***Spoilers!***

Okay, don't worry, this post doesn't actually contain spoilers, that I know of. I'm actually going to talk about spoilers not share them.

I don't know if you've heard, or how many follow such things, but GTA 5 is coming out in a couple of weeks. It's been an exciting time for me, and a lot of other gamers who are eagerly anticipating the continuing crime drama fantasy, our very own Oceans Eleven heist game, or any movie where the main protagonists are criminals. It's great fun, and scratches a primal itch of just sometimes wanting to vent your frustrations on someone and blow their head off with a shotgun, or snipe them from half a mile away. But of course it's just a game. If I had to do something like that in real life, I would be a total basket case for months afterward.

But anyway, back to the game. In the UK, people who pre-ordered the digital edition were allowed to pre-load the game on their PS3s. Well someone who did this went and dug into the files and found a whole bunch of audio from the game, and some video as well, then posted them online.

Reaction was mixed. Some people were devouring every second of the stuff they put up there, while others ran in the other direction. And this brings me to an interesting point.

Spoilers suck.

People who create this kind of content are working very hard - not just to tell a story - but to craft an experience for you. To take you on a journey. And if you already know what's going to happen on that journey it sort of steals the thunder. I mean think about the first time you saw The Sixth Sense. If you're like me, you didn't have that spoiled for you, and you were just as surprised at the ending as the rest of us were (which I'm not giving away here, just in case you haven't seen it.)The same applies to pretty much any of M Night Shyamalan's movies, you don't want to be spoiled on them. But if you WERE spoiled on them, it made you watch the movies in a whole different way, the way that most people experience them the second time they watch. You didn't get the sense of surprise and revelation right at that critical moment.

Really I envy anyone who has been totally insulated from The Empire Strikes Back for their entire life, and has never had the experience of the huge spoiler at the climax of that movie. Wow. If I could erase my memories of Star Wars all together, then start at episode 4, and never know what was coming? Take my money, put me in the machine, and while your at it take away the 4th grade while you're at it.

There's an enormous spoiler in one of my all time favorite movies that is essentially the sequel to a canceled TV show that had an enormous cult following that started mostly after the show had ended due to the fact that when the show was on it was totally mismanaged not advertised well, and on at the worst possible air time, in a time just barely at the advent of DVR, when all you had available was TiVo, and that hadn't spread very far yet. Anyway there was a podcast which gave this particular spoiler away in a very abrupt and I would almost have to call it violent sort of way. There was no warning, people didn't have time to fast forward or turn down the volume. It was a travesty. The guy still gets hate mail to this day.

My point is this. DON'T GIVE SPOILERS. I hear Stephen King still has those people who gave away the ending to The Mist dragged before him and violently executed. With EXTREME prejudice. Seriously.