He Who Fights Spoilers

Instead of talking about a specific game, today I want to talk about a 'trend' that's been hitting gaming YouTubers in particular - accidental minor spoilers turning into major spoilers due to well meaning audience members - and the people who make those spoilers even worse by trying to fight them. Since I didn't want to post actual spoiler images, most of the screenshots are just random.

Nobody likes spoilers. Every good story has a flow, a structure, it builds towards something with all its twists and turns. Learning any of that in advance can disrupt that flow or even ruin the entire build-up. But in spite of that, some people intentionally reveal important plot details to people just to ruin it for them, just to get a rise out of them.

Spoilers can hurt for videogames in particular because you play an active part in discovering where the story goes; in some games, your choices can even change the story altogether. This is why people who watch Let's Plays tend to like blind playthroughs of videogames - so they get to experience that sense of discovery again, vicariously, through another person. However, playing games with an audience exposes you to many responses, and sharply increases the risk of being spoiled on the game. Trolls revel in ruining the experience for a public figure, and by extension, their audience. But sometimes the well intentioned fans can be just as bad, albeit unintentionally. I'm going to talk about two kinds of situations where well intentioned people can ruin a game and both of them hinge on underestimating the power of hindsight.

Secret Meanings

In well written stories, there will often be a few lines of dialogue that have an impact. Maybe a character suddenly reveals their true motivations in just three words that change everything, or maybe simple comment flips everything you thought you knew about the story around. The power of these lines is often the context in which they're said, or the build up, so the line doesn't mean a lot by itself in theory.

If an iconic line occurs in a videogame, fans will often say the line to a content creator playing it by posting it in the comments or chat, depending on the platform. This isn't done maliciously, these people probably believe that the line won't mean anything to the person playing the game. But the problem is that several people will be thinking the same, causing the phrase to be posted multiple times, which will inevitably make the player think about its meaning. And depending on the line and the times at which people say it, said player might figure out way more than they should know at the time. Games that depend heavily on their story, like Undertale and Doki Doki Literature Club, suffer from this in particular. I want to use the latter to give a clear example, but skip this next part if you don't want spoilers.

[Doki Doki Literature Club spoilers start here] - - -

The big twist in Doki Doki Literature Club is that the club president, Monika, is self aware and knows that she's in a videogame. She begins to interfere with the player's attempts to interact with the other girls, which eventually culminates in a scene where the phrase 'Just Monika' pops up - it's Monika's demand that you focus on her and no one else. The phrase quickly became an in-joke among the fans, many of whom love posting 'Just Monika' under the comments of any video and in the chat of any livestream. When confronted, they'll usually be coy and proclaim they said it because Monika is their favorite character. But because the phrase will come up so often, the player will inevitably suspect Monika of being behind the game's events - which she is.

[Doki Doki Literature Club spoilers end here] - - -

So, all in all, just because the line doesn't make sense out of context, that doesn't mean it won't spoil things if it's sent to a content creator playing the game blind. Particularly when combined with the kind of well meaning audience member I want to talk about next

Just Making It Worse

This particular trend is why I wanted to write this article. Sometimes the response by well meaning fans can turn what wouldn't have been a spoiler into a major spoiler. To illustrate, imagine the following two scenarios:

1. Fans are making comments like I mentioned in the previous part, removing a line of dialogue from its context and posting it in the comments of a video or the chat of a livestream.

2. The content creator makes an oversight, and uses material from future events in the game as a thumbnail or social media post (for example, there's a unique shot of the main character with a shocked expression - this expression happens when a major character in the story dies, but the content creator doesn't know and cannot tell from the expression).

These things risk spoiling parts of the game for the content creator, but some fans are so zealous in wanting to point that out that they cause the spoiler. Even just responding with "shut up, that's a spoiler" or "there's a spoiler in the thumbnail, just letting you know" makes the situation worse. This guarantees that the content creator will start to speculate on what the line of dialogue or the content of the thumbnail actually means, creating the situation that the well-meaning commenter was most likely trying to prevent.

I saw this trend come up a few times for YouTubers like Lucahjin and NicoB, who regularly play story-heavy games. They both had some occasions where a certain character portrait was used for a thumbnail in one of the videos, and instead of letting it go, fans had to unleash a flood of comments on the video criticizing the "spoilers" in the thumbnail - that no one unaware of future events, including the content creator - would have even known about.

When you see something that could potentially be a spoiler, the only winning move is not to play. It would be best if a moderator was informed in private, who can then decide if the comment or message should be edited or removed. And when it comes to a thumbnail, it's best to let the player know after the game is done; if no one says anything, no one would be the wiser anyway.


