Poll: Do "spoilers" have a use by date?

[FoolKiller]

I think all three that you list are different. A movie is 6 months to a year. Games and books are forever. Most pop culture movies will be seen fairly soon by most people if they intend on seeing them at all.

Games and books are much larger time investments and as such, I for one haven't finished even playing all the games I wanted to from the SNES era, much less my current collection of 360 games.

Books really take a long time to read, and since there are novels that are hundreds of years old it would be unfair to spoil those when millions of people weren't alive when the novel was already 50 to 100 years old. I would have been really sad if someone had ruined novels such as Lord of the Flies, Lord of the Rings, Brave New World, Wuthering Heights, and Dracula to name a few.

Oh... heheh... upon scrolling up I realize that QuirkyTambourine has stated nearly the same thing as I did. Yay, someone agrees with me... in advance.

 

[Ranchcroutons]

Yeah spoilers are never cool. It also adds unnecessary pressure to people like me who try to blow through a game before the internet is abuzz with spoilers. Here's the kicker, I was playing AC Brotherhood 3 days after it came out and it still got spoiled for me.

 

[Macgyvercas]

If a movie/game/book has been out for more than three years, you can stop spoilering stuff unless someone asks you to not ruin anything.

 

[FinalHeart95]

Well, there are the ones that are ingrained into society, or simply that everyone knows.

The rest should be spoiler tagged.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

well online i depend on the original post/title of the thread, if it doesn't include spoiler warnings or something or i see people talking about it then i'll talk about it otherwise i usually always include spoilers or plot points on favorite parts about the games, if i have it in the spoiler usually i mention the game or something beforehand if i dont give a spoiler title.

usually i give it a good 4-5 years that im careful about stuff, if im with friends i tend to ask them "have you played/watched such and such?" and if they have i ask them where they are up to to figure out what i can talk about then we go from there.

i dont care too much about being spoiled on stuff, but i respect that for other people that genuine experience is needed sometimes to really enjoy a game.

 

[lewism247]

I had a friend freak out because I spoiled the ending of The Tudors... The Tudors being a show which closely follows the life of HENRY THE VIII, one of the most famous rulers in European history. Needless to say I didn't feel especially bad. There has to be SOME statute of limitations on this stuff. Seen The Passion yet?

Spoiler

JESUS DIES

How about the 300?

Spoiler

LEONIDAS DIES

Oh, and don't forget Band of Brothers

Spoiler

HITLER DIES

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Oh that was great!

OP: I think they do, if the game/film/whatever has been out for over a year and you still haven't finished it you don't really care. The BIG ones should be spoilered for a ear and a half or so.

 

[LadyRhian]

I had a friend freak out because I spoiled the ending of The Tudors... The Tudors being a show which closely follows the life of HENRY THE VIII, one of the most famous rulers in European history. Needless to say I didn't feel especially bad. There has to be SOME statute of limitations on this stuff. Seen The Passion yet?

Spoiler

JESUS DIES

How about the 300?

Spoiler

LEONIDAS DIES

Oh, and don't forget Band of Brothers

Spoiler

HITLER DIES

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Oh that was great!

OP: I think they do, if the game/film/whatever has been out for over a year and you still haven't finished it you don't really care. The BIG ones should be spoilered for a ear and a half or so.

Ackshurly... in 300

Spoiler

All the Spartans die but one

And just to add one of my own...

Spoiler

Rosebud is his sled

 

[DazBurger]

I find this kind of funny because I got some angst pointed at my direction over spoiling that

Spoiler: Halo Reach spoiler

You lose and the planet is taken over by the enemy

back when it was in development and the anticipation was brewing. I don't really feel sorry for them because even I, the ardent Halo-disliker that I am even knew that Reach was the Halo universe's equivalent of the Alamo. It was, correct me if I'm wrong even mentioned in the very first game!

Well... They mentioned that they were fleeing from Reach, with a Covenant Armada on their tail.
And marines throughout the Halo series often yell "This is for Reach" when they kill enemies.

Aaand theres the Halo book called:"The fall of Reach", centered around Reach and how the war plays out.

So yeah... That weren't really a spoiler.

 

[Nooners]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/5/

And anything under...hmmm...I'd say a few years needs spoilers.

 

[Paulie92]

Well, some things *everyone* knows. And if they don't, they are an idiot.

For example - its hardly a spoiler any more to say "Darth Vader is Luke Skywalkers father". Nobody doesn't know that. And if they don't, then they have more pressing concerns, like why they've been living in a hole devoid of all human contact for the last several decades or something.

But in most cases; don't be a douche about spoilers.

Pretty much this ^^ though sometimes it's more the readers fault for reading them or overeacting at minor spoilers, it's probably better to be safe than sorry.

