Are FPS's dumbing down gamers?

[SantoUno]

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

I don't think FPSs dumb down gamers. All of my friends play FPSs and yet they still play other games that require more thinking like Assassin's Creed 2, Mirror's Edge, and Fallout 3.

And Half Life being man's games? Nah, that doesn't make sense. They're just more puzzling and complicated, I doubt any of your friends could even make it past the first set of houses in Half Life 2 let alone the whole first game.

 

[countrysteaksauce]

I wouldn't say that FPS are dumbing down gaming. There's thinking in those too. Backing away from the COD example, I remember the old CS 1.6/source days. There wasn't any 10 second respawn, you had to wait the entire round to respawn, so you had to think about the best way to get the upper hand, rushing into a place unprepared is only for those who want to take a break to go make a sandwich while the team plays the rest of the round.
I can give a handful of FPS games where you can't just go in and expect to win.

Red Orchestra- Realistic to a fault, sometimes it's not even fun. However, if you're good at it, it means you know to how to take advantage of the map to outwit and outgun the enemy.
TF2- To an extent, you have to actually work together, communicate and find the best way to get the flag or the control points. Granted you can still do a mindless lone-wolf approach.

The Second Question- Are games to get away from strenuous thinking or for challenge?
I think it depends on your mood at the time, otherwise certain games wouldn't exist.
Think of the Civilization games, the Total War Series, World in Conflict

 

[TOGSolid]

many exclusive fps gamers are morons anyway.

Pretty much, unless they're the guys into tac shooters like Ghost Recon 1 and Arma 2 of course. Those actually take some thinking.

 

[FactualSquirrel]

It depends. Did they play RPGs and other games before? or had they only played fpss before? 'cos the first one would be a resounding yes, but I'm guessing it's the second one and that theyed never come across something like this before. Also, I play fpss mainly, but I still like me a good rpg/open world game and don't get confused, I think your friends are definitely just morons (no offense). Oh and I agree, half life 2 isn't very complicated or the thinking man's fps (at a stretch I'd say that that's portal).

 

[Adjuchas Brokk]

Hi Makeshift Koala,

It's unfair to stereotype all FPS games in such a way, the problem isn't that games are dumbing down people, rather people are causing games to be dumbed down.
"Video games" have become an accessible form of entertainment to a huge audience now - killing the nerdy/geeky stigma previously associated with playing games. This in turn means that the average Joe now plays games too and the sad reality is that most people don't like to be challenged, much preferring the "easy win" to feel good about themselves (see cheating in multiplayer games).

In a way, its the responsibility of smarter players to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to games, example being Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. From what I've seen, there are no puzzles and little in the way of tactical play, it seems to be entirely shoot and scoot play which means that the multiplayer will mirror that, with an arcade mode feel and "cheap lives" (by that I mean games where you can be killed instantly with most weapons and respawn quickly, see battlefield).
How many "average Joe" types do you reckon play chess for hours every day?

-Adjuchas

 

[Alphavillain]

I think what CoD games and other FPSs do is attract young kids (mainly teenage boys) and then throw them onto the internet to annoy other gamers who want to play online. It's this exposure of patently immature people to an adult audience (and adult themes) that seems so jarring to me.

 

[Seydaman]

No your friends are just retarded
I play Mass Affect AND call of duty
(What a badass I know)

 

[Glic2003]

Gamers are getting dumber, as are people in general. If you've seen the movie Idiocracy, you'll understand that it's actually a cautionary tale, not a comedy.

Case in point: back in the old days of PC gaming, if you bought an RPG or a flight sim, you were expected to read a manual approximately 100 pages long before you could begin playing. Can you imagine anyone playing a game like that now? There's a good reason flight sims are no longer made for the general gaming public, and there's a good reason modern RPGs are like Fallout 3.

 

[Tiny116]

I don't own call of duty games but it took me a while to find the way into rivet city as well...I felt like a nunce when i realised what i was missing though!

 

[_zuul]

(yes i know its an fps, but i like to think its the thinking mans fps)

HA. i lol'd.

inb4 physics puzzles

 

[Canadamus Prime]

No, I'd say your friends are just morons. How can you get lost in the Normandy? It has only like 5 rooms.
As for FPSs, I would say they mostly appeal to the less intellectually inclined members of the human population, but I wouldn't say the make people stupid. Of course humans are creatures of habit and when you play games that constantly follow the same themes, suddenly playing something that doesn't can be a bit overwhelming.

 

[Mr Wednesday]

No.

Next question.

 

[Supreme Unleaded]

Jeez I also got lost on that mother fucking ship on Mass Effect, I literaly sat therre for 2 hours searching every fucking door and (and this is a complete coinicidece i swear) I somehow kept on making my way back to the Strip Club. I couldnt find where to go, seriosly how the fuck did i miss it. Good thing i rented the damned thing.

But yes, i do agree with you that todays games are holding the players hands *cough* rechargable health *cough*, they don't seem to be as challenging anymore. Thank god Demons Souls came, jeez that games a challenge.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

T
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

I got confused about how to get into Rivet City too, I didn't see the intercom for ages.

Also, I approached it by night so I was unaware the huge hulking metal structure was in fact a ship.

Feel free to mock, as I am well aware it is deserved lol.

 

[SextusMaximus]

Call of Duty doesn't make idiots, idiots play Call of Duty


(To justify that previous statement; that's not to say that everybody who plays CoD is an idiot. But let's face it, it's got like 15,000,000,000,000 players. A lot of 'em are gonna be idiots)

Also, Half Life isn't *that* much of a thinking man's fps. You can play through it pretty mindlessly if you're so inclined.

Half Life 2's puzzles are really tricky for me to get past...

Although I think that speaks for itself, so yes - FPS' are definetly dumbing down me.

 

[RatRace123]

Well first off you need to beat your brother for not liking Mass Effect.

And it's been said, it's not FPS, it's mainstream in general. FPS only turns people into twitchy, profanity spouting, loose cannons. Mainstream games guide them by the throats to their destinations, so that's where the idiocy and codependency come into play. The only reason you would mention FPSs is because everything mainstream, is an FPS right now.

 

[coldshadow]

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

unless if your playing a scifi game.