I’m never going to be good at Halo. It’s probably time I admit that. I play and I play and still I get shot in the back of head, and I don’t even know why. Different strokes for different folks, so they say. Me, my stroke is definitely not first-person shooters. They make me feel ill. They confuse the crap out of me. And I can never shake that dirty habit of moving my neck instead of the camera.
While I might be the only one who feels like I’m on a vomitous carnival ride every time I get into close-range combat, I’m not alone in my distaste for FPS’s. For the most part, issues like this are matters of personal taste, but, in this instance, it’s worth a closer look at the demographics involved. There are some larger trends at work here that prove downright interesting.
Like gender. First-person perspective is normally reserved for “masculine” games - titles whose playerships are by a large majority male. Female-friendly games (my apologies for the generalizations and over-simplifications) on the other hand tend to use a third-person perspective. Why? It’s one of those chicken-and-the-egg dilemmas. Certain types of games, those that involve precise gunfire, are well fit for first-person gameplay. Such subject matter, regardless of format, is usually less attractive to women. The intimate perspective has come to represent a more “manly” gaming experience.
If so, we Americans are the only ones who think so. Japanese men, for the most part, couldn’t care less about FPS’s. The gaming community’s obsession with them is a purely Western phenomenon. Gamers in Japan, like US women, seek other qualities in their games, and are in particular turned off by realistic violence and a first-person perspective. FPS’s, which we take for granted as a staple genre of the video game art form, are really only the darlings of American masculinity.
Why? Whether or not we think about it while playing, a first-person perspective has very different implications than a third. In a FPS, the gamer is not represented by an avatar, he is the avatar - the on-screen and off-screen personalities are, both visually and ideologically, the same. The gamer literally fits into his place in the game. He is a white, American male playing through (most of the time) the body white, American male. And he can only do this with ease and enjoyment because he does not question his identity, or the links it shares with the one he witnesses on screen.
Perhaps this is why women and Japanese dislike first-person games. Their right to an identity, in the American market, has yet to be won. They can’t identify with the game personality, or feel secure enough in their own (as dictated by the games industry) to allow it to be subsumed. How can you enjoy playing a game “through your own eyes” when the eyes are not yours? As a female or Japanese gamer, a first-person perspective is rarely your own.
October 3rd, 2005 at 9:22 pm
I disagree completely that FPS is a male, American phenomenon. The United States is known as often being very weak in in professional gaming, especially for its size. Brazil, Korea, and Europe often lead the way.
That said, I absolutely suck at these types of games. Suck horribly. I liked Halo when I played it on a friends Xbox a few times (I don’t have a console), but I sucked at it; I played the Unreal Tournament 2004 demo for awhile, but never succeeded much at it. I’ve never once played Counterstrike, and to most FPS players Counterstrike *is* all that matters; Halo is still viewed as a simple graphical abomination by newbs and for newbs.
I’m an RTS gamer who also enjoys RPGs when he can get them. The only entire genre of games I absolutely do not and will never get is sports.
Controlling vast armies in battles that can be ended with a skilled rush at five minutes is not something I can do in real life. Playing a sport is. Not only is it actually fun in real life, it strengthens the body, gives a physical rush, agility, heart, lungs, all around health. It’s great o.o
So why would I want to play it on the computer?
Note that all of this is excluding DDR. DDR is something I’ve never played; that said, if I had / knew someone with a DDRish setup, I’d probably be on it for several hours every friggin’ day.
To return to your original point of the image / stereotype of FPS players after rambling on other issues and thus creatively stimulating my mind YAY!, I think it’s wrong.
Why? Sure, FPS is absent from Japanese culture. But Japanese isn’t the only non-western country. Counterstrike is a worldwide phenomenon that in no way is limited to or even mostly in the U.S, or even western Europe. Most people aren’t going to discard a game just because the designers didn’t include skin models to fit them. When everyone looks the same, your personality isn’t your avatar; it’s your account name, it’s how you fight, it’s how you talk, it’s how you treat those around you, it’s the expressions you use. It’s something you build yourself.
October 4th, 2005 at 5:57 am
Alas, sports games are doomed to a blissfully eternal purgatory away from my prying eyes.
