Video Game Spoilers The Internet Totally Ruined

There's an unspoken etiquette among the gaming community that discourages people from sharing detailed spoilers about a game until it's been out for at least a few months. Because this etiquette is often ignored, most people will avoid visiting their favorite gaming sites and forums until they've completed their own playthrough of a game. But what happens when a game is spoiled by the internet before it's released? There aren't many ways to protect yourself from a spoiler that you didn't see coming because no one should know the ending of the game yet. And yet, this happens more often than you'd hope.

Game companies go to great lengths to keep their developing projects secret. Everything from titles to characters, from mechanics to endings are hidden under the strictest lock and key. This, of course, doesn't matter if a hacker manages to break into their system. But the most unfortunate game leaks are the ones that happen accidentally. Sometimes a promotional image or trailer shows a bit too much information, or companies don't hide content on their site well enough, or gamers who are given early copies to promote the game accidentally leak something on their stream. 

No matter what the cause, an unexpected spoiler can sometimes ruin an experience for many players. Here are some of the worst spoilers that the internet totally ruined. Obviously, beware of spoilers if you haven't played these games.

Harry Potter mania has recently come back with a fervor, with the latest movies in the Fantastic Beasts series sparking a renewed interest in the wizarding world. Because of this ongoing excitement over the world author J.K. Rowling has created, it's no surprise that an open-world RPG for the Harry Potter franchise would soon come to fruition. A video of gameplay footage was leaked by an unnamed source, and those fans who were lucky enough to see the footage before it was taken down by Warner Bros. were treated to a first look at what promises to be an incredible expansion of this magical universe.

Set in the 1800s, this new open-world RPG will allow players to take on the role of a 5th-year student at Hogwarts. While there aren't many concrete details about the game yet, it's already been making waves in the gaming community thanks to the leaked footage. Though the footage was quickly pulled from YouTube, there have been rumors of copies floating around online, even though most get taken down as soon as they're put up. Much of this situation has the makings of an urban legend, with the video no one can find and the sources being anonymous, but gamers everywhere are eagerly awaiting more official news on this exciting development, even if the initial hype was spoiled by the leak.

Game developers are well aware of the potential the internet provides for hackers. It's understood that details of their game may be released before they intended to share it with the community. But in the case of Kingdom Hearts III, the entire game was posted for sale on Facebook six weeks before it was supposed to come out. While some fans jumped at the opportunity to buy an early copy of the game, many were upset by this act of piracy. Those who had been excited to take advantage of the early release wouldn't be happy for long, as Kingdom Hearts III director Tetsuya Nomura confirmed that the leaked copy of the game was, in fact, incomplete.

Though the Facebook user managed to sell many copies of the game at $100 a piece, fans weren't getting the whole story. An important epilogue and secret movie were excluded from the pirated copy, thus leaving out huge chunks of the story and, as Nomura put it, "the biggest spoilers in the game." This seemed like a bit of karma for the pirate and those who purchased the leaked copies, but Nomura still made sure to be clear about his feelings on the subject. He asked fans to refrain from sharing videos taken from the pirated copy so that the Kingdom Hearts community could enjoy the complete version of the game when it was officially released.

Most of the time, when information about a game is leaked prematurely by someone other than the publisher said publisher then tries to either deny the validity of the leak or do some damage control. In the case of Call of Duty 3, however, Activision took a different approach.

When Kotaku reported leaked details about Activision's Call of Duty 3, instead of retaliating or attempting to gloss over the situation, the company simply took this as an opportunity to begin their promotions for the game earlier than they'd intended. Activision CEO Eric Hirschberg even said that no matter where the publicity had come from, the fact that people were talking about their game was a good thing. Activision not initiating the release of information didn't change its value in his mind.

Even with the optimistic outlook of Activision, it was still unfortunate for many fans to have the details of this new game leaked before the intended time, giving away details about locations, story, and gaming modes. Though everything ended well for Kotaku and Activision, there were still many gamers who were less than thrilled with having those things spoiled for them.

Each generation seems to get more adept at deciphering the language of technology. Young coders and hackers are almost common in today's digital age. That's why it was only a matter of time before one eager young gamer stole valuable gaming information and used it to ruin the fun for everyone else.

In Germany, a young hacker named Axel Gembe managed to successfully infiltrate the Valve Corporation mainframe. And this access wasn't just a quick opportunity to get in, steal the game, and get back out again. Gembe was hanging around in Valve's system for weeks before discovering the source code for the then un-released Half-Life 2. Gembe (along with most of the gaming world) had been waiting impatiently for the sequel to Half-Life, which had been delayed after almost 5 years of work. 

Because of this, Gembe didn't think twice about stealing the source code, though he had no intention of sharing it with anyone other than a trusted friend or two. One of the anonymous people he gave the code to, however, leaked it on the internet, making it available to everyone. This, obviously, didn't sit well with the company and employees who had dedicated five years of their lives to this title and who attempted to have the boy arrested for $250 million in damages. In the end, Gembe received just two years of probation.

Most of the time, when a video game leak makes its way onto the internet, there's a fair amount of skepticism. This is, after all, the internet. It's easy for anyone to post anything regardless of its validity. This is why, when a video emerged online showing the ending of Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm, some people were understandably hesitant to believe that it was real. There were, however, a few elements that reinforced the validity of the video. The voice acting wasn't yet complete and a few times throughout the cinematic, the video would jump to unfinished storyboards rather than a polished video. These aspects seemed too painstakingly authentic to be part of a faked leak, but seeing as how the video came out years before the game was expected to be released, the community was still skeptical.

One of the things that seemed to lend a sense of credibility to the clip was the fact that almost as soon as the public were made aware of the video, it was removed from YouTube and other sites by Blizzard due to copyright claims. Once Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm was finally released in 2013, it was undeniably confirmed that the video that first made its debut back in 2010, was, in fact, the actual ending cinematic.