Brian Crecente’s response to criticism of Kirk Hamilton’s Arkham City spoiler.

Let me tell you a little something about how other parts of the entertainment industry handle this sort of thing, Brian. Let me tell you how other publications deal with this sort of thing.

In March or April of almost every year since 2006, the BBC has held huge screenings for the series premiere Doctor Who. Tons of people attend this thing - celebrities, the cast, the crew and, yes, journalists. For many journalists in the UK, this is their first look at the series premiere of one of the biggest shows on British telly. Of course they’re going to attend.

Y’know what they do next? They write an article covering the event. They talk about the people who attended, they talk broadly about the episode itself, and they ramp up anticipation for the coming series.

Y’know what they don’t do? Write an article that spoils the fucking episode. Y’know why they don’t do this? Because they’re fucking professionals.

Of course, there are some outlets that will post spoilers - usually blogs like Bleeding Cool or the rather single-minded Blogtor Who - but they at least have the decency to actually hide the damn things below the fold, or tag them as spoilers. They give people fair warning. Because, and this is crucial, they don’t want to fuck things up for people who, for some inexplicable reason, want their first experience of the game to actually be their first experience of the game.

Maybe this stuff doesn’t matter to you. Maybe you’re surrounded by game spoilers all the time. I mean, you’re bound to be - it part of the job, surely - but maybe you should stop, and think, and remember that there are people to whom this stuff actually matters. It may just be a job to you, but to us it’s entertainment. It’s a narrative we’re actively interested in following.

Maybe you should think about that the next time you’re given the opportunity to shit all over a game.