 

[mindlesspuppet]

There's definitely a statute of limitations on spoilers. I was watching one of the Unskippable Let's Plays, and apparently some people were pissed off that they "spoiled" Aris' death in FF7. Let's face it, if you haven't played FF7 at this point, you're not going to.

 

[BrownGaijin]

One week in the workplace. Long enough for people to catch up, short enough for people to still talk about it.

My contribution

Spoiler: Bang.

 

[TundraWolf]

Well, some things *everyone* knows. And if they don't, they are an idiot.

For example - its hardly a spoiler any more to say "Darth Vader is Luke Skywalkers father". Nobody doesn't know that. And if they don't, then they have more pressing concerns, like why they've been living in a hole devoid of all human contact for the last several decades or something.

But in most cases; don't be a douche about spoilers.

See, we all think that, but have I got a story for you:

A few years back, my girlfriend and a friend of hers were watching the original Star Wars trilogy. Now, her friend was someone who apparently came from a small town and didn't get out much until she moved to the city. Fine, whatever, everyone still knows everything about Star Wars, right?

Well.

They're on Return of the Jedi and my girlfriends' sister walks into the room. She takes a look at the screen and says:

"Have you gotten to the part where Luke and Leia realize they're brother and sister?"

My girlfriends' friend then proceeds to freak out, completely surprised by her comment and not believing her at all. Apparently, she had never seen Star Wars before. Go figure. Sure enough, about twenty minutes later is when the reveal pops up in the movie. Needless to say, my girlfriends' friend was stunned and my girlfriends' sister was really apologetic about it.

Don't assume the classics are necessarily game when it comes to spoilers! You never know who might not know that Vader is Luke and Leia's father, or that the cake is a lie in the form of a fiery pit of death, or that Soylent Green is made of people, or that the killer is actually Norman Bates dressed like his dead mother.

... Wait...

 

[RatRace123]

Spoiler

Snape Killed Dumbleydore
It was his sled
It's people
You are Revan
Aerith Dies
Bella births an abomination and Jacob gets to have creepy pedo sex with it, and everyone's totally cool with that.

I'd block spoilers, you never know what could piss people off.

 

[smithy_2045]

Beaten to Snape kills Dumbledore by a single post...

If I don't want to be spoiled, I make sure I see whatever it is within a week of it being released. After then, I have no one to blame but myself.

 

[Phlakes]

Well, if it's something like Aeris/th dying, I don't bother. But everything that's less well known I usually always spoiler tag.

 

[Hashime]

Yo dawg

Depends really, I try to not spoil anything. But a mans gotta do what a mans gotta do.

This isn't really making any sense. You are an apple.

That is the best picture I have ever seen (today).

 

[Amethyst Wind]

I say 2 months, it's enough for the hype to die down and the people who haven't played it yet probably won't for a while, so even if something is spoiled there's a chance they'll forget by then.

That being said I'm still not in favour of spoilers in general, but if you strike up a conversation between 6 or so people about an older film, if there's only 1 guy who hasn't seen it I probably wouldn't stop the conversation.

 

[Spade Lead]

Yeah, I'd say at that about 3-5 months after the game comes out it's not a spoiler.

Spoiler

{In Black Ops you kill JFK, and Reznov was in your head the whole time.}

See, I didn't know that, you should have put

Spoiler: Black Ops Spoiler

instead of just

Spoiler

Nah, just kidding. I will get to that point in the game eventually, but I have found that it is more interest once you know the secret to see how it comes about, and since you have to read the spoiler to understand why I am about to say what I am about to say, I can say it without a spoiler tag,(If you didn't read the spoiler, ignore ALL of what I just said and move along...) WHY we kill JFK is more important to me than the fact that it happens. Thus, the spoiler tags will ALWAYS get clicked on my laptop, even if I know it will spoil a game or movie I haven't gotten around to. I understand that the cake is a lie, but HOW we discover it is more important. (Seriously, why do you care so much about the cake, and why is it such a bad thing that it is a lie, I STILL haven't played that game, yet.)

I guess it is just the writer in me that likes to see the inner workings of the story, rather than what actually happens in the story. Nothing is more annoying to me than a predictable story.

 

[Spade Lead]

I find this kind of funny because I got some angst pointed at my direction over spoiling that

Spoiler: Halo Reach spoiler

You lose and the planet is taken over by the enemy

back when it was in development and the anticipation was brewing. I don't really feel sorry for them because even I, the ardent Halo-disliker that I am even knew that Reach was the Halo universe's equivalent of the Alamo. It was, correct me if I'm wrong even mentioned in the very first game!

My first thought when I heard they were making Halo: Reach was,

Spoiler: Halo: Reach Spoiler

Why would you want to play a game in which you KNOW you are going to lose, no matter what you do?

And I have never even read any of the books, and I still knew that...