We live in the internet age. It's almost impossible for anything to be kept a secret for long. But, as a result, our society is finding out that we have to actively work to protect *magic* in modern life. I know a number of people who no longer watch movie previews so that the entire experience isn't ruined for them before they see the movie. (I'm currently on blackout from Star Wars). Comic book events, Netflix shows and even book series can all be ruined before the average person even has the opportunity to engage with it as the creators intended.

But, society has developed a level of politeness is tagging information as *spoilers* for people who want to protect the experience as long as they can. Even mainstream press has adopted spoiler tags in their write-ups of genre content.

So, should video games think about adopting the same process regarding E3? I feel like this year has been better than others, but for a while, it was impossible for Sony to pull off an event without everything they planned to show being common knowledge ahead of time.

Is it a worthwhile endeavor to help companies try to protect their showmanship? Or is it important to have the information as quickly as possible at all times?

No.

Companies want you to preorder, the assault of announcements that would come out if everyone saved everything for E3 would mean everything except the very biggest games would be lost in the stream. I feel that its a bit less exciting when a lot gets announced before, but I don't think its realistic to expect companies to change.

If you really want to see everything at E3, you should go on a media blackout for gaming news a couple of weeks before.

I think the companies would have to be competent showmen in the first place for this to matter. E3 press conferences are an embarrassing mess of people who don't know how to speak on stage.

The reason I don't want spoilers for TV shows and movies is that the way they are presented is compelling. There is an experience that you get from watching a good TV show that you don't get from reading an episode synopsis and you might lose some of that experience if you know what is going to happen. That's not the case for press conferences, at least not for me. I'm interested in press conferences for the information, not the way it's presented. If I can get that information in advance and without the painfully bad presentation, that's great.

News can't be spoiled.

I think you are misapprehending my meaning. I'm not talking about companies that release information before E3.

I'm talking about information like what has just been "leaked" about new content in Smash Brothers.

I'm talking about information that is gleaned from things like publishers setting up booths. People who find out little bits of information and leak it ahead of time instead of waiting for the publishers to release it officially.

They are "press conferences" not movies.

If you want to be a weirdo, sure. Who am I to stop you? Weirdo.

You'll enjoy it more once its been spoiled.

What? No.

no, don't be stupid

There's no reason why you should only be allowed to get excited about a consumer product at a specific happy video game time.

E3 is a press conference

Hell nah.

I find myself jokingly saying "stop spoiling E3 for me" forgetting that this is the internet, and everything you say is taken at face value.

The only spoiling going on with E3 is what Sony are doing for gamers

I'm a pretty easy going guy with regards to spoilers. I try to be mindful of what I say when in front of people who haven't seen/played/heard about something specific and all, but this? Come on man. It's a press conference. It's news. You can't spoil news.

E3? Naaah. It's marketing and advertising basically. If it leaks it leaks, whatever. If that information is interesting to you you would have found out anyway, all that changed is a little bit of time when you did so.

Science has literally proven that people like spoilers. Not even, but a bunch of people actually like spoilers. They like to think they have a leg up on information that their friends don't have.

So, no...they shouldn't. And honestly, there's nothing of note spoiled at E3 anyway.

It's a trade show. I really like watching the press conferences too but I would say the idea of them being traditional "entertainment" is a dangerous attitude to have.

"Maybe we shouldn't spoil the new Cheetos commericial, someone might want to experience Chester The Cheetah's antics fresh." is basically want you're saying.

E3 is marketing.

They are press conferences, companies want to sell you stuff, it's not entertainment.

The purpose of E3 is literally the exact opposite of what you are wanting to do.

Also game trailers aren't as bad as movie trailers, which more often than not give way to much away. Their is still some mystery left in games after viewing trailers.

I don't think people know what spoilers are anymore. Like, I saw a person complain once about the tags on the Giant Bombcast because they're "spoilers". Like, who the hell cares if you know they're going to talk about Oddworld this time? How is that something that can be spoiled?

No, it's not. Apparnetly you don't know what the purpose of E3 is. The purpose of E3 is to build excitement for products and communicate infomration to the public. What it's NOT about, is piecemeal "leaks" and "rumors" that have tiny bits of truth buried in tons of fallacy.

If these leakers were doing the publishers a service, which your post seems to suggest by saying "it's what E3 is about", they wouldn't have the security in place that they have to keep leaks and rumors under wraps.

E3 is apparently the complete opposite of what YOU think it is.

I get what you're saying OP, I like the thrill of a big unexpected announcement, it's why I personally tune into e3 in the first place,while it's nice to see demos of stuff I know about, I like that jolt of excitement.

Last year when they announced GTA 5 was coming to ps4 I leapt out of my seat and ran around the room trying to contain my excitement! That is the feeling I want from e3, I imagine if I was a Fallout fan and that announcement came out of the blue rather than being something you knew you would see it would of given the reaction I had to GTA tenfold.

I think some posters may have misinterpreted what you were trying to say. I think they have picked you up as saying that we shouldn't spoil news we learn from the press conference where you are just talking about information leaking out hours ahead of time due to various things.

All in all I accept that things will leak in this day and age and that most years we probably won't get blown away by reveals we weren't expecting but it will make those times things get kept under wraps all the much more impactful and exciting.

You can't spoil a commercial, which is all E3 is.

@bananasfoster: The entire purpose of the showmanship and spending millions of dollars on a press conference is so huge numbers of people see what they are making and want you to get excited and thinking about buying it. You can't put spoilers on gameplay videos, it makes absolutely zero sense. "Hey here is Halo 5." That would be all the information you got. This is a bit of an absurd example but what if they went and changed it to a match 3 game, or did a few changes that were radical. You would go in thinking you were getting a FPS but got something different. Now you are upset with your product because you didn't want to know what it was actually about.

As for leaks you bring them up after the fact. If you want to address leaking of information outside of official channels than I agree with you. However you did not mention leaks at all in your title or your opening post. Not everything is a leak though as Judges week for E3 happens nearly a month in advance of the show and a lot of the time those leaks are press outlets whose NDAs have come to an end and they can talk about the games they saw.