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The first-person shooter is one of the oldest genres in the videogame industry. Regardless, it still seems to be one of the most financially viable; just take a look at Modern Warfare 2. While developers continue to create both new franchises and installments of old ones, some people within the industry are left wondering why. Why is the genre so popular? Why are publishers more likely to take a risk on a new franchise if it’s a first-person shooter as opposed to an RPG or adventure game? Why do gamers come out in droves and put down their money for another first-person shooter?
Implicit in the name of the genre itself, the first-person shooter is a first-person account of the action on the screen. You are the (sometimes nameless) badass who can take on hundreds of enemy soldiers, against all odds, and come out the victor. You usually do not have any dialog and rarely interact with other characters unless you are firing bullets into them. In the end, you are lone the champion of this conflict. Not Marcus Fenix, not Nathan Drake. You.
When playing a third-person shooter/adventure game, you are in control of another person (e.g. Marcus Fenix) and the game is constantly reminding you of that fact. Marcus is the one sniping Locust and ramming chainsaws through the chests of his enemies, not you. In Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, if you make a mistake when controlling the Prince, he will go out of his way to make a point that you did it wrong because he’s the Prince and he knows what happened. First-person shooters avoid this by creating a world around the player, shotgun in hand, and not the character.
I refer to this as Twilight Syndrome: Stephenie Meyer created the main character, Bella, as a completely blank slate of a human being. This allowed girls all over the world to insert themselves into Bella’s place and be the center of the love story that ensues. This formula has been wildly successful and has manifested itself into a global, multi-million dollar franchise. However, Meyer was beaten to the punch by id Software and Wolfenstein 3D.
Developers are creating these “blank slates” that allow gamers to immerse themselves into the game. I believe that the inherent narcissism that comes with being human is what is helping the first-person shooter excel despite years of stagnation. There is no better way to feed into the fantasy than to become the fantasy.
My name is Marty Hess and I am an undergrad student at The Ohio State University looking to get into videogame journalism. Published on my personal gaming blog http://www.pixelrated.com