Are FPS's dumbing down gamers?

[LeonLethality]

Discuss

No I don't take orders from you so I will instead talk about kittens!

There are so many kittens with guns nowadays with all the same objective, kill other things with your kitten gun getting kitten A to kitten B so when a kitten without a gun comes along singing a different tune the other kittens get scared and confused.

... Yeah.

 

[Dimbo_Sama]

No, FPS is just the easiest genre to get into and be good at, next to Platformer and Beat 'em Up.

If I wanted a good intellectual challange I've got loads of games for that, but I love shooters because they're just going around killing people. We need that once in a while.

I think it's the nature of the internet supplying instant gratification with humour and porn and such that's dumbing people down. If I haven't watched a good show in a while, and instead I've been sitting watching the Nostalgia Critic or Sketches online or something, then admittedly it takes me a while to get back into the frame of mind of pacing a good story.

So no, I think your brother and your mates are just victims of the current entertainment infastructure.

 

[th3mb0n3s]

While reading this, it occurs most to me that this is an anti-COD rant. Yet you titled this "Are FPS's dumbing down gamers?".

Please don't get me wrong, I also don't like COD, and I agree with you on one thing: COD is in no way a thinking man's game. I just think that the title is a bit misleading.

 

[Toxicdude12]

That may have been an excuse to play w@w ;nazi zombies

 

[Therumancer]

Well, to be entirely honest I think the "problem" is that gaming has gone mainstream and is no longer for the intellectual crowd. It isn't that FPS games MAKE people dumb, it's that they tend to attract dumb people as in the everyman, as they outnumber smarter people, these are what is produced to market to them.

You also have to understand that the everyman wants immediate gratification. Games that start out slow, and have you build up (like RPGs and the like) aren't for them. Nor are numbers and statistics and the like, which is a good part of why gaming stayed firmly in the "smart people" catagory for so long, it took a certain degree of intelligence to play your average RPG (and there was a time when they dominated).

It should also be noted that you have to be able to enjoy dialogue and cut scenes to appreciate Mass Effect, the game definatly starts out slow, and I think the whole section between Eden Prime, and becoming a Spectre drives away a lot of casuals or "immediate gratification" players who basically wanted it to be another space-marine themed shooter.

When it comes to wandering around lost, well I can be honest in saying I can empathize there. Granted there is little excuse to get lost on say the Normandy, but I tend to get somewhat irritated in games where you don't get a clear indication of where to go. I oftentime think that MMORPGs without clear navigation set up are intentionally vague to get people to take longer to do things. There is something to hidden items, mazes, and the like and they are all part of the genere, but say a quest that's like "well go to the alleyway and talk to this guy" when there are like six differant alleyways and the guy is hiding, that tends to rapidly become "unfun".

A lot of stuff people have said before (in this thread even) but still my two cents.

Like it or not the idea of gaming being for "smarter" people are long gone, and honestly I think it will continue to get dumber and dumber in proportion to the number of gamers. Like it or not "smart" people have always been outnumbered, which make us a niche market, even for escapism. Few companies want to cater to a niche market when more money can be made off of the legions of the dull.

 

[DarkPanda XIII]

I can easily agree to the thought of "Games don't make Idiots, idiots just play the game". really, though, I don't think anything was dumbed down, everything was just given to the populous, which a lot of them are idiots

 

[Verrenxnon]

Honestly, I think gaming is dumbing down gamers. Instead of expressing themselves creatively from within, they look externally to find some product that roughly approximates their interests.

When playing these games, the gamer's escapism is so complete, that they don't actively engage the text the way they would when reading a book or watching television. There is an entirely different scamatta at work when playing a game than immersing oneself in other media.

Arguably, text-heavy games combat this, but to what extent? Ultimately, every RPG (turn-based or not) comes down to grinding the same actions over and over again. Reading comprehension doesn't matter when you know what position your moves are in the menu and there's no context in that move menu for the gamer to discern and question.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

Absolutely YES!

 

[ChaosGenesis]

I personally play FPSs more than any other type of game (COD specifically) but I recently purchased Mass Effect and just finished it. At no point did I find myself lost or at a loss anywhere. Same goes for Fallout. (Not that I classify either as a mentally challenging game)

I'm gonna say you're friends just don't like having to actually think so they stick to shoot-em-ups. I think you should make them played Braid and let us know how that goes

FPSs don't make people stupid. Stupid people play FPSs.
Mute button FTW

 

[Lithium Calibre]

You said it pretty well yourself. Your friends are morons, god forbid if they played a game like braid. Their poor heads would explode.

Jokes aside I think your pals just have a short attention span and want something faster, nothing wrong with that maybe they don't have the time to play a 30 hour RPG. With the kids of today all expecting instant gratification and what not.

 

[Et3rnalLegend64]

I'm probably restating a point, but your friends are probably idiots. FPS's don't create idiots. Idiots are probably attracted to FPS's, since they basically boil down to "point and shoot." For multiplayer, it's "point and shoot at anyone who's not the same team as you." Sure, there might be some tactics involved, but it's really short term stuff. "How do I move around to screw up the other guy so I can shoot him in the back?" It's not hard at all.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I have an idea, why not label anyone who's never read Dostoyevski, Shakespeare, Thomas of Aquino and Kafka idiots? I mean, obviously the current mainstream litterature like Dan Brown is dumbing down people, making them believe in lies and forsake classical litterature.

No, modern FPS games aren't dumbing down gamers. Not anymore than modern litterature is dumbing down readers anyway. This is not to mention that the OPs example is not actually of someone being dumb, but rather of people wanting to get quick gratification. Infinity Ward happens to be experts at creating games that do that, so there's no wonder that the CoD series is succesful. You are comparing apples and oranges I say.

 

[Cosmic Humor]

I actually think the potential for gaming to open up as a legitimate cerebral medium has actually been skyrocketing with the progress of technology. Think about the complex plots of Bioware, games like Psychonauts and Metroid that require a proper use of your mind to the philosophical undertones of Bioshock.

Now let's look at movies. How many are genuinely intellectual pursuits and how many are just random crap blowing up? It's just a classic case of pandering to the masses rather than artistic pursuit.

And FPS are the king of mass-pandering nonsense with little to no change between each.

 

[Captain Pancake]

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

I argue that this man has a point.

 

[Hiphophippo]

There are plenty of great games in every genre. Your average joe action fan will probably enjoy fps games a little more however, so you see more bland things here than other genres. This isn't really indicative of anything however, just personal taste.

 

[MGlBlaze]

Deus Ex would like to disagree. The first one, anyway.

Although allow me to echo what many people have been saying by once again stating;
FPSes don't make idiots; idiots are just drawn to them.

I would like to consider myself an intelligent person, and I enjoy FPSes. Deus Ex is fantastic (So far; I only got it recently and I haven't completed it), Half-Life 2 should never be overlooked (You can play it dumbly if you want, but you get a lot out of it if you pay attention to what's around you). The same goes for the original Half-Life, too, if you can get past the 'Xen Syndrome' (TVTropes), and you can deal with enemy soldiers having a gratuitous amount of HP on the hard difficulty setting.

HL2's hardest difficulty is much better handled.

I've even had fun with Halo and am considering trying out the online experience; although admittedly I am expecting to get bombarded by comments from the mouth-breathing retards that seem to populate XBox Live, though seeing some good people will be a welcome surprise should that happen.

 

[Pingieking]

As many have said before. I think FPSs don't dumb down gamers, it's just that dumb players tend to congregate towards that genre.
Just a slight confusion between correlation and causation, that's all.