Peter James Mann
When I saw The Last of Us: Part II leak discussion on Twitter a few weeks ago, the new PlayStation exclusive from Naughty Dog, I was equal parts disappointed and angry. Maybe it’s because there isn’t a whole lot of news right now outside of COVID-19 coverage. Maybe it’s because it’s near and dear to my heart. The Last of Us was a top tier cinematic gaming experience for me. It sits squarely in my top three games of all time.
The more I explored the topic and how I felt about it, the more I thought about why someone would do that and why we even cringe at spoilers in the first place. So I did what I always do: dig well past my own benefit. The spoiler in question was a big one; a massive plot reveal that ruins the plot of the entire game. While I know it, I won’t be discussing it here.
But these spoilers, more often than not, make a ton of news. Despite vast social media campaigns by fans to suppress them, along with news outlets telling people “turn away now, “SPOILER ALERT,” or “Skip to (timestamp) to continue without spoilers,” there’s some internet economy around the topic. There are even dedicated non-spoiler and spoiler talk reviews. And these pieces garner millions of views on either side of the fence. And if the comment sections within spoiler discussions are to be believed, the reveals tend to be pretty disappointing. Think about it for a minute: would commentators have been igniting the same firestorms of nerd fury about Game of Thrones or Lost, or any number of properties over the years, had there been a leak on those? Probably.
But that brings up another question, are spoilers detrimental to the success of a project or not? And do they really matter all that much in the grand scheme of things? Well, I’d say it depends on the project and it depends on what the spoiler reveals. In the case of The Last of Us: Part II, it’s a huge letdown for me personally. But so was the non-spoiled ending of Game of Thrones, or cliffhanger ending of shows like Hannibal or The Sopranos, or the 2008 Financial Crisis, or NOW. What I’m saying is that I’m used to it.
Where spoilers really hurt the most tends to be in three areas. First there is the emotional detriment, or complete subtraction, of the sense of discovery for us, the consumer of said art. This feels the most personal, and most of us defend ourselves against spoilers to the very end. How common is it to see in a social media feed, “Guess I’m off of here until I see X?”
The second is the artists themselves watching their hard work revealed for all to see without a dime spent, and usually paired with harsh criticism of the artistic choices they made. This is hard to watch. It’s a trainwreck in many ways that can affect the careers of everyone from an entry level member of the team to major players in a company depending on the fan reactions.
Finally there’s the corporate bottom line, where the investors are fearful that spoilers will affect sales numbers. And that fear is where a lot of industry safeguards can come from. It makes sense that if someone knows how a project ends, they’re less invested in the journey to get there, both emotionally and financially. But this might have the unintended consequence of creating an echo chamber of ideas and a censorship of opinion from within the team.
Take, for example, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, a movie that is such a hot button topic to this day in internet film fandom that some of you cringed when you read it while others shivered. Rian Johnson is on record saying he did NOT have a test audience for the film. Now, let’s say this was done in effort to contain spoilers. Would the film have not benefited, or at least had the chance of being less divisive, had outside eyes been allowed in? If it was at a pivotal moment in production where reshoots were able to be scheduled, I think so.
As this juncture for The Last of Us: Part II, that’s not possible. The complaints online tend to be skewing negative as of the writing of this, but I think this is an emotional response to the news. I’ll be honest, I don’t feel like this is the way the story should go in some ways. What I have to remember (and I’m not always good at it) is that it isn’t the story I’m writing. In this case, it’s Neil Druckmann.
To be fair, even with the extent of the reveal in the leak, I don’t know every nuance of the story. That includes the lead up to that moment, and that could be amazing. Is it what I, as a fan of this series, want to see happen? No. But with all this extra time at home, maybe we all should take that energy and make our own stories instead.
