "twist" at the end and on which your enjoyment of the whole thing depends...usually isn't going to be very good. It's the first resort for novice writers who think it's extremely clever, and the last for writers who can't think of anything better.

I'm not sure we're talking about spoiling twists, really... not sure where you picked that up from.

Of course we are. The OP's experience was ruined by someone posting a short comment on what happened at the end of a game.

I'm not sure why that follows. A twist is a particular kind of surprise, something that makes you rethink assumptions about the plot. Whether that's good storytelling or cheap gimmickry is another issue, but not every surprise ending is a twist. And neither is every spoilable ending that can be summed up in a single phrase.

If a story is about whether X survives against all odds, the fact that X dies at the end can hardly be considered a twist or even much of a surprise. It was always a possibility. But you still wouldn't want to know about it before you started. Plenty of good stories maintain their tension by dangling two equally likely resolutions in front of you.

They do indeed, but what kind of story is completely ruined by the revelation of the ending? I've seen movies where the character dies or lives against the odds at the end. I've seen 127 hours several times and none of those times was the movie spoiled or the tension lessened by my knowledge that the guy survives at the end. Why? Because it's a well made movie and and well made movie has more to it than a surprise or twist or whatever else you want to call it, which is the sole appeal and any revealing of it destroys that appeal.

But why does it have to be all or nothing? Something can be worse without being completely ruined. Surely you can imagine a story where foreknowledge of the ending diminishes the enjoyment? Yes there are other things to enjoy, but why settle for that when you could not know the ending and have it all?

And there are entire genres where the surprise at the end really is the point. I write murder mysteries. A large part of why I write them is to play a game with willing readers. Can you solve the crime before the end if I promise to give you all the clues? Having the solution blurted out in advance doesn't destroy the story, but it undermines it a lot, for both the creator and the audience. Not everyone has to play the whodunnit game. Some people like to guess. Some people like to be surprised. Some people ignore the plot altogether. That's great. But a lot of those people are going to be pretty bummed if they know whodunnit in advance. Sure, one could say that the whole mystery genre is inherently flawed. I wouldn't disagree too vehemently, although I like to think that most of the problems can be sidestepped with a little thought.

But I think it's a dangerous path of argument to go down. There's a heavy risk of stepping off the path and falling into the pond of "You're Enjoying It All WRONG!!!" And that's a bad place to wind up.

 

[FFP2]

If a story is about whether X survives against all odds, the fact that X dies at the end can hardly be considered a twist or even much of a surprise. It was always a possibility. But you still wouldn't want to know about it before you started. Plenty of good stories maintain their tension by dangling two equally likely resolutions in front of you.

Trust me, this spoiler was extremely surprising (if it's true).

I'm more mad at the fact that it got spoiled before the game even came out. If it was a few weeks after the release day I would be okay with it. Shit, I've actively looked for spoilers for games and movies that had only been out a few days (ME3 for example) even though I knew that I would be playing/watching it soon. This dude did it just to ruin people's enjoyment.

I am lucky. I dont have very many friends so no one really ever spoils anything for me.

Well now you have one more

 

[SoManyCrimes]

Trust me, this spoiler was extremely surprising (if it's true).

That sucks; I'm sorry you had to find it out. I just meant that even "unsurprising" surprises should be kept secret, if people don't want to know about them. Surprises that genuinely come out of left field qualify double! Wherever possible, people should be allowed to control how they want to experience stories.

I mostly work in the crime and mystery genres (both in my own writing and with my clients) so I take the techniques of concealing, integrating and revealing surprises extremely seriously. A lot of work goes into springing these revelations. "Blurted out in a random forum posting without context" is rarely high up authors' wishlists!

 

[FFP2]

Oh I'm sure it was, and I'm sorry you had to find it out. I was just trying to point out that even "unsurprising" surprises should be kept secret, if people don't want to know about them. Surprises that genuinely come out of left field qualify double! Wherever possible, people should be allowed to control how they want to experience stories.

I mostly work in the crime and mystery genres (both in my own writing and with my clients) so I take the techniques of concealing, integrating and revealing surprises extremely seriously. A lot of work goes into springing these revelations. "Blurted out in a random forum posting without context" is rarely high up authors' wishlists!

I think I may have misquoted... Sorry

 

[SoManyCrimes]

The one time I do think you have to give up control over what gets spoiled is when you actually start discussing storytelling technique.

