Japanese dev speaks out against the rarely discussed problem of spoilers in video thumbnails 

Waku Waku Games, the publisher of Japanese indie title Enjoy the Diner, recently issued a warning about uploading videos of the game on streaming platforms. This statement has highlighted a major issue with spoilers for games being revealed in thumbnails for playthroughs on sites like YouTube, and how this negatively impacts story-based games. The X post has garnered attention and sympathy.  

Enjoy the Diner is an adventure game set in a diner called Moon Palace, which is visited by various mysterious people. As the main character, you wander into the diner one night and talk to the other customers. You soon discover that the restaurant is actually an eternal diner, and discover more secrets about this intriguing place as you progress through the game (spoiler-free trailer below).   

As this is a short adventure game, the story is very important. One of the most enjoyable aspects of Enjoy the Diner is how it takes you on a roller coaster ride through its eccentric plot. However, some people have given away the story’s main plot twist in streams and videos on the game. In light of this, Waku Waku Games, the publisher of both the PC and Nintendo releases, has asked streamers and posters of game footage to adhere to the following points. Specifically, “please do not include any spoilers about the ending of the game in your thumbnail” and “do not include gallery mode in your streaming or video” (as stated in the game’s description on Steam). 

『ファミレスを享受せよ』ついて、私たちが配信者の皆さんに守っていただきたいことは、つぎの2点です。

・『サムネイルでストーリー後半部分のネタバレをしない』
・『ギャラリーモードを公開してネタバレをしない』

どうぞよろしく。#ファミレスを享受せよ pic.twitter.com/9SK2HYP0DB

— わくわくゲームズ (@waku2games) February 19, 2024

Post translation: For Enjoy the Diner, we would like streamers to adhere to the following two points: 

• Do not use thumbnails that spoil the second half of the story. 
• Do not spoil the game by including the gallery mode in your broadcast. 

Thank you. 
 
The illustration gallery that unlocks after completing Enjoy the Diner contains many different images of the game’s locations. As the gallery was designed only to be viewed after finishing the game, it is very easy to spoil aspects of the plot by showing even part of the gallery in a video. Although Enjoy the Diner has a complex story, thumbnails of locations and lines from the latter half of the game can also give away big spoilers. In their statement on Steam, Waku Waku Games make it clear that they are not against people making or watching videos of the game, rather that they are concerned about the experience being spoiled for potential players. 

As for whether spoilers are included in videos and live streams of Enjoy the Diner, most users seem to refrain from blatantly revealing the plot, at least as far as YouTube is concerned. However, you can come across the occasional video thumbnail that contains a spoiler for the indie title. 

In fact, it is rare for a game publisher or developer to specifically mention thumbnails in their streaming guidelines, although Sega recently did with Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (Related Article). Most major game companies broadly state that if you reveal spoilers for a game, you should alert viewers with a spoiler warning and take care not to upset other users.At the end of the day, these guidelines are merely intended to set general norms on streaming and broadcasting game footage, and there is rarely any policy to condemn the behavior of individuals who don’t follow them.   

When it comes to online videos of games in general, there are many live streamers and video posters out there who spoil the plot in their thumbnails. Is it because they don’t care or because there is no move to explicitly ban individuals who go against the guidelines? Do they do it unintentionally or are they chasing views? Regardless of the reason, this kind of spoiler tends to occur frequently in the author’s experience. It is interesting that Waku Waku Games identified the need to specify thumbnails in their request to streamers. At the time of writing, it is unclear what impact this move will have on other game company’s streaming guidelines and user-made videos. We can only hope that thumbnail spoilers will decrease in the future. 

Enjoy the Diner is available on Nintendo Switch and PC (Steam). It is 20% off on Steam until February 29, 2024. 

Written by. Verity Townsend based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2024-02-20 15:31 JST)