Are FPS's dumbing down gamers?

[DrunkWithPower]

This is actually a fun topic. It brings me to a point, why do we play video games? Mindless fun or brain racking challenge. I enjoy both equally. As far as your question goes, it's make making them dumb, it's just their way of being entertained.

Entirely depends on my mood sometimes i get the urge to blow shit up, other times i want to think about said shit before blowing it up. It's kinda like films, sometimes a love a film where i can deposit my brain outside and pick it up afterwards. Ah, Commando how i love thee.

Exactly. Sometimes I like to be a flowing young ruffian and see how far a knife can go into a human torso, other times I like to struggle in finding that key under the fifth rock in room three.

 

[etherlance]

well I recently started to play modern warfare 2 and most conversation i have on that go a little bit like this...

player: duuuude fucking laaaame haxxorrrrrrr

me: what??

player: watch it bro's haxorrr fag lame fag here cheats

other player: fucking lame duuude haxxorrr ***** lolololololololol

player: true that bro fucking ***** rofl lol

other player: roflcopter bro lolololol

player: lololololololol!!!!

both players: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL RRRRRRROOOOOFFFLLLL!!!!!!

me: "Etherlance has left the game"

so yeah personally think that idiots play FPS but also that FPS make idiots too
lolololol....OH GOD I'M INFECTED!!!!!!!

 

[mikecoulter]

I don't see how they can...

Msybe they just appeal to idiots more than a good RPG of RTS.

 

[Woodsey]

I wouldn't say FPS's are dumbing down gamers. I'd say it's more likely a case of them not raising the standards of gamers. A gamer growing up in the age of Call of Duty might find a more complex game like Mass Effect or Half-Life to be daunting.

Growing up in the age of CoD is before, during and after ME as well as HL2 (and the episodes).

You get gamers like us, who are on here; we read previews, reviews, follow games from their first announcement and have gaming as a hobby.

Other gamers have an Xbox or PS3 for when they get bored, and then fire up FIFA (generalising here). CoD is incredibly famous, so they'll play that for shooty shooty as well. A friend of mine doesn't even know that MW2 has a singleplayer campaign.

It's why you play; I'm this way because my Dad is (was - not so much now) a gamer, and he was the same.

 

[ethaninja]

PS: this is also my first ever thread post.. so.. eh.. be nice =P

GLARBLEARBLEARGLE SEARCH BAR ************!

In all seriousness, I'm lost on that bloody space station too, yet I don't play anything like Call of Duty or Halo. Your friends are just natural morons.

Lol. Yeah same.

 

[annoyinglizardvoice]

I wouldn't say FPS's are dumbing down gamers. I'd say it's more likely a case of them not raising the standards of gamers. A gamer growing up in the age of Call of Duty might find a more complex game like Mass Effect or Half-Life to be daunting, but it isn't because Call of Duty made them dumb; it's because playing Call of Duty simply doesn't prepare you for playing games like Mass Effect or Half-Life. It's just not on the level of those games, and what's more, it doesn't try to be. Now, whether or not Call of Duty should be trying to emulate Mass Effect or Half-Life is another discussion altogether. The point is, if all you play is Call of Duty, going to anything else is going to induce a pretty massive dose of culture shock.

In any case, it seems like the gamers of that particular mindset are fairly young. As they get older and start broadening their horizons, it seems likely that they'll be able to move beyond Call of Duty onto more cerebral fare.

Interesting points.
I agree that it's more a case of such games just not educating people rather than actually encouraging them to be thick.
I do feel that fps games involve a little less tactical thinking since they brought in regenerating health though.

 

[ethaninja]

I argue that most people play games to get away from strenuous thinking.

Exactly. Isn't that why they made Doom?

 

[Bat Vader]

The map in the Normandy was easy to navigate through. Hell, they told you what planets to go to. Rivet City and Half Life 1 and 2 are both easy to navigate through as well.

I hate to say it but I think your friends and sibling are a couple crayons short of an entire box.

 

[hermes]

I don't think they are idiots, they are just applying call of duty gameplay conventions to games that are not CoD. Half-Life 2 is a game with a much slower pacing than CoD, and a lot less guided; and both ME and Fallout 3 are hardly playable as FPS even when they might have a first person perspective.

But that doesn't mean they are stupids, you just have to explain to them how the games you recomend them are different than the ones they are used to play. Otherwise your argument its like someone saying Braid sucks because he is used to play Mario.

 

[Iron Mal]

FPS games haven't dumbed down players, they've just made games more accessable to idiots (an inevitable consiquence of anything gaining popularity is that it's going to draw in people you'd rather not see, look at pretty much any major musical trend for further examples).

