When People Purposely Spoil Games for Others + Kotaku Pettiness
Over the weekend, I was browsing YouTube and just happened to stumble upon a Nintendolife livestream. The title of the video mentioned it was the person’s first time playing Ocarina of Time (presumably in anticipation for Tears of the Kingdom based on his reaction to the game’s final trailer!).
It’s a lot of fun seeing people experience the joy, wonder, and discovery of a Zelda game that is new to them! In the gameplay session, the NintendoLife editor playing was in Goron City as adult Link, trying (and failing like we all did the first time) to stop Darunia’s son, also name Link (after our hero), from rolling round the middle level of the city by using a bomb or bomb flower with correct timing.
In the comments, people were cheering him on. “You almost had him with!” said one. And the other comments were waxing nostalgic about Ocarina of Time and of course, anticipating Tears of the Kindgom.
And then, it happened….
A comment appeared in all caps and before I knew what I was reading, the post was deleted. And in that moment, what I had read had just registered…
I had read a COMPLETE SPOILER from Tears of the Kindgom.
I was devastated. I cannot unsee it. And despite reflecting on it, I do believe the spoiler I saw to be true (based on what is seen in Aonuma’s gameplay demo).
I’m usually good at avoiding spoilers - and I usually do not watch livestreams (I’d rather watch when it is finished at 1.5 to 2x speed!) but it was there and I just wanted to check it out for a few minutes.
And then the spoiler hit.
Why do people do this?
Why do people get joy out of spoiling things for other people? I do not understand.
And this segues nicely into the Kotaku situation.
First, a quick recap:
Kotaku has been blacklisted by Nintendo. They receive no advanced review copies nor were they invited to the Tears of the Kingdom preview event. Apparently, Kotaku was big mad over this. But why did Nintendo blacklist Kotaku to begin with?
It could have something to do with Kotaku encouraging people to emulate Metroid Dread immediately after release:
Metroid Dread was a game that NEEDED each and every sale it could get. Metroid doesn’t have massive appeal but it’s fans are very passionate about the IP. And Dread doing well means fans can count on another one of these 2D gems. This just wasn’t a good look at all.
So despite being blacklisted for this behavior, Kotaku staff apparently felt very disappointed about not getting a review copy of Tears of the Kingdom and also not invited to the preview event for the game.
What Kotaku did next is beyond petty and not something I’d expect from a serious games outlet:
Kotaku essentially set out to report on all the leaked into to spoil the game in a fit of rage and revenge.
Kotaku is under no NDA as they do not have a preview build. What they’re doing here is not illegal. But it is comletely unprofessional. We do not know their intentions, but I do not know of another reason for publishing massive spoilers and/or encouraging people to pirate newly released games other than to either diminish sales potential, piss off Nintendo, or both.
And it gets even worse. One of the editors, Luke Plunkett, clearly lost it:
Now, I think I remember this guy Luke Plunkett. I’m hoping a reader will correct me on this if I’m wrong, but going completely by memory here - I think I remember this guy from a now defunct gaming site called Joystiq. If this is the same guy, even back then in the PS3, XB360, and Wii days; he was a massive troll back then; especially toward the Wii. If that was him, he went from trolling a company and it’s products as part of his job as an editor to insinuating anti-Japanese violence against said company.
To get in your feelings this deeply is beyond belief. His attempts to walk this back seemed half-hearted, unconvincing, and were not genuine.
Regardless, Tears of the Kingdom releases this coming Friday. Kotaku can look forward to playing the game on Friday as well just like the rest of us!