Poll Results - Spilling spoilers

It should come as no surprise to my friends as to what I voted for but here are the results anyway.

When can you give away spoilers in a new game?

2 weeks = 1 vote
1 month = 3 votes
2 months = 1 vote
6 months = 1 vote
1 year = 0 votes
You should never give away spoilers = 1 vote

I'd love to be able to play a game for hours on end when it first comes out. Unfortunately I have a job, a house, and yard with an endless supply of weeds to tend to. And that's not counting all the invites I get from friends to play games with them. They're just so needy that I feel bad for them so I can't help but accept. But I'm not complaining.

What I will complain about is when friends blurt out (although innocently enough) a major spoiler to a part of a game that I haven't gotten to yet. Like "I was really sad when my dog died in Fable II" from JimBeam. What? The dog dies? Don't say another word, I don't want to know. It made it hard for me to bound with my dog (who I just acquired) because I didn't want to get too attached to the little critter. Once I got over that, I decided to make his time a joyous one. Every chance I got I played with him. I played fetch. I told him he was a good boy (it helped me pick up the ladies). And I never scolded him. Unfortunately I wasn't advancing the plot very much in my effects to give my dog a memorable life.

Since then my friends have been very good about trying (desperately) to not talk about games I'm playing (or trying to) without giving away too much information. I guess the riot act I gave them after "the dog incident" had an effect. But there have been some times I've had to unplug my headset so they could talk freely about a game and I wouldn't have a stray bit of information ruin it for me. Unfortunately there's no way for me to know when they are done talking AND no way for me to communicate with my teammates during the match.

I am a little surprised by the "2 week" vote. Seriously? I know games are getting shorter these days but who can finish a game in two weeks . . . if they also have a life? I've taken a couple of days off to play a new game but even then I haven't been able to finish a game in two weeks. Maybe that's just me.

I guess two months is a more reasonable time frame with the exception being the last part of the year. There are so many games that come out between October and December that there's no way someone could play them all. Those games will need extra time to play just because there usually is so many of them to get through.

I've know a thing or two about spoilers for a long time. Dain and I use to meet up at my parents house to do laundry and we'd bring our systems and play games. And for single player RPGs one of use would play and the other one would watch. There have been many games where I watched dain play through an area long before I got there in my own game. While it gave me pointers on how to handle certain key boss battles, it did ruin key moments in games (like the ending to Final Fantasy X). In hindsight I wished I hadn't watched him play games, but I really did enjoy those times together.

If you do need/want to talk about spoilers in a game I would suggest you make a "SPOILER ALERT" warning to all your friends. Then they can decide if they want to listen in and have moments of the game be ruined or tune your out and preserve the magic of the moment. If they tuned you out you might want to reel 'em back it when you're done discussing the game. Or not. Depending on if you prefer their silence to their usual banter.

And while spoilers are terrible things to let loose in the world without providing your friends with the necessary precautions, I do like hearing people talk about the games they are playing. I've picked up a few games based on those recommendations (and avoided a few more) and I hope to continue to do so. Just be kind and give me a heads up if you're going to blab the ending to a game. If it so pleases you.