It's a rather narrow minded assumption that just because you enjoy 'mindless' games like CoD or Halo that you too must be a mindless goon/fratboy (one of my favorite games ever made is the original DOOM, it had no real thought required besides 'shoot evil motherfuckers' and I still find it fun, does that automatically make me a tragic victim of cultural retardation?).

 

[slipknot4]

They are "Normal" run out of the mill morns. Nothing special about them, except for the fact that they can't count to seven.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

FPS's aren't dumbing down games, consoles are. I own both a PS3 and an 360 so any comments about me being biased can go fly a kite.

is this a joke? i hardly ever touch pc games, as i prefer controllers much much more, and im 3x smarter than any of my pc gamer friends, in which they all play counter strike, starcraft, diablo, WoW and unreal tournament like a madman

so this is a bunch of bullarky, and you dont even point out any facts or reason to back that up

 

[FalloutJack]

Nah, people are just hokey-dumb to begin with. You take your console-PC-handheld-blargity-whoop arguments and shove 'em. People take the path of least resistance of their own free will, not because the game machine told them so.

 

[Ph33nix]

no they are just opening up gaming to more people

 

[ma55ter_fett]

This may be from my own personal experiences... but do you think that modern first person shooters are dumbing down gamers?
I have 3 examples of this.

The first example is my brother (aged 14) playing mass effect. i had told him to play it as he didnt know what game to play and i loved the game. i leave him to play it for 1 hour and come back to see him playing call of duty world at war. i ask him 'why did you stop?' he replied 'i got to the part where your on the spaceship and you have to tell the pilot to bring us into dock or something.. and i got lost on the ship so i gave up' this suprised me as the normandy isnt exactly the most complicated place to navigate through. He is an avid call of duty player and is usually used to being carried along on a leash through a level me thinks... and i was his age when i played mass effect, so it cant be the fact that its just a confusing game can it?

The second example is my friend who just started playing the orange box and i told him to start the half life games. (yes i know its an fps, but i like to think its the thinking mans fps)The next day I ask him how far he got.. and he said 'i dunno.. i got out of the train station place and was outside.. then i got lost.. so i gave up and went to play call of duty'. im not blaming call of duty at all.. its just a coincedence that thats what they went to play.

Third example (and my personal favourite) is when another of my friends was playing fallout 3... some time after he bought it and started it, he called me and asked 'ok.. ive been outside rivet city for 20 minutes and i havent a clue how to get onto the bleedin' thing!' This amused/disapointed to no end, so i hung up on him. Also a Call of Duty player.
Now im not sure if this is an actual problem, or my friends are just complete morons... but i couldnt help pin it on the obvious connection between them all.. first person shooters..
Discuss
PS: this is also my first ever thread post.. so.. eh.. be nice =P

While I will admit that the normandy has a fairly simple layout it was (to me at least) quite an annoying place to navigate, and I hated to be there.

I have gotten lost dozens of times in halflife 2 so I totally feel his pain.

Rivet city needs a fucking neon sign post to point to the button that extends the bridge, I rage-quit there the first time I went to rivet city.

 

[Desert Tiger]

I dunno. FPS' have been proven (By SCIENCE) to increase reaction times and stuff. In my experience, most FPSers are idiots, but that's probably because the premise of what the game holds in store for them is what attracts them in the first place.

To sum up - no. I don't think FPSers are idiots. I just think a lot of idiots play FPS.

 

[Spitfire175]

I don't see how they can...

Maybe they just appeal to idiots more than a good RPG of RTS.

Well, these "FPS- tards" or "idiots" whatever we want to call them are mostly "duuude that was coool, maaaaan! Awesome!"- type people, so they like explosions, Michael Bay and Call of Duty and they don't know that the word "realism" means. So the lack of mushroom clouds and automatic firearms scares them away from games with any depth.

 

[Treefingers]

Your brother is an idiot. However, it seems unreasonable to blame FPS games for this. World at War is shit.

 

[Axeli]

This is actually a fun topic. It brings me to a point, why do we play video games? Mindless fun or brain racking challenge. I enjoy both equally. As far as your question goes, it's not making them dumb, it's just their way of being entertained.

Personally, the former is the one that seems boring to me. I can shoot only so many zombies in the face before it gets repeative.
There are exceptions, true, but I honestly can't see the appeal of slashing or shooting endless waves of enemies. It might be fun at first but sooner or later I notice I'm not really having fun anymore but thinking that this must be fun because I had that I had two hours ago. Then I remember the concept of getting bored and stop playing.

While the thinking games do stand on their own better, I do have to say that action just can be really awesome, and indeed the best gameplay is the one that mixes both. Having to dodge and time attacks while trying to figure out the winning strategy is usually a mark of great gameplay.

Or then you can have games like MGS that require you to think your way through, but with the action definitely being there even if it's more subtle than shooting down platoons of enemies.