Sense-Making Game 2 Turbo (Or a Defense of 'Lets Play Sense Making Game!')

by Aaron "I have a name, I'm not just this guy" Gover 

I'll be the first to admit it, I wrote my original editorial in something of a hurry. However, the seeming haste with which I wrote my editorial does not indicate that I haven't thought a great deal about my points, though I could have supported and explained them better. Sorting through all three rebuttals to my editorial proves this, as there seems to be a basic misunderstanding with my editorial.

Spoiler warnings are just the physical manifestation of the attitude I was preaching against in my editorial. In all three rebuttals, it seemed as if the authors think that the spoiler warnings themselves are to blame for my ire. Nothing could be further from the truth -- the presense or absense of a few red letters means little to me.

On the contrary, it is the whole protect-me-from-myself attitude of those who demand spoiler warnings that bothers me. It seems to me that a lot of gamers seem to think there is some middle ground or unimportant level of spoilers -- "oh, its just a town name, its not a spoiler!" Not so, I say -- a spoiler is a spoiler is a spoiler, be it a name of a character or the name of the last boss.

I believe, as I touched on but didn't elaborate on in my first editorial, that it is more the responsibility of the reader to avoid spoilers than that of any publication which prints them. It is this shift of responsibility that is what I am angry about, not the spoiler warnings.

This shift becomes even more ridiculous as time goes on -- Mr. Williams went so far as to mark a spoiler for a six year old game, for crying out loud.

To sum up all my points from this and my previous editorial, I feel that spoilers are avoided by:

Finishing the game, and doing it quickly. If you haven't finished Xenogears or Phantasy Star IV by now, I think its pretty evident that you never will.

Not reading about the game before you finish it -- don't look at screenshots, don't read the soundtrack's track list, don't look at character art, and don't read interviews with the creator, ad ininitum. Doing these things is just asking to have a game spoiled for you.

Stay out of game related forums for the same reason. If you feel you absolutely can't stay out of the forums, avoid discussions where the particular game you care about is being discussed. Don't ask for the discussion to be ended, leave!

In the end, it is not an issue of politeness or courtesy, it is an issue of personal responsibility. We are not slaves to the mouseclick, we can chose what we will and will not read pertaining to games, and I suggest we all begin doing so just a little more carefully.