Why do fps games dominate so much in this era?

[Bumkin]

mmos arent dying, theres a ton of ppl playing wow on private servers, the launch of vanilla proved ppl still like mmos, tbc will bring even more ppl back bcuz of arenas and 25 man raids

[ldev]

Easy to play, easy to make, easy to cash in on.

EA and Activision make new Battlefield and Call of Duty games every other year because they are very bankable with their fast paced matches that anyone can pickup and get into.

Compare it to RTS games which used to be king in the 90s and early 2000s; they are often slow and difficult to get into for new players.
Hardly anyone makes RTS games any more simply because they don't have the same marketability and the companies that do make RTS games are mostly doing 4Xs which is just another slow paced genre that you have to have knowledge of before you are good.

Call of Duty is every year literally since 2005 lol

[Jastall]

Generally, the current millennial generation is very ADHD and need the fast paced action of GOGOGO fps games to hold their attention span.

Yeah, nobody played FPS games before the Fortnite kids nor were they ever popular. You indeed have shown us the path to true wisdom.

[TigTone]

Yeah, nobody played FPS games before the Fortnite kids nor were they ever popular. You indeed have shown us the path to true wisdom.

Just a “youth” hating person. And by “youth” I mean 25 - 40 aged adults with families and careers.

And the Fortnite kids are Gen Z and younger which make his statement more ignorant than it already was.

On topic; Before WoW all I played was FPS started with Halo, Medal of Honor, Call of duty and so on.

Personally I enjoy the fast paced environment and the fun in wining against another person.

FPS has the convenience of drop in and play. There is no daily tasks or farming to do in order to get straight into the action.

Last FPS I played was Doom Eternal and Destiny 2.

I’m looking forward to the next Halo.

[dope_danny]

Did you spend the last 30 years living in a cave somewhere? Look up images of lan partys from 1990 and its 99% "boomer shooters". They have always been the top dog for the same reason so many games use zombies as enemies: easiest to programs, simplest to make, hard to get right but if you do its the most bang for your buck.

Like Wolfenstein and Doom released in '92 and '93. How could you possibly think shooters being the overwhelmingly most popular genre is in any way a recent trend?

[Jastall]

Just a “youth” hating person. And by “youth” I mean 25 - 40 aged adults with families and careers.

And the Fortnite kids are Gen Z and younger which make his statement more ignorant than it already was.

On topic; Before WoW all I played was FPS started with Halo, Medal of Honor, Call of duty and so on.

Personally I enjoy the fast paced environment and the fun in wining against another person.

FPS has the convenience of drop in and play. There is no daily tasks or farming to do in order to get straight into the action.

Last FPS I played was Doom Eternal and Destiny 2.

I’m looking forward to the next Halo.

Every time I see those "kids these days are ADHD low attention spam lulz look at my big brain" posts I assume the person is either a troll or have their head completely up their own asses. Neither possibility is very flattering.

[Belloc]

Shows how much I know about the genre lel. But ye, in my mind I was grouping both first and third person shooters together.

Yeah, that's why I mentioned that it's pretty close. They are, for the most part, functionally the same. The only difference, really, is that you can still see while behind cover and you've got part of your view blocked by your character. It's still a shooter, though, and you still aim the same way, so not very different at all.

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Did you spend the last 30 years living in a cave somewhere? Look up images of lan partys from 1990 and its 99% "boomer shooters". They have always been the top dog for the same reason so many games use zombies as enemies: easiest to programs, simplest to make, hard to get right but if you do its the most bang for your buck.

Like Wolfenstein and Doom released in '92 and '93. How could you possibly think shooters being the overwhelmingly most popular genre is in any way a recent trend?

I agree with part of your sentiment, but what exactly makes you think that they're easier to program?

[Tikishock]

Pick up and play, short games, competitive rush.

[BeepBoo]

I agree with part of your sentiment, but what exactly makes you think that they're easier to program?

They have a lot less systems to them than an RPG. Think of all the unique spell interactions (not just the graphics, I mean the actual programming that goes into them) and then realize that, with a gun, you literally let unity/unreal do the physics calculations for you, hitbox detection is automatic, etc. It's way simpler and once you do it for one bullet, it's done for all bullets. Adjusting the velocity and "weight" of the bullet will automatically change all the relevant aspects needed. There's also usually a lot less item variety, etc.

The artwork is still just as hard, for sure, though.

[rayvio]

I'm honestly surprised at their continuing popularity. most of the time a particular genre gets popular it's more of a fad and after so many follow-the-leaders the public and/or developers and/or publishers lose interest. while the genre's gone quieter a few times it's always brought back into the spotlight with a big release followed by more clones

personally I'm not a fan of the genre, I don't mind shooting but I need games that have more than just combat. I'm also not a fan of first person viewpoint, yes it's realistic in the sense that we get an eyepoint view but it doesn't properly simulate what that is like. third person does a better job of simulating our awareness of our surroundings even if it sacrifices some realism by seeing 'ourself'
that said, there's no denying that there's been some impressive looking games in the genre and it's come a long, long way since the days of Doom and even Quake (I feel old!)