While the FPS may not be an American, Male phenomenon, it _is_ a male phenomenon, if not largely American as well. Professional gamers, such as the Korean Starcraft players…(not _one_ seems to be below professional skill) are indeed lacking in representation in the States. Where is our team of ‘gosu’ SC players who will give the Koreans a good fight? Oh, they’re there. But with less skill, and do you know why? Simply put it is because we have less time in which to devote to games. So many other attractions are vying for our attention that it is sometimes hard for us to choose. Koreans, who for the sake of argument will represent most other geographic locations of gamers, may have as many or even more, but something about the American society raises the difficulty to resist such things. Perhaps the incessant brainwashing of consumerism by television and movies. Perhaps the horribly low average I.Q. in the American population (not to say that there are not intelligent people among us, more to say that the majority of people are stupid) has something to do with it. Honestly, I don’t know.
What I do know is that America is running out of originality. I recently took a look at the best sellers’ list and realized that only one game on the list was _not_ a sequel. God of War. And while _some_ sequels take things in new directions, those are few and far between, and I can guarantee you that publishers and so on are more willing to bank on something that has already sold well as opposed to something new and innovative and interesting.
Back to my emphasis on the male part. Bonnie has a point when she comes to female gamers and FPSs. We shy away from them because, for the most part, such things don’t appeal to us. Why blow someone’s head off if you can command a squad to do it? Or why even do that when you can unravel a deep and engaging story filled with intrigue, romance, and so on and so forth? Where’s the romance in FPSs? ‘My bullet loves your forehead. Now die.’ As many of our…’vocal’ sisters there are, to be honest they are the minority. The majority of female gamers, and as I have no real data i’m going out on a limb, still prefer a good story over anything else. I know that I do.
October 4th, 2005 at 9:21 am
Sorry, but the majority of female gamers prefer GOOD GAMES over anything else, full stop. I know a few women gamers who could care less about story. Give them Katamari Damacy (hardly a story there) or Gradius V any day over the latest Final Fantasy game. I know a number of women gamers who enjoy action games (like Resident Evil 4) and FPSs.
I think the whole “women prefer this type of game” is needlessly divisive.
October 4th, 2005 at 9:58 am
Illidan, what exactly do you mean by “professional gaming”? Also, a bit of clarification: I would much more say that it’s an American/Western male preference than simply an American one. That includes places like Brazil and Europe. You note that Japan isn’t the only non-Western country. Of course. But as far as gaming is concerned, it’s our direct Other, our sister country in the East. We share a similar economic and social situation. That’s what makes comparisons between the U.S.A. and Japan relevant. As far as exact skins, I don’t mean to imply that there needs to be avatars of every type of person. But playing FPS’s and never being represented, in a larger sense, is alienating.
Also, yes, DDR rocks. If you’re ever in New York feel free to drop in and play.
Lleld, thanks for backing me :-). You raise a whole other giant issue when you talk about the stagnation of game creativity. You should really check out this Escapist article by Greg Costikyan, “Death to the Games Industry, Long Live Games” http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/8/3. As a side note, this is also a major problem for contemporary American comic books.
Brinstar, while I think your instinct to defend the variety and individuality of female preferences is a good one, and while I wouldn’t necessarily agree with Lleld that story line is what primarily interests women, there are other things to consider here. No one (at least not me) is saying this is what all women like. I am a girl gamer, and I strongly dislike a lot of “female favorites”. Everyone is there own person, regardless of gender.
With that said, we can’t deny that there are certain trends - for example, that a large portion of women dislike FPS’s. It’s only through recognizing these trends that we can begin to understand the anthropological implications of gaming and gaming culture. Also, I would argue that the idealization of female gamers, as seen through a comment like “the majority of female gamers prefer GOOD GAMES” is equally dehumanizing and disrespectful. I wouldn’t make that assumption of men (Who’s to say what’s good? That’s the issue at hand!). Why make it of women?
October 4th, 2005 at 12:38 pm
I don’t idealise women gamers any more than idealise men gamers, which is to say — not at all. The point I was trying to make is that gamers, regardless of gender, are looking for quality gaming experiences. Trends can be useful for mainstream or casual gamers, but with hardcore gamers who have diverse tastes, it might be more troublesome to make such generalisations. The same person who likes Tribes and Counterstrike might also enjoy ICO.
How can you draw assumptions when so many people buck the trend? That is one of the difficulties of social sciences. Generalisation can only go so far, and you have to acknowledge the exceptions.
October 4th, 2005 at 1:00 pm
Brinstar, of course there will always be exceptions. You say it’s important to acknowledge that, and I agree. I hereby acknowledge that there are exceptions :-). True, generalizations can only go so far, but without them we’re stuck not saying anything.
