The very first videogame forum I ever entered was the one housed at Final Fantasy Online^[1]. FFOnline is not known for their welcome, open atmosphere. FFOnline is not known for intelligent, thoughtful discussion^[2]. If you’re just starting to post, you’re going to get flamed. FFOnline, as do all communities, has some very strict rules, and it’s very intolerant to those who don’t follow them to the letter. Outsiders blithely go and break them—hence their lowly position on the totem pole—while the regulars are sure to walk on eggshells.

For example, the members do not like spoilers. That’s a pretty standard rule. However, in an effort to avoid sanctioning, people mark as spoilers even the tiniest details. Consider, for example, the following passage taken from a thread regarding Unlimited SaGa:

HP doesn't even count anymore! I had my people get hit about a dozen times and lost about 3 times their max HP, but they STILL live! Here, the Life Point system is everything. Now, instead of getting the lucky or traumatic damage to subtract one life point, in Unlimited SaGa, you can take away as little as one all the way to about 5 lifepoints! (Maximum I've seen so far)^[3]

This was marked as a spoiler. I do not understand why.

See, to me, spoiler always implies something about the plot. The passage describes gameplay. “The main villain is revealed to be the main character’s brother” is a spoiler. “Pressing ‘Up’ moves your character towards the top of the screen” is not.

I've seen some really crazy things marked as spoilers. One post--I swear I'm not making this up, and I'd send a link if I remembered it--mentioned, say, FFX's Via Purifico as the poster's favorite location. There was no discussion of what went on in there--merely a mention to the effect of "I liked the atmosphere of the place and how the teleporters worked." It was followed by a bevy of "mark your spoiler" flames.

The point is twofold: There needs to be a definition of “spoiler” common to everyone; and there needs to be a better understanding of when it’s appropriate to criticize someone for not warning us. I already covered a bit of the first point; I’m going to get to the second and then loop around back to the first for a bit of cyclical continuity^[4].

Those of you that know me know that I consider videogames to have the potential to be an art form comparable to literature and film. When I write a paper on either for a class, I don't have to say, "This analysis of Mrs. Dalloway contains major spoilers for the ending." Why, then, are videogames the only genre where this practice is not only accepted but expected?

See, when writing literary analysis, you assume that your audience has read the work in question. Discussions of videogames assume quite the opposite--that whoever is reading the post has not played the game and his experience will be ruined when he finds out that a certain character dies.

It’s occasionally necessary to mark a spoiler. About a week ago I was discussing the concept of religion in games and felt that it was important to quote at length from Final Fantasy Tactics to prove my point. Because we were discussing a general concept and going into a specific example, it is generally agreed, there was the need for the warning^[5].

However, if the discussion had been, specifically, “Religion in Final Fantasy Tactics”, it should have been no-holds-barred. It’s only natural to assume that that discussion would be detailed and would hit significant points in the storyline; if one had not finished the game, one ought not to have gone to the forum. I’ve seen topics entitled for example, “Questions on Xenosaga’s Ending (SPOILERS)”. Here is redundancy if I ever saw it. Of course a discussion on a game’s ending is going to spoil the ending for those who haven’t played it. It’s more ludicrous when people mark spoilers within threads that obviously contain spoilers, and even moreso when people flame people for forgetting to warn.

In a case such as that outlined above, it’s the fault of the reader, not the poster, for viewing a topic that analyzes something they haven’t played yet. If someone decides to spend time in an environment in which games are discussed, he can’t fault anyone but himself.

Now I don’t have as strict a definition of the term “spoiler” as other people do. For me, if it’s told in the manual or other promotional materials, it’s fair game. A discussion of gameplay—There are a lot of random encounters, here’s what the battle system looks like, you can only hold X number of items—is never a spoiler. You cannot legitimately say that the fact that Squall and Rinoa eventually fall in love is a spoiler—the game was promoted on that premise. Spoilers are key plot events. She dies—the villain is your boss’s wife—who you think is the villain is really possessed by the true villain—the whole thing was a dream—the heroes were being manipulated by the villain—the hero turns into the villain—those are all spoilers.

There should also be a statute of limitations. I’m talking to you—yeah, you, the guy who marked as a spoiler the fact that the Dragonlord changes forms at the end of the original Dragon Warrior. My friend, almost all of us know that; the ones who don’t know this have no intention of playing the game, I submit.

I’d like to bring up one last point and that’s the fact that we need to define a standard etiquette as to how to physically mark the spoilers. Most boards nowadays have a spoiler tag that hides text so you need to highlight it. That’s the best. Second best is saying, “Spoiler below,” and giving about 10 blank lines.

What really gets me is when people give a spoiler immediately after announcing it. I’ve seen posts to the effect of, “my favorite part of super kookie SAga IX^[6] was when (spoiler) Tanesha turned YOShi into a puppy dog so cute lol!” What’s the point of marking a spoiler in that case? Most people don’t blinder on one word at a time; they’re going to see the spoiler before it’s too late. In a case like that, don’t even bother marking it; you’re still spoiling the game for us.

On forums, there needs to be a reform of how spoilers are treated and written. And when writing an article, people need to expect that it will contain spoilers. If we’re not afraid to talk about the details of games, we’ll be able to get into a deeper and more analytical discussion of them.

Sections of this article originally appeared in the General Gaming forum of AllRPG under the heading, “Why Do We Mark Our Spoilers?” Many thanks to all who participated in the ensuing discussion for their assistance with teasing out a thesis for this column.

Footnotes

1) http://forums.ffonline.com/ Return

2) As we don’t want to get into an intersite war, I’d like to state that all FFOnline bashing is merely my opinion and not AllRPG’s. Please direct all flames to me. My e-mail address is locke@ffonline.com. Return

3) This is not the entire post; however, the rest is along the same lines—the guy describes towns, goes into the concept of the Reel system, and comments on the included Final Fantasy X-2 preview. Return

4) I don’t know if “cyclical continuity” is a real term or not. It sounds good, though, doesn’t it? Return

5) Tangential sidenote I am going to bring to the table: In an English class in which we were discussing George Orwell’s 1984, I raised my hand and succinctly compared the ending to those of both Ira Levin’s This Perfect Day and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Only a few had read Brave New World, and I happened to be the only one who had read This Perfect Day. I was subsequently lauded by my professor for pointing out the formulaic nature of the dystopia. Exercise: Interpret this footnote as it relates to the paragraph that led to it. 250 words. Return

6) I don’t think this game really exists, but if it does, it was only released in Japan. Return