[chiddie]

They have a lot less systems to them than an RPG. Think of all the unique spell interactions (not just the graphics, I mean the actual programming that goes into them) and then realize that, with a gun, you literally let unity/unreal do the physics calculations for you, hitbox detection is automatic, etc. It's way simpler and once you do it for one bullet, it's done for all bullets. Adjusting the velocity and "weight" of the bullet will automatically change all the relevant aspects needed. There's also usually a lot less item variety, etc.

The artwork is still just as hard, for sure, though.

But apart from coding being more or less easy, the key is that they are indeed easier to play than ANY rpg, this including also no brainer arpgs like Diablo, and most of all you can get right into the action almost immediately.

The game loads, you enter the rooms, you play, end. Wanna play with friend? You group, queue, boom you’re in in a minute. You can play half an hour? No prob. You have 5 hours straight? No prob.

My son is 15, he sees me playing WoW since ha was born but no matter how much he tried, he could not fall in love with it. He and his “console” friends basically play FIFA, Fortnite, COD and that game with dune buggies hitting a ball I can’t remember name now. What do they all have in common? They are fast. Matches are fast, getting into matches is fast and it takes maybe one hour to learn how to play them (mastering them is another story of course but follow me).

[haiyken]

FPS are more "pick-up and play" than any other type of game, at least on PC and consoles. It's often mutiplayer so popular among group of friends, fast paced, endless replayability. It's the same with fighting games, that remain popular decades after decades with a really simple concept, much like a FPS. What's great about this genre is that dev studios will try to play with the genre and give players something unique, and also keep giving the old games we know and love.

While I'm not playing a lot of FPS (if any, really), I think it's a great genre, fun to watch on streams sometimes, and with cool concept or designs in certain games. I think it's more than fine people like FPS a lot, not a problem at all.

[Makabreska]

Probably because this PoV is most immersive. Also FPS games are usually heavy action oriented and feature guns.

[PACOX]

Because they are fun. Also some FPS developers are really good at designing their games in such a way that it's really easy and smooth to jump in and out of actual game play.

[Belloc]

They have a lot less systems to them than an RPG. Think of all the unique spell interactions (not just the graphics, I mean the actual programming that goes into them) and then realize that, with a gun, you literally let unity/unreal do the physics calculations for you, hitbox detection is automatic, etc. It's way simpler and once you do it for one bullet, it's done for all bullets. Adjusting the velocity and "weight" of the bullet will automatically change all the relevant aspects needed. There's also usually a lot less item variety, etc.

The artwork is still just as hard, for sure, though.

I guess I wasn't looking at it from a Unity/Unreal blueprint perspective. That said, there are plenty of FPS games that have similar systems to RPGs, so it really just depends on the complexity of the FPS in question.

[The Saar]

Honestly I moved on to cod now. I played wow since vanilla but when bfa came out it just went downhill from there. I played shadowlands one week and quit. So yeah wow sucks now, thats prob one of the reasons...

[Sciborg]

Back when I started playing games with Goldeneye, Red Alert, Quake and such, I feel like the window into what was popular was pretty much down to the community you grew up and engaged with, for example none of my friends ever played Diablo 2 and I didn't even really know about it until I started playing WoW and it was talked about there. For me and my group, FPS was always prevalent, I only got into RPGs a few years later when I moved from my area and made new friends who were into MMOs.

[ro9ue]

The gameplay is just super intuitive, and many of the skills / muscle memory you develop in FPS translate across games pretty well so if a new FPS comes out I can hop in and retain a good deal of all of the practice I've had from previous games.

Not true with most other games and genres.

[Biglog]

The first big 3D game on PC was Doom, then Quake, then Call of Duty which has dominated gaming since 2003. That's not even counting the Battlefield series. And as icing on the cake the Battle Royale games have been the biggest games for 3-4 years. So it's not that fps have just dominated this era, it's that pretty much as soon as PC gaming just barely got powerful enough graphically for color 3D games in the early 90's, fps were the first and most popular ones.

MMORPG have always been 2nd+. It's just that they have fallen further down the list the past few years as games have evolved. MMOs, RTS, sims, etc. are fun too, but are the types of games that you sit down and play for longer sessions. A fps is much more arcade-y where you can pick it up, play a round in 10-15 minutes and hop back off. Also, a fps generally doesn't have much of a learning curve like LoL or wow. An 8 year-old can pick up a controller and play CoD immediately.

[Myradin]

Simple gameplay and short games.

This. MMO's take time and commitment. Looking up guides, and improving yourself is highly encouraged. You need a schedule to do any non-casual content.

FPS game you can just hop in any time, and provided there's other people to play with somewhere in the world, you're good to go.

When MMO's were young, I think most people were fine being uniformed explorers who just did things for fun. But now people are all about optiziming their fun-to-time ratio and MMO's honestly are closer to a sport, except your coach has more stats to nit pick you about.