October 4th, 2005 at 3:13 pm
Can I gripe for a moment and say the fonts you use for comments is really, really tiny? (And yes, I know that I can change it, but the default is so tiny that I always have to change it and it’s kind of a pain in the butt.)
In any case, I’m with Brinstar, at least until somebody presents an actual scientific study on game preferences. There are a lot of things that are “common knowledge” and, at the same time, completely wrong… for instance, the whole story about water draining clockwise in one hemisphere and counter-clockwise in another. Without a scientifically-conducted study, it’s just words as far as I’m concerned.
October 4th, 2005 at 6:22 pm
If Korea, Brazil, Eastern Europe, and China are all part of “Western” Society, then what is “Eastern”?
October 4th, 2005 at 7:53 pm
So I read this late last night and I’ve been thinking about it off and on throughout the day. I’m trying to decide whether I’m an exception to the rule or whether I indirectly “prove” it. (well, not so much prove as justify)
I’m a 21 year old American male. According to stereotypes one might expect me to prefer FPS and sports games and just about anything violent. Not even close. Most of those types of games hold practically no appeal to me. It seems to me that a gamer’s preferences must be deeply rooted in what he/she grew up with though, and thinking about my own gaming history makes me wonder what experiences others had growing up and how that contributed towards preferences towards one type of game or another.
So, my gaming past:
My family’s first system was the NES. It came with Super Mario Bros./ Duck Hunt, two controllers, and the orange lightgun. Since I was just and my sister is six years older than me, she was pretty much in control of what new games we got all through both the NES and SNES.
Because of this, instead of growing up on Mega Man, Metroid, Contra, Bomberman, etc. (basically 75% of all games that “everyone” has played) I had things like Deja Vu, Shadowgate, Uninvited, Nightshade, Pinbot, Pinball Quest, Maniac Mansion, various Mario games, various Zelda games, Startropics, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Uniracers, Breath of Fire 2, and the first Final Fantasy.
You may notice a lot of those are either adventure games of one type or another or RPGs. And these are genres that I came back to a lot on PS/ PS2 and on the computer through all the various Final Fantasy games, Breath of Fire, Summoner, and most of the old Lucasarts adventure games.
At some point or another I got a Gameboy Pocket for Christmas, and I have moved up through Color, Advance, and Advance SP since then. The SP was the first system I bought with my own money instead of receiving as a gift. The second was Gamecube, and the third was Nintendo DS. I’ve been very selective about portable games but there’s quite a few RPGs in my collection there too. (I won’t touch that Pokemon crap though.) I just bought Trace Memory the other day. Hooray for the return of adventure games! RPGs are a bit lacking in my Gamecube collection though. Zelda, Mario, Metroid Prime, Viewtiful Joe… only RPGs in sight are Baten Kaitos and Tales of Symphonia.
Wow… I tried to keep that short, I really did. Anyway, the point of that was to show that my preference in games today is a direct result of my sister’s preferences 15 years ago (give or take).
But more important than what I was trying to decide when I started thinking about this is to point out the complexity involved in the birth and evolution of an individual gamer’s preferences. What if I had been the older sibling? What if we had opted for a Sega system instead? What if our first computer (and only computer for the better part of a decade) hadn’t been a Mac (that was already outdated when we bought it and only played SimEarth and SimFarm)? What if my family had had a little more money to spare on video games? What if we hadn’t had as much money to spare? If you want to get a good comprehensive view of what factors lead to what kinds of gaming habits I would suggest polling all sorts of gamers for similar (but perhaps even more detailed) summaries and pick apart the results. What do two people who like _____ have in commmon and what are their differences?
October 4th, 2005 at 8:25 pm
James, you bring up an important point about all this: someone needs to be doing real anthropological research, getting real numbers. Unfortunately, academics don’t often turn to newly-emergent or technology-based cultures such as that of video gaming. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed and continue spreading the word! In the mean time, we do our best. Personally, I’m an undergraduate without the means or time to conduct professional research; I have to go off what I know. You’re right that often common perceptions are incorrect. My information comes from personal experiences, for the most part, and I try to use as little assumption as possible. The generalizations I make are based on the fifty or so female gamers I know well enough to know their personal preferences. But you’re right. We should always keep on the look out.
Illidan, sorry, did I imply China and Korea were in the West? I believe I said (but I might be wrong) Brazil and Europe. For me, the West includes Europe and the Americas. Apologies for the confusion.