In Conclusion

It's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to any information about future events in media, especially when addressing to content creators playing games in a public space. Vague references to future events, as well as quotes, are risky business, especially because they're never said in a vacuum - the content creator will likely get the same quote or reference from many people. But people who are vigilant about pointing out these spoilers can make things worse, because they turn possible spoilers into certain spoilers.

I hope this is something young audiences learn as we and the Internet continue to grow, but until then, the only real solution is to not respond publically and to have moderators take care of it.

_

So, that was another article! Instead of focusing on a specific game, I tackled a trend surrounding games this time. What did you think? Was it a worthwhile topic, or should I stick to specific games and series? Have you ever been in a situation where people spoiled a game for you, even though they didn't mean to? All comments welcomed!

Life is Strange's Ending: A Meeting With Fate & Contrivance #1 (SPOILERS)

I recently took some time to complete Life is Strange, a narrative game not unlike those developed by TellTale. I was generally quite impressed with the game, but the ending left me a little disappointed. In this piece, I'll explain my problems with the finale to Dontnod's successful narrative project.

To establish the most important details, in Life is Strange the player takes on the role of Max Caulfield, a photography student who somehow gains the power to reverse time. This power manifests itself when Max witnesses an old friend get shot, and she uses it to save her from this fate.

From this point onwards, Max uses her power almost constantly in the story. Personally, I rather liked the concept; being a student in photography, her passion was always capturing the moment in a way she envisioned, and limited time reversal added to that in an interesting way. To me, it didn't matter so much that the game never properly explained where this power came from; but it also made it very hard to swallow how the game decided to resolve the ending.

Throughout the story, Max and her friend Chloe - the person she saved - are on the trail of a missing student called Rachel Amber. Her disappearance is suspicious, to say the least, and ties in with repeated hints that there is a darkness, a storm brooding within Arcadia Bay, and the Blackwell Academy where Max studies. A conspiracy between certain students, teachers and influential families. This concept is further supported by repeated visions Max has of a huge tornado seemingly consuming Arcadia Bay. 

All of this reaches its peak when all the player's preconceptions are overturned, and the identity of the darkness lurking in Arcadia Bay is revealed as Mr. Jefferson, a teacher at Blackwell. As it turns out, he's been kidnapping students, involving them in bizarre photoshoots and then murdering them. So consider my surprise when Mr. Jefferson was caught very early in Episode 5, and an actual real tornado then shows up to wreak havoc on Arcadia Bay. So, all of the dialogue about the Prescott family, the students that went missing, the 'lurking darkness,' the brooding storm - it all boils down to an actual tornado just appearing out of nowhere. And not just that, but according to the game, it's Max's fault. 

Even though Max had her first vision of the storm and tornado before she even discovered her power, in the final minutes of Episode 5 you're told that averting Chloe's fate is the cause of all this. Because Max saved her, the powers-that-be decided that Arcadia Bay should be destroyed by a tornado.

To be fair, the game takes several moments to demonstrate that Max's powers may have an adverse effect on the world. Starting with out of season snow and dead birds, moving on to dead whales and a double moon, it can't be said that the eventual tornado came out of nowhere. But with that said, several characters in the story can live or die - Kate and Frank, for example. But regardless of whether they live or not, nature still gets messed up. Why is it that rescuing Chloe was seemingly all it took to completely unbalance nature? It's completely contrived, and for one specific reason: the final choice.

You either go back to the moment Max saved Chloe, and let her die to prevent the tornado from happening, or watch the tornado tear Arcadia Bay apart killing who-knows-how-many people. Outside its context, the choice is actually incredibly powerful; save the few you know, or the many you don't? But the fact that it all boils down to a tornado you supposedly caused using your unexplained power - that really took the emotion out of the choice for me. The game essentially used a Diabolus Ex Machina, and then said 'Look at this. This contrived conflict is your fault.' I sacrificed Arcadia Bay in favor of Chloe because I felt that choice best reflected my defiance of this supposed "responsibility."

So, to summarize; the game hints at an underlying mystery or conflict you're solving - a conspiracy between unknown powers - along with strange occurences in the natural world. You wouldn't be foolish for thinking the two were related, but as soon as the story's major conflict - the disappearance of Rachel Amber and the masterminds behind it - is resolved, an actual tornado shows up to wreck the city for no real reason - just because you saved someone at the start of the game. Since your power is not properly explained, it can also not resolve this plot hole. 

In my next piece, I'm going to write what I initially expected the final choice to be and why I feel that would've suited the story better.

As always, nothing I've written here is fact or truth. Please feel free to respond if there's something I've overlooked. Feedback is always appreciated, even if it's harsh! See you in the next one!

Correction (23-01-16): It was pointed out that Life is Strange is not Dontnod's first project, so I changed the opening line a bit to reflect the facts.