Unless you’ve just emerged from deep underground, you are probably aware that that massive PS5 firmware update dropped yesterday, bringing with it Discord integration, VRR at 1440p and various other features and improvements. In addition, it also changed the way game discs work on a shared console.
But some fans aren’t, well, huge fans of one feature in particular, namely the “game progress” display, pictured above. They feel that knowing how far you are in a game, percentage-wise, is in itself kind of a spoiler and that an option to hide it should be included.
On one hand, we can kind of see it. Let’s say you are really starting to feel a new game, you’ve been hitting it hard, and everything is starting to click. All of a sudden, unbidden, you are told that you’re right at the end. If you are anything like us, that would take away some incentive to linger in a gaming world we are likely about to leave for good.
But on the other, a game’s Trophy completion percentage sort of already does this, albeit less specifically. Some games track completion percentages internally and will even reward you for reaching those nice, round milestones.
The implications are earth-shattering, and the rabbit hole goes deeper the further you plumb its depths; Is it a spoiler to know a movie’s runtime, or that most narrative fiction, in some shape or another, will usually conform to a three-act structure? And why was the creation of the three-act structure falsely misattributed to Aristotle for so long anyway, why does he get so much credit for everything?
Discuss the philosophical implications in the modern-day agora that is the comments section below.
