The Warp Pipe - 20/09/09
By Matt Keller - Sun Sep 20, 2009 10:01am
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This week, The Warp Pipe will examine the nature of video game spoilers and discuss the introduction of a statute of limitations.
Soylent Green is People!
| When you’ve been hanging out for a movie, book or game, the worst thing that can happen is having someone spoil the ending or a major plot twist for you. Some people can be a bit sensitive about spoilers though, up to the point where telling them anything that happens in the first minute will cause them to fly off the handle. Where exactly do you drawn the line with what constitutes a spoiler and when is it suitable to start talking freely about spoilerific material? It is my belief that anything that is shown by official sources prior to the release of a product is fair game. That includes trailers, screenshots, gameplay videos, press releases, game packaging, store displays and TV commercials. In the case of Batman: Arkham Asylum, plot elements such as the Joker’s plan to take over the Asylum and appearances by the Scarecrow were already divulged in the game’s promotional campaign. One could argue that trailers for low quality comedy films (particularly Epic Movie and its ilk) tend to give away the best jokes in the trailer, but complaints like that can be directed at the marketing department. The other issue with the complaints made about Batman spoilers were that the Joker first implies and directly tells you the gist of his plan in the game’s introduction, and the Scarecrow shows up by the end of the first hour. Batman: Arkham Asylum runs for about twelve hours, and in my opinion, anything that happens in the first 10% is fair game. That’s the way I did it for the 400+ reviews I’ve written before Batman: Arkham Asylum, and it’s worked pretty well so far. There’s quite a bit of difference between that and say, the popular meme which sprung up regarding the ending of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince mere hours after the book was released. One legitimately ruined the ending of the product for many people and was outright malicious, while the other merely sets up the situation. While we’re on the topic of everybody’s favourite four-eyed wizard, when does a spoiler stop being a spoiler? Most sequels, particularly in the Harry Potter series, expect a certain level of familiarity with past events, and consider all spoilers in the previous works to be inherently known. Not all works have sequels however. After a certain amount of time, however, certain spoilers are so widespread they become assumed knowledge, or are parodied so heavily that you can’t avoid them. I think that we all need to agree upon a statute of limitations for video game spoilers – that after a certain point, spoilers cease being something to get your panties in a bunch about. Since a statute of limitations in common law refers to a period of time during which legal proceedings can be initiated, the same obviously needs to apply for our spoiler statute. I think that five years is an adequate period, at least based on historical release schedules and hardware cycles. That would mean anything released in 2004 or earlier is free to discuss without spoiler markings. Like anything in law, there needs to be a provision for exceptions to the rule. In the case of video game spoilers, I think that instances, like the aforementioned Harry Potter series, where the sequels demand a certain familiarity with past events negate the spoilerific nature of those events. Finally, situations where a spoiler gets out of hand and becomes an Internet meme or gets heavily parodied should lift restrictions on discussion of those spoilers. | ) What did you think was going to happen? Seriously. | |
) Spoiled within hours of release | ||
) Samus' gender was once a spoiler, but is now assumed knowledge | ||
It Was His Sled
| Over time, some things that were once spoilers become part of the pop culture lexicon, and become so obscured that people don’t know that they were once mindblowing twists or plot events. Two examples are featured in the subtitles of this article, the first from the Charlton Heston sci-fi flick Soylent Green, and the second from Orson Welles’ groundbreaking Citizen Kane. The creators of The Simpsons joked on their DVD commentaries that they’ve made so many references and jokes about Citizen Kane that they could piece together the film in its entirety from said jokes. These are things that nobody in their right mind considers spoilers anymore. The same needs to apply for video games, so I’ve decided to throw in a few examples of things that would fall under the proposed statute. Final Fantasy VII: Aeris dies. She cannot be revived and does not come back. Well, within the confines of the plot – an Action Replay disc might say otherwise. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Sheik is Princess Zelda. Nintendo only considers the statute of limitations on spoilers to be about 3 years, since it’s all over Super Smash Bros. Melee. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty: Raiden’s support team, The Colonel and Rose, are part of an AI construct that starts going nuts after getting hit with a virus. They’re both technically real people, but neither was involved with the actual mission - the AI was just messing with Raiden. That should help you understand the barmy ending if you didn’t get it. Resident Evil: Barry betrayed the S.T.A.R.S. group. Wesker is evil. Wesker lives. The rest of the series pretends that both Jill and Chris’ games happened concurrently, despite the fact that’s impossible to replicate in the game. Beyond Good and Evil: Pey’j is infected with a DomZ spore. It’s really lame, predictable twist if you paid attention for more than 10 minutes. Super Mario Bros. 2: It’s all a dream. But Birdo is real, and she is technically a he. Deus Ex: UNATCO is evil - and that’s only the half of it. Paul technically lives, despite being a useless git. Fallout: You take the water chip back to Vault 13 and eliminate the Super Mutant threat, but are sent into exile in the desert since the overseer thinks the wasteland has changed you too much. Starfox Adventures: It’s all Andross. Yet again. Shenmue II: Shenmue is a tree and Shenhua has magic powers. Ryo never removes the Band-Aid from his face. | ) She dies. Get over it. | |
) He's also a genius scientist |
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