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.
