Leaks are all the rage right now. A while back the ENTIRE Street Fighter 6 roster was “leaked” giving players a ton of info ahead of time. Now Rockstar, the company behind the Grand Theft Auto series, has been rushing to do damage control after a significant amount of content was leaked and displayed to the world early. They posted a message to Twitter detailing how they’re a bit triggered because they didn’t get to show you the information in the way they intended, which I completely understand. I’ll post the whole statement below for the interested. Personally I’m not too invested in that series so I can’t say I combed over the leaks with scrying eyes to derive all the info possible. Instead, I want to use this opportunity to open up a larger conversation. Are leaks like this in the gaming world essentially the same thing as spoilers?
Growing up, I did the most cringey shit imaginable in an MMO one time. I remember partying up with an online friend to do some grinding to level up my mage. You see, I was only a few levels behind my friend at that time and I knew I was going to be unlocking new fire abilities soon, which he already had access to. So like the greedy child that I was, I politely asked “Hey can you… not use any of your fire abilities while we grind? I’m about to unlock them and I don’t want them spoiled for me”. He agreed, though later I caught him using a couple by accident and my dumb immature little middle school ass got onto him about it. If you’re out there, I apologize for the ignorance of youth. Anyway, I tell this story to show how to do this day, I still don’t want some aspects of gameplay spoiled for me. Oddly enough, it depends on the game and the context.
Let’s say a new single player game is on the horizon, such as Nier: Automata. Obviously knowing huge story beats ahead of time would be spoilers, but what if a gameplay trailer was posted that showed off every combat move in the game? Even if that gameplay trailer was posted officially by the company, I wouldn’t want to watch it because to me it spoils a huge part of the game which is unlocking all the different moves you can utilize to fight enemies with. Now to some people I’d wager they couldn’t care less, making the point that watching the moves be performed and actually stringing them together yourself in the heat of combat are two entirely different experiences. While I do agree with that for the most part, I still would choose not to watch the trailer because I wouldn’t want to go into it knowing every move that’s in it and which moves I’m already aiming for ahead of time. Now keep in mind my entire perspective changes when it’s a game with limited resources to spend like Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel or Genshin Impact. In those cases I’m legit looking up gameplay and leaks weeks in advance in order to know which characters/cards I want to spend my limited in-game money on. Those cases are outliers though and more so I feel compelled to look up the leaks to be informed rather than want to of my own accord.
Yes sir, thank god I saw you were leaked. Been saving my money ever since.
Hopefully I managed to explain what my own shitty brain considers to be spoilers as far as gameplay is concerned. Again I think we can all agree that narrative spoilers for a game are virtually the same as ones for movies/shows/anime, but where do you draw the line with gameplay? Do you watch gameplay leaks like they’re nothing, or do you prefer to watch as little as possible to determine if you want a game? Is showing gameplay still spoiling, or will actually playing it be a different enough experience that it shouldn’t count as spoiling? Grab your glock, explain to your kid why GTA 6 isn’t actually out yet, and let your brain blast away in the comments below!
