Final Fantasy XII

[A Black Falcon]

Then why bother reading it all? Just read the last chapter and move on. Speed reading at it's finest. Sheesh.

Because just because you know what happens at the end doesn't mean that you know all of the events in between... really, you're making a big logical leap which doesn't exist: that if you spoil the ending, you aren't interested in actually playing the rest of the game or reading the rest of the book. That's just not true, for me at least. If I don't finish the game or the book, it won't be because of whether I looked at the ending or not...

In addition, some things you can't avoid spoiling if you're just reading the forums for the game or reviews or something -- people talk about the games extensively and if you want to avoid those spoilers you'd either have had to play the games soon after their release or ignore a lot of stuff... some examples of that would include Aeris dying, Zelda=Sheik, what happens in the last scenes of NWN2 and KotOR2 (it's hard for people to complain about how weak the endings are in those games, as they often do,
without saying what happens in at least some detail...), etc.

Also, for instance (to counter some of your point), why watch the Star Wars prequel movies? You know what happens at the end... :)

You're right of course that there are some things better not spoiled, such as the whole plot of Planescape: Torment, the game with the best story ever, but that doesn't apply to everything... games, particularly older ones, were usually designed with gameplay first and story second; for the most part, I'd say that the Zelda games still follow that design concept. I think I would have been disappointed if I'd spoiled the ending of Wind Waker, but Twilight Princess... no, not really.

Those spoilers: three games I haven't played, obviously. I've heard of the MGS3 plot stuff, though. Not so much MGS2... I plan on actually finishing it some year (since I do own it for PC now, but haven't gotten around to installing it yet...)... :D