Nothing is more irritating and counterproductive than doing the dance of vagueness, where you either have huge swamps of spoiler tags or impenetrable sentences like "of course what really works in when we learn the murderer's identity and that he (or she) was looking for revenge because of (thing in past that can't be mentioned)". Once you start delving into how stories work and how to make them better, I think you have to accept that people might throw in examples you aren't familiar with.

I think once the spoiler protection is off, provided everyone is forewarned, it should be off entirely.

 

[Frankster]

So its the game equivalent of dudes running around shouting in their megaphones which character dies in last harry potter the night of the release?

Trolls be trolling.

 

[Sight Unseen]

People who go out of their way to spoil things are dicks.

I also hate when I'm looking up something unrelated and I have something spoiled for me. This happened a few times when watching the TV Game of Thrones series before I read the books, I went to a wiki page to find out more about the Stark family tree and accidentally looked up the wiki page for the book series not the tv show, and had a few things spoiled for me:

Game of Thrones Spoiler:

Spoiler

Ned Stark was shown as deceased in the family tree

Storm of Swords Spoiler:

Spoiler

I had the fact that Tyrion marries Sansa spoiled as well. Luckily the Red Wedding wasn't spoiled at all, I'd have been PISSED. I also had the fact that Tywin gets killed by Tyrion spoiled, and that Jon Snow becomes Lord Commander spoiled early

For those of you watching/Reading the Game of Thrones series, DO NOT look things up if you can avoid it. There be unintentional spoilers everywhere!

 

[Ghaleon640]

I hate spoilers, especially because quite frankly, I don't get around to all the stuff I want to do right away.

And a funny story about one of my friends; he started a conversation talking about Naruto saying, "hey, did you get to the part where Kakashi dies?" to a group that had not yet seen that part. Though this was a while ago and one of the characters fake deaths, he pissed off a couple people instantly.

My brother talked to him another time, and had just started seeing a certain show. When he was predicting the final episode or something like that, my friend said 'that guy doesn't even make it to the middle of the series.' Common sense sometimes missed this guy.

 

[R.Nevermore]

My brother is an idiot when it comes to hiding spoilers. Blurting the ends to game of thrones seasons and books accidentally. I actually went and read the books specifically for the purpose of avoiding hearing him accidentally blurt out that Joffrey turns into a giant devil robot that consumes penguins to power up his evil pimpmobile.... Oh shit... Should have spoiler tagged that....

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

This also shits me. The Walking Dead show, game or movie? It's not a herculean effort to specify, there's no reason not to do so.

You know, it occurs to me that there are an awful lot of different things named "The Walking Dead." When I first heard of the game and TV series, I assumed that one was a video game tie-in to the other. Ha, no, not related at all. Other than by zombies, I mean.

It seems kinda lazy on the creators of at least two out of three of those products.

Also, I have to say, when you said "this also shits me" I had this (awful) vision of someone getting so upset that that person shits their pants. Rage incontinence.

I know (or hope?) that isn't what you meant. I've just never heard that phrase before (or didn't get the image if I did). Just thought you should know. ^^

 

[Laith]

Had the ending to Starcraft 2: WoL spoiled for me by some jackass on these very forums, interestingly enough. Was very annoyed by that. If I recall correctly it was in a thread where people were primarily discussing the Halo games or Bungie or something, so I really wasn't expecting it.

 

[Zantos]

Accidental spoilers are perfectly forgiveable. People who intentionally spoil things are annoying. People who intentionally spoil things before or on release then try to justify this with 'If you were a real fan you'd know this anyway' piss me off.

I don't think it ruins the experience, but I can certainly see why it diminishes it for some people. You might not mind spoilers, but to decide that everyone should feel the same way and belittle those that do care about them is just arrogant and selfish really.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Why yes, I do hate people who do that. Only slightly worse is

SPOILER WARNING
.
.
.
.
.
.
Soandso dies.

...which often doesn't work at all, because you could be scrolling past it and have your attention drawn to it as a result, or the whole things is displayed anyway.

Soandso dies! FUCK! He was my favorite character!

OT: I had the same thing happen to me on Kotaku on an article about Audiosurf Air. I doubt it's true, but seriously FUCK YOU to anyone who does this. Luckily I managed to only read the first line, so if it is true I've only had ONE big plot point spoiled for me. Dear god I hope it's not true.

 

[WanderingFool]

I dont know, maybe its just me, but I really dont give a shit about having a ending to a game or movie spoiled for me. Maybe because I care more about the journey than the destination in most cases.