Muljo, some really interesting thoughts. I think, as has been mentioned before, it’s all a matter of trends and contingencies. You grew up in an exceptional situation from most male gamers. With that said, everyone’s situation is a little different. There is no one norm. And I think you’re idea of polling gamers is a good one, but a hard one to put into place. If you have any ideas of how to do it, I’d be happy to help.
Also, you speculate what would have happened if you were the older sibling, and your sister the younger, and how your tastes would have influenced hers. I am myself an older sister, but when my household bought our first system (a N64), my little brother had total control. He purchased the games. I had no idea what a video game was. In theory, this should have turned me into an “male”-game loving gamer. Thing is, my little brother isn’t very “manly”. He likes action/adventure games and RPG’s. His tastes definitely influenced mine, but in a way you might not have expected. Again, it all comes back to the infinite possibility of individual situations.
October 4th, 2005 at 11:03 pm
Yes, by noting that FPS gaming is mostly a Western experience.
Korea has far, far more of a gaming presence then any western country; three of the last World Cyber Games tournaments were held there (WCG includes Counter-Strike: Source and Halo 2 in its lineup). There are myriad CS:S clans across the country there.
As for China, FPS gaming is simply booming there. The last Acon5 (Mainly counterstrike) tournament was held there; http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23717
The vast majority of gaming in lower-wealth countries like China takes place in LAN cafes rather then privately owned gaming consoles. As a result, the three main game types are FPS (mostly counterstrike), RTS (starcraft, Warcraft 3), and MMPORG (World of Warcraft.)
October 5th, 2005 at 10:20 am
Illidan, thanks for the clarification. That’s a really interesting point. I wonder what element of Chinese/Korean culture differs so from Japanese culture that FPS’s “boom” in some Eastern countries, and not another. I don’t know much about Chinese or Korean gaming culture smyself, but I’d love to hear any suggestions you might have…
October 5th, 2005 at 4:32 pm
I do have one major reason. And what is that? It’s touched on in Muijo’s post.
“What if my family had had a little more money to spare on video games? What if we hadn't had as much money to spare?”
Money! And culture.
In both Japan and Korea, high-tech is a way of life. However, there’s a large divide between them. Japanese and Korean culture is very different; the countries are almost hostile to each other. While Japan is built around consoles, Korea was home to a massive Lan cafe boom and is effectively the world’s center of online gaming. However, in much of the world, personal computers or gaming systems are far out of the reach of many or most people. Very few parents will spring for a gaming system of any type when the household is having trouble making ends meet for food. Unlike the U.S. where “poor” can sometimes include someone with cable, vast populations of people in China and Brazil are starving.
But computer access is life. Access to the internet, the ability to learn, to access unlimited material when you don’t even have a half-decent library.. the PC beckons. And thus, a multitude of enterprising persons threw together as many PC’s as they could afford with high speed ‘net and (mass pirated, in most countries >>) software, charging an hourly fee for use. it functions not just as a new type of arcade system, but one that connects people anywhere to the entire world.
.. and the computers might be cast-down relics or have five hundred dollar graphics cards and gigabytes of RAM depending on the location, wealth of the area; the 22,000 or so cafes in South Korea are likely very well kept up.
but one thing matters. They’ve got the same games, the games that the pros everywhere play, the games that the major clans train tirelessly. They don’t stock gaming consoles; they do, however, have the mainstays of competitive PC gaming:
Starcraft was THE Real Time Strategy game for a long time. In Korea, it still is and always will be. Capable of running on practically any computer, even if “computer” means a fridge and microwave patched together with a black and white TV used for a screen (it might be possible, who knows..) with bazillions of players online at any given moment and universal recognition even to non-gamers..
yes, they play it on national TV in Korea. And some people make several hundred thousand dollars a year in sponsorships from companies.
If you’ve got the smarts that would bring you to a chest grandmastership, well, you need those, and more. You need to understand the game, your opponents, think constantly and strategize..
except, you have to control all your units at the same time. The better you control, the better they’ll fight.
Got blazing fast handspeed,
hundred-plus word per minute typing speed, mouse accuracy precision up the wazoo..
it’s just not enough. You need typing tutor. That, is Starcraft.
