Gaming has now been around for several decades. The Super Nintendo is older than many gamers today. The same can be said for both the Playstation and Playstation Two. Yet when discussing games that came out decades ago, or even the latest new release, when is it appropriate to discuss spoilers?
In popular culture there are spoilers which have become part of the lexicon itself, just think of the famous bit from "Star Wars" about who is related to who. Part of this may be due to the self-centeredness of popular culture itself, which deems itself to be what the universe revolves around so of course it isn't a "real" spoiler because it is part of the collective consciousness of pop culture therefore "everybody" already knows it.
Self-centeredness seems to be part of what makes spoiler culture, especially in geek culture, so prevalent: one cannot go to start talking about anime or Game of Thrones without hearing about how so-and-so was spoiled for various people. Part of this may be that geek culture has historically been so marginalized and not that very populous that an argument could be made that participants in said culture really did already know what there was to know in regard to cultural works of this group. That sense of what it means to belong to geek culture might have created a sense of ownership and citizenship for members of the culture where they feel entitled to discuss everything about their culture regardless of sensitivities towards others as it is "theirs", and that if one was spoiled on any cultural work that it proved that person was not a "true" member of the secret society of the shunned and thus their opinions could be discarded because, according to the "true" members of this secret society, such an individual or individuals were not "permitted" to approach or appropriate their culture.
However with the integration of geek culture into popular culture this attitude simply does not depict the reality of how millions of people engage or want to engage with the cultural works of geek culture. Those who historically were not associated with geek culture now are legitimate participants and creators of geek culture and associated sub-cultures.
There are also those who were not around when the original works were created: how many younger gamers have grown up knowing about "that" part of FF7 without ever having bought a role-playing game?
For more recent works, the issue of spoilers becomes one of relevancy. There is much talk in gaming culture about the lack of merit in modern games and that they are only relevant before their sequel or competitors' clone comes out. Therefore spoilers in public discourse are necessary to both evaluate a work in regard to where it belongs historically (and if it is just a disposable title as this logic goes, discussing it while it is still relevant) while simultaneously engaging in the necessary debate to its merit during the period in which it was released and becomes part of public consciousness: that doing so otherwise would be to do a disservice to the game and its themes or narrative and its potential for informing the public as well as for providing feedback to developers and publishers how any incorporated gameplay which themselves could be considered spoilers (such as in the original Bio Shock or in Metal Gear Solid 3) are received by the public and if those gameplay mechanics are something which should be part of a general language of game development for future games.
There is the argument against spoilers that there it is a common courtesy to not discuss them, however if a topic is clearly marked as containing spoilers then this is rather moot. What is disagreeable then is the usage of spoilers in everyday conversation and for when there is not the ability to properly mark spoilers as such (which is something Game Informer Online could use).
There is a sense of elitism that comes from those who are willing to spend $60 or more on a day-one purchase of entertainment media which entitles them to say whatever the hell they want about it wherever they are and that others who find fault with this behavior have only themselves to blame. That, it would appear, seems to be another left over from an earlier era of geek culture where it was mostly the realm of more affluent people and the same tribalist "citizenship" / "ownership" issues of that earlier era.
I don't think there should be a "limit" on when spoilers are not longer "spoilers", but I do think there are too many who think that the days of civility are long gone, leaving such individuals rotten, mean, and spoiled.