Side scrolling platformers. Why left to Right?

[Agayek]

-snip-

The reason side-scrollers go left to right is purely because of habits formed by reading. People have grown used to starting at the left and moving to the right (even the Japanese language reads left to right sometimes). The original developers just went "sure, that'll work", and made their games that way.

Then it became a tradition and stuck that way.

 

[the-Wind]

[quote="octafish" snip


I'm with octafish. Writing, not reading, left to right is more likely to influence this. Also, with the majority of people being right-handed it would be a common bias.

Consider this. If you were just dropped off by a friend at the side of the road and you turn to face the road and watch them drive away: which way are they going? To the right (assuming you drive on the right side in your country)

Right = progress.