Then, you have Counter-strike, *THE* FPS. Like Starcraft, capable of running on any PC or glued-together pack of transistors. The original Half-life was thought a good game, but someone threw together a home-made mod way back in 1999 which turned it into a team counter terrorist vs terrorist multiplayer experience. It went from good to universally-played. And it took hold and soon it completely replaced the original game in usage. Again, the age of the game makes the system requirements minimal, but the makers of Haliflife took over development of Counterstrike and released a new version of it (Counterstrike:Source:) based on their new Halflife 2 graphical game engine, so there’s something for people of all computing power.
CS: http://www.plainspot.com/blog/archives/img/040415-cs.jpg
vs CS:Source: http://www.gamespot.com/pages/image_viewer/frame.php?pid=922013&img=1&sid=undefined
So yeah. It’s twinge-reflexes, team-based gameplay, and it’s a worldwide ranked phenomenon.
So, you go to the LAN cafe, and as long as your quarters last, you browse the web, play the games. The only part of the world they haven’t taken over would probably be North America, Africa, and the Mid-East; I’d blame personal wealth and individualism along with cultural rejection of gaming in the first example, and abject poverty and government restrictions respectively for the other two.
The gaming communities in all of the internet-connected countries are merged somewhat; through the WCG and CPL, ACON5, etc, the best of the best players from each country will meet in one location for deathmatches. And since the games are online, you could play anyone you want.
.. and that was long and probably uncohesive. But, hopefully it makes some sense x_X Ask for clarification on anything that doesn’t. To end with some links:
For more on the boom of internet cafes in Korea: http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/tech/200505/kt2005050916340712350.htm
as of february, over twenty million people play online games in China: http://www.ferrago.com/story/5156
Businessweek article about Pro Gaming: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/sep2005/id20050921_149256.htm
October 5th, 2005 at 5:24 pm
James: in response to your ‘gripe,’ I’ve gone ahead and cleaned up the formatting of the comments. It’s something I should have done a while ago, so I appreciate your speaking up. In general, if there are any problems with the site, feel free to e-mail me. I hope the changes I made help the readability a bit. -sj
October 6th, 2005 at 11:20 am
Illidan, thanks for all the info and thoughts!
October 14th, 2005 at 4:08 am
After reading your excellent rebuttal to the NYT piece (via Kotaku) I stumbled upon this article too, a great read. Just wanted to say that I’m part of a fairly high profile all-female clan specialising in FPS games if you ever want a feminine hand in improving your Halo 2 skills!
October 14th, 2005 at 10:06 am
bonnie: ” wonder what element of Chinese/Korean culture differs so from Japanese culture that FPS's "boom" in some Eastern countries, and not another. I don't know much about Chinese or Korean gaming culture smyself, but I'd love to hear any suggestions you might have"¦”
(my background: i’ve work in the JP console biz, since the ps1.)
the key difference actually is not money. why is it that poorer countries have computers, which are far pricier than consoles, for their predominant gaming platform? it’s all about the console gaming biz.
japan is the mecca of the console gaming biz. pc’s as gaming platforms in japan are a recent development, and almost entirely revolve around “adult” sims and mmorpgs. in china and korea, console gaming never obtained mass appeal. even today, sales are terrible.
some major reasons why console gaming never took off in china or korea? piracy is one issue — no one wants to publish games in territories with rampant piracy. you make next to nothing for your work. with online (computer) subscription gaming, piracy is no longer an issue. hence, mad online gaming in china/korea, moreso than japan. the other major reason — japan is the mecca of console gaming, and china/korea hates japan. something to do with imperialism and chinese/korean babies on the end of japanese bayonets… korea even legislated their hate: only recently did korea lift a ban on the import of all japanese intellectual property — it was illegal to buy any japanese console games.
technologically, pc’s are more expensive and more powerful than consoles. fps’s require more power than any other genre. it’s a no brainer that people who want to play the best fps’s play them on pc’s. publishers know this, and will continue to publish their games on pc’s. this process of natural economic evolution is why “the japanese don’t like fps’s.” catch 22. how can you like something you can’t even buy it? and of course, you wouldn’t buy it anyway, because you don’t like it, right?
~*~
as for girls and fps’s — i spend over 20 hours a week playing counter-strike:source. in that time, i’ve encountered many girls who play. the one thing i can confirm: they’re always chinese or korean. and the girls tell me the same: “the only girls who play are asian.”
even in the u.s., pc gaming takes a distant second to the console gaming biz. fps’s are just a small genre, relative to the worldwide gaming pie.
October 30th, 2007 at 3:23 am
odds jobs…
sighs Kuwaiti nugget stuck:…