When Spoiler Alerts Don’t Matter
Last weekend I saw Cloverfield. I first heard about the movie when the original viral marketing campaign hit, and little information was available. What information was available intrigued me; a first person monster movie a la Blair Witch. Other than that there was no news, unless you count the multitude of doofuses proclaiming it be about Cthulhu (thank Hastur that turned out to be not the case).
In the intervening months I avoided finding out anything more about the flick. I didn’t know what the monster would look like, how the plot would play out, or join in on any of the ARGs. I wanted to walk into the movie a blank slate, and be able to fully experience it without having my expectations already be predetermined.
Going in blind turned out great. Seeing the creature in all its glory for the first time was actually special, and not having a synopsis of the film from beginning to end meant anticipation when the movie was unfolding. The movie itself is quite excellent, almost perfect in spots, although like anything there are a few things that could have gone down differently. It will also definitely get you pumped for dusting off your copy of The Creature That Ate Sheboygan, and if you go see it with your gamer friends I would assume you’ll end up in a post-flick conversation like we had, with talk about creature hit points, damage reduction, and exactly how many d10s do you roll for a B-2 bomb run? Movies are always more fun seen through the eyes of a gamer.
The idea of seeing a movie (or for that matter, reading a novel) without prior intimate knowledge of the overall plot is something I think most people strive towards. Many things, such as the twist endings made popular by Rod Serling, only function when the audience does not already have foreknowledge of the end. J.K. Rowling became a multi-millionaire due to keeping her readers guessing. In the world of movies and books we don’t like spoilers.
So why do we embrace them in the world of gaming?
Before a game comes out we seek out designer diaries, unit lists, strategy guides. We read every interview we can with team members on the game, dissecting every sentence in an effort to figure out how exactly the game will unfold. Will combat bonuses stack with passive traits? How many skills are there? How many opponents? What type of AI modeling will the game use?
What is it that drive us to find out everything we can about a game prior to its release, and yet the idea of knowing beforehand that Bruce Willis is dead or Harry Potter lives feels (and usually is) wrong?
Would you ever go into a game completely blind? Or does a $50 price tag automatically mean that investigating before purchase is mandatory?
Posted this on UseNet - copy & paste here
Hi,
Over at the Shrapnel blog Scott Krol raises the interesting question of why a lot of people dislike hearing about the plot of a movie before they’re watching it, yet seem to want to know everything about a game before they buy it.
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/blog/2008/01/24/when-spoiler-alerts-dont-matter/
Is it just the $50 price tag which makes us investigate games so much before purchase ?
I was just thinking that a movie for 2 + candy stuff + drinks afterwards usually sets me back around 30 Euro, which is $50 – double that if we’re having a light dinner there first, so from a pure price point of view I should investigate movies just as much before I go watch them. Which we don’t. We rarely know which movie we’re going to see until we get there and have a look at what’s available. Then we base our decision solely on the movie poster, maybe influenced a bit by a particular actor being in it, and how many weeks it’s already been playing - but that’s it.
So why do we completely forget we spend $50 on a stinker of a movie the day after and don’t blame the cinema complex, nor the developer for ever releasing it, but react completely differently when it’s about a $50 wargame ? Is it because we care more about wargames ?
When I first start playing a new wargame I usually already know a lot about it from articles, reviews and the forums. I usually skim or read the manual first too so I know what I can expect. This leads to moderate reactions – if you already know the game’s a bit iffy, you won’t be hugely disappointed by it – if you know this is WOTY material you nod your head when you discover it is. No utter joy, no utter despair, which are both experiences I *do* have with movies.
Which leads to the question of whether going into a wargame without knowing anything about it can create the same extremes of joy or despair. And if is this something you’d like.
The funny thing is that while the blog was posted today, I had been thinking about this for some time - Cthulhu fans think alike probably
– so as I’m expecting Advanced Tactics in the mail any day now I’ve been purposely avoiding the forum and everything else connected with this game. I’ll go into this game utterly unprepared – let’s see what gives.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Comment by Eddy Sterckx — 1/25/2008 @ 4:29 am
Gameplay and story are different like that… A finely concealed story, subtly introduced, topped with a good ending is undermined by prior knowledge, whereas if a player enters a gameplay environment without prior knowledge, he’s blind and helpless!
An extreme case would be my grandmother playing Call of Duty 4. Forget the differentiation of modern weaponry, she couldn’t maneuver the character! Prior knowledge helps us adapt which is good for gameplay but bad for story.
But, like a story, gameplay can be introduced in a narrative-like fashion, in order to prevent this blindness… there’s the rub. Maybe it’s just the nature of the industry and the complicated design of many of the games we play.
Comment by Mitch Small — 1/26/2008 @ 12:41 am
@Eddy: Of course, since we all are in tune with his dreaming.
@Mitch: Good point about gameplay and story. I do think though that sometimes gameplay = story, at least when you’re talking about a relatively story-free game such as a strategy game. For example, knowing an entire tech tree before playing the game could be considered akin to knowing how a story ends. And while it’s nice to know once you get the game and start playing, do we really need to know it a year before a game comes out? Probably not, and yet we often love this kind of information.
Comment by Scott — 1/28/2008 @ 11:26 pm
That’s what I can’t wrap my head around. Why it’s so much giddy fun for me to look at tech trees and unit lists for games that I haven’t played or gotten to playing.
Comment by Mitch Small — 1/29/2008 @ 1:55 pm
Thinking about it I guess I can sorta see with sequels, because then folks are looking to see what’s new.
Comment by Scott — 1/29/2008 @ 10:06 pm