Shooting games- What is it that makes them so popular?

[DeadManReedeemed]

Hmmmmm.......

[TheWampaKing]

Angel is right on about that. That's why other things like Paintball and Airsoft are fun.

[Chozon1]

Well, it's not that killing is fun. You don't actually kill in video games and your brain knows this.
It's combat that's fun; wired right into our biology.

Not sure that's correct. Otherwise, I don't imagine hunting would be as popular. I also don't imagine the ye olde coliseum would have been the hotspot it was. Can't forget UFC jank either. People do die in that, though it's rare in the western world.

People like to kill stuff. If it happens to not die, and stands up again to be shot later, so much the better.

[DeadManReedeemed]

I understand but...... still, it somewhat just......

[ArchAngel]

Well, it's not that killing is fun. You don't actually kill in video games and your brain knows this.
It's combat that's fun; wired right into our biology.

Not sure that's correct. Otherwise, I don't imagine hunting would be as popular. I also don't imagine the ye olde coliseum would have been the hotspot it was. Can't forget UFC jank either. People do die in that, though it's rare in the western world.

People like to kill stuff. If it happens to not die, and stands up again to be shot later, so much the better.

Glad you brought those up.

For MMA (UFC is the organization, like NFL to football), it's all combat and any death is accidental and injury at least is attempted to avoid. The clashing of varying techniques in MMA is actually very interesting.

Hunting is an entirely different thing. It's a practice that goes back to our very roots as a hunter/gatherer society. Ask any hunter, it's not about slaughter.
For gladiator battles, it was mostly combat and I can't say how frequent death was, but it wasn't uncommon for a failed gladiator to not have his life taken. It really was mostly about the combat and the thrill of the fight. The gladiator crowd cheering is a little different than people jeering an execution. Not saying executions didn't happen in the coliseums, and death and combat, of course, intermingle (that's never been denied). Still, the emphasis on excitement comes from our desire for combat. It's as primal as lion cubs play fighting, and grown lions challenging each other for social hierarchy.

[Chozon1]

I know numerous hunters who are all about the killing. So you go ask a hunter. I live around them, and have no need to.

And sure, gladiators may (As you said, may; you can't say how frequent death was. I can't either) not have died, but loads and loads of others did. Usually for the entertainment of it all. Unless you'd like me to believe that people showed up to watch the execution of some random guy with a random sentence just to jeer at a bad guy. The claim that it was the combat doesn't make sense either, since there's not much of a title match between an armored fighter and a half dead prisoner. Even several half-dead prisoners.

If death and combat are intermingled, then how can you logically claim it's the combat that's exciting, and not the death? If people didn't enjoy killing things while fighting, just the fighting, you'd have a point. But that's not the case. Sure, people enjoy combat, and I won't deny it. Paintball says that. But you can't logically infer that people don't enjoy killing because they happen to also enjoy fighting which does not include it. Otherwise, I could easily claim that I enjoyed math because I enjoy writing with a pencil. I mean, haven't you seen all the hundreds of comic books, movies, ETC that show humanity heading towards 'death race' type deals?

So again, I'm not certain you're right and you've not shown me anything that leads me towards believing you are. You should just punch me in the pancreas.

Also, Arch, I'm in a very bad mewd today, so if this post shows that and comes across like I want to punch you...I'm sorry. Just go put on a foam suit.

[Bmanhill]

i think there fun, cause theres lots of stuff to unlock and theres literally like hours of game play. i love playing Battlefield3 alot. and theres just a whole lot of stratagy involved. It also takes a lot of skill to to to know everything you need to do to win a battle

[ArchAngel]

Death could be exciting, I suppose, but it's only done by dehumanizing the victim. The main pull to all these things is the combat itself where death is the ends to it.
Look, alright, let's break our arguments down to their basic components.

I'm saying the main draw why we like violent games is the aspect of combat, where it pulls back to a very primal, tribalistic sense where through combat you gained social rank. We enjoy testing our prowess against others and especially besting them, elevating our own rank (subconsciously, if not outright). I'm not saying there isn't a part of people that enjoy the death of others, whether it's vindictive, malicious, etc, but that it's not as prevalent as our enjoyment of fighting itself.

What it sounds to me that you are saying that people enjoy video games because they enjoy killing people. Do correct me if it's wrong, because it seems very wrong. Claiming that the majority of gamers who enjoy violent video games (which is probably the majority of gamers period) are psychopathic individuals who would like to kill others and don't to only avoid social ramifications seems a bit unfounded. This would seem to suggest that the majority of people in general (especially if we expand this point to Action movies) enjoy killing and by the bare threads of our legal system are we not plummeted into total anarchy. Funny you should mention the comics and movies about "death races," because it is entirely fictitious. Seems like if people enjoyed killing so much, it would be pretty popular.

As for asking a hunter, I know some myself and they'll reaffirm my view. In fact, I've come to my conclusions of hunting through them. (I'll admit I haven't had the fortune to go hunting myself)
But I don't doubt there are people who enjoy just killing animals.

As I said before, people do will end up dehumanizing groups of people, which often lead to very tragic occurrences and probably the "lust for death" you seem to be alluding to. There are plenty of examples of this historically. Gladiator battles. Ethnic cleansing. The Holocaust. Inquisition. Crusades. It goes on. The "us vs. them" mentality is very strong in people; just look at politics today and how much loathing each side has for each other. So yes, there are cases where people genuinely enjoying killing each other. This feeling isn't completely pervasive (and I don't think you were arguing that it was), and that I'd still hold that people prefer to make connections with others than to kill, but the tribal sense of "us good, them bad" continues on in our psyche from the day when people had to protect each other from hostile neighboring tribes and it meant a matter of life and death.

So to bring it back to the original argument, I'm not arguing that death and killing isn't part of the enjoyment in violent video games. We do like the kill or be killed scenario. It's exciting, but death isn't the primary draw, or we'd see a lot more games where you just mercilessly slaughter people. There are some, granted, but by far the great number of violent games and the ones that do very well with the populace is about the struggle of combat, where death sets the stakes.

[Chozon1]

*whistles* There's really nothing more to be said; not after you go all psychology on me.

[DeadManReedeemed]

Well, since you put it that way:

1. Do you have a Macbook or a Mac?

2. Does it have Wi-fi?

3. Does it have the App Store application?



If you answered yes to all three (or at least 1 and 2 because Google exists), then you should check out Uber Strike HD. It is a MMOFPS that, surprisingly, I found in the role-playing category. Which kinda makes sense because it is not just a regular FPS with regular FPS elements. You actually have HP (Health Points) and AP (Armor Points). HP is obvious, but Armor I'm not entirely sure about. I guess it reduces the damage you take?





Anyway, items are pretty hard to get if you don't have a credit card. I know I don't have one. If you have enough Uber Strike Points, you can hold the weapon, etc. in your inventory for a certain amount of days. To add more challenge to it, you have to be a certain level to purchase the weapon (with points). And the number of stages are SOMEWHAT limited, but with multiplayer that doesn't matter considering the uniqueness of the stages.

Anyway, if you have a Mac and you like FPS shooters this game is for you.