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View Full Version : Are First-Person Shooters Dying or Evolving?



IMPress Polly
07-31-2014, 07:43 AM
I'm a huge fan of the new PBS program Game/Show, which is hosted by a really nerdy guy who knows the world of video games inside out and brings up a generally pretty interesting new topic for viewers to discuss with him online every week. He'll generally spend like 6 to 8 minutes discussing the topic of the week and then a few minutes responding to selected comments he's received online about last week's topic. Here's one of the Game/Show inquiries that I've found especially interesting: Are first-person shooters dying or evolving? Check out the host's case for both sides of the argument in the video below, below which I'll post my own thoughts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9PNz5WUXdo

Okay, now some thoughts of my own on this subject:

Almost 30 years ago, RPGs became the most popular video game genre in Japan with the release of the original Dragon Quest and just over 20 years ago, first-person shooters became the most popular video game genre in North America with the release of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. The primary genre preferences of the respective cultures has remained unchanged ever since: RPGs are still the top-selling video game genre in Japan and first-person shooters remain the top-selling genre in North America. What the above episode of Game/Show highlights though is the increasing genre fatigue people are experiencing vis-a-vis FPS games here in North America. I would point out that there's now a comparable level of genre fatigue vis-a-vis RPGs in Japan as well. In both cases, we're starting to see developers get more experimental with genre combinations and forms because the straight version of the respective genres seems to have been pretty much perfected and people are getting bored with the formulaic nature thereof. The pure versions of both of these genres (RPGs in Japan and FPS games in North America) aren't selling as well as they used to, despite the fact that they remain the overall most popular genres in these respective cultures.

As to whether FPS games are dying or evolving, I don't really think either characterization of the trend is applicable. Pure FPS games may eventually lose their genre lead in North America if current trends continue, but I'm pretty sure they'll continue to exist for the foreseeable future, just as Westerns continue to exist today in the world of film despite the fact that their heyday has long since passed and immense genre fatigue set in, so I think the idea that they're "dying" is something of an exaggeration. I don't think they're really evolving either though. Now as the Game/Show episode above highlights, there are a lot of clever innovations going on right now around the FPS genre, but mostly they revolve around simply combining it with other genres, like how the much-anticipated upcoming game Destiny is a combination FPS game and RPG. If Destiny takes off and the FPS-RPG concept with it, I'll be very happy because I think that would signify a growing appetite for depth and plot amongst FPS gamers, whom I wouldn't generally describe as people fascinated with such things. But genre combinations are nothing new in themselves. I mean by the token we're speaking of here concerning Destiny, who knows, maybe FPS gamers will eventually evolve into fans of more complex games like RPGs, but that would be evolution of the gamer, not of the FPS genre. You see what I'm saying? And I'm sorry, but no, games like Gone Home don't count as shooting games. There's definitely a difference in most people's minds between firing a weapon at people or things on the one hand (i.e. shooting something) and throwing a tissue box at a table or a CD into a CD player. Seriously! These may be first-person games that use play mechanics similar to those that FPS games do, but the whole object of play is fundamentally different in that it's no longer about destruction or shooting at that point. How can one honestly classify a game that doesn't involve shooting as a first-person shooter? At that point, you've now entered the territory of a fundamentally different genre. And maybe that's where things are headed, but that would constitute evolution of the play mechanics, not of the genre itself. The Game/Show host's argument on this hinges in the identification of the genre with the technical mechanics of play and I don't think that's how most FPS gamers would see it.

I'll be honest: I really don't know where the genre fatigue vis-a-vis FPS games here in North America is leading. But I don't think it's leading to much more in the way of innovation vis-a-vis the FPS genre itself or to the genre's actual cessation. In any event, I consider the genre fatigue that exists on this side of the Pacific today a good thing, but I think that's because first-person shooters have been my least favorite genre ever since I first played Doom. I tend to get bored with them very quickly because the game play tends to be too repetitive to sustain my interest for long. If I must play an FPS game, I prefer those that it revolve around stealth or combine with some other genre such as to actually introduce thinking.

Paperback Writer
07-31-2014, 07:54 AM
I love a good first person shooter. It makes me feel like a proper man when I get to shoot zombies or nameless military persons.

Gerrard Winstanley
07-31-2014, 08:05 AM
The only FPS I still enjoy is TES IV, and I think that one's too unorthodox to count.

CreepyOldDude
07-31-2014, 05:09 PM
I like FPS. I hope to God they don't go corrupting it with RPG nonsense.

Captain Obvious
07-31-2014, 05:13 PM
Is Tomb Raider considered first person shooter?

If so, that's probably the only one I've played to any extensive degree.

Gerrard Winstanley
07-31-2014, 05:16 PM
Is Tomb Raider considered first person shooter?

If so, that's probably the only one I've played to any extensive degree.
Fuck that game. Couldn't get past the first level.

I shot a tiger. Then got lost.

Captain Obvious
07-31-2014, 05:18 PM
Fuck that game. Couldn't get past the first level.

I shot a tiger. Then got lost.

lol - that was TRII.

The toughest... stunt needed to pull off to continue the game was just beyond that, afterward it was fairly easy.

Peter1469
07-31-2014, 05:20 PM
First person shooters are fun. But the b.s. finding hidden crap to advance is a waste of time.

Gerrard Winstanley
07-31-2014, 05:22 PM
lol - that was TRII.

The toughest... stunt needed to pull off to continue the game was just beyond that, afterward it was fairly easy.
Games in general back then were no way as self-explanatory as today. The level design on that one stumped me.

Captain Obvious
07-31-2014, 05:27 PM
Games in general back then were no way as self-explanatory as today. The level design on that one stumped me.

The reason I enjoyed the TR series so much is that my wife played with me. Her role was to dig up a walk through on her droid and kinda point me in the right direction.

We spent hours and hours playing those games and had a blast.

Did the same thing with the Uru/Myst games also.

IMPress Polly
08-01-2014, 06:27 AM
Captain Obvious wrote:
Is Tomb Raider considered first person shooter?

Tomb Raider is considered an action-adventure franchise. Honestly I'm not sure how one could confuse it for a first-person shooter. First-person shooters, as that genre description suggests, take place in the first person. As you can see from this sample footage from the first stage of the original game...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iAd4egX2PA

...Tomb Raider's game play takes place in the third person.

Here's what a first-person shooter looks like:

(I'll borrow a popular one from the same era.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozBDByEgolc


Peter wrote:
First person shooters are fun. But the b.s. finding hidden crap to advance is a waste of time.

You should try out the older ones like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Duke Nukem, etc. They were simply gore fests where you progressed from the beginning of the level to the end, blasting everything that moved in the process. If you don't like more complexity in your shooters, those kinds of games might be more to your liking.

GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 constituted the first real evolution of the genre precisely in that it introduced primarily stealth-based play, a missions format, and multiplayer features. These innovations set a new standard for FPS games going forward. The genre continued to generally evolve over the subsequent two console generations before finally reaching the present stagnation.

The Perfect Dark games (which are structurally similar to GoldenEye 007) are my favorite FPS titles. But I don't really care for many. I just can't get into Call of Duty and so forth, but I think some of that may be because I detest the themes in addition to finding the game play too simple to sustain my interest.