Will the Gaming Industry Change Use of FPS and TPS?

The Inertia of Familiar Language 

The traditional definitions of first- and third-person games rely on camera placement rather than on player agency. That shortcut has distorted how we talk about perspective for decades.

So why has this never been corrected?  The short answer is likely inertia.

Once a term becomes familiar, widely taught, and commercially useful, it stops being descriptive and starts being infrastructural. Changing it becomes expensive, not just financially, but culturally.

---

The FPS Effect

The modern taxonomy of game perspective crystallized in the 1990s with the rise of the first-person shooter (FPS).

“FPS” was an unusually successful label:

• It described what players saw

• It differentiated a new genre

• It was easy to market

• It spread quickly through magazines, retail shelves, and early web discourse

Once first person became synonymous with “camera at eye level,” everything else was forced into contrast. The term third person did not emerge from narrative theory. It emerged as whatever FPS was not.

This asymmetry locked the vocabulary in place before anyone had reason to question it.

---

Camera Language Is Easier Than Agency Language

Camera placement is concrete. Agency is abstract.

It is far easier to say:

The camera is behind the character

than to say:

The player issues commands to a represented self

Marketing departments, tutorial writers, and reviewers naturally gravitated toward the simpler explanation. Over time, that simplification hardened into definition.

Once perspective was taught as a visual property, revisiting it as a player–system relationship required more effort than most discourse was willing to invest.

---

How Designers Commonly Talk About Perspective

In public-facing discourse, perspective is usually described in terms of camera placement. In design-facing discussions, however, the vocabulary often shifts.

Designers frequently frame perspective through concepts such as:

• Player embodiment

• Identification with an avatar

• Degrees of abstraction

• Command versus inhabitation

• Latency between decision and action

These ideas appear regularly in design talks, postmortems, and critical writing, even when the traditional labels of first- or third-person remain in place. The emphasis is less on where the camera sits and more on how the player relates to what they control.

This does not mean designers uniformly reject camera-based terminology. Rather, it suggests a practical distinction: the internal language of design often exceeds the precision of the public labels used to describe games.

In other words, the mislabeling persists not because designers lack conceptual tools, but because those tools are rarely surfaced in player-facing taxonomy.

---

Why the Industry Is Unlikely to Fix the Labels

Even if the argument is sound, several forces resist change:

1. Legacy Vocabulary

Decades of books, articles, reviews, and tutorials use the existing terms. Revising them would create friction with historical material.

2. Search and Discovery

“Third-person action game” is a deeply indexed phrase. Replacing it would damage discoverability without offering immediate commercial upside.

3. Audience Expectations

Players already believe they know what these terms mean. Correcting them risks sounding pedantic or confusing, even when accurate.

4. Mixed Perspectives

Many modern games blur categories intentionally. Studios may prefer flexible ambiguity to precise taxonomy.

Taken together, these pressures make formal correction unlikely.

---

Why This Still Matters

If the industry is not going to change its labels, why insist on the distinction at all?

Because language shapes analysis.

Mislabeling perspective:

• Obscures why certain games feel immersive despite external cameras

• Confuses discussions of agency and control

• Flattens meaningful differences between avatar play and command play

• Makes serious criticism sound mystical rather than structural

A player-centric model gives critics, designers, and players a sharper vocabulary—even if public-facing labels remain unchanged.

---

The Value of a Parallel Vocabulary

This series is not a call to rename genres overnight. It is a proposal for a parallel framework that can coexist with existing terminology while offering greater precision.

Just as film studies distinguish between camera angle and narrative voice, game analysis benefits from separating:

• What does the camera do

• What is the player

Keeping these concepts distinct allows deeper discussion without breaking compatibility with established language.

---

A Useful Mental Reframe

Rather than asking:

Is this game first person or third person?

Ask:

Who is acting?

Who is being addressed?

Where does the player exist in relation to the system?

These questions remain valid regardless of genre, technology, or trend.

---

Keeping It Going

The industry is unlikely to abandon camera-based labels. They are too entrenched, too useful, and too familiar.  But clarity does not require replacement. It requires recognition.

We can say that a game has first-person perspective with third-person camera angle. Or, a game is second-person perspective with the ability to show either game-piece camera angle or top-down third person camera angle.  Such descriptions are more meaningful. 

Once we understand that most so-called third-person games are structurally second-person, a great deal of confusion dissolves. Design intent becomes clearer. Player experience becomes easier to articulate.

---

Also see

• We’ve Been Using “Third-Person” Wrong for 30 Years in Gaming
• A Player-Centric Model of Game Perspective 
• Real-World Games and Player Perspective

Real-World Games and Player Perspective

Why Physical Games Clarify the Debate

If digital games complicate questions of perspective with cameras, avatars, and simulated worlds, real‑world games strip those ambiguities away. There is no virtual camera, no rendering engine, and no ambiguity about where the player exists in relation to play.

What remains is the core relationship that person actually describes: how the player is positioned relative to action and agency.

When we apply the same player‑centric framework to physical and tabletop games, the mislabeling of digital perspectives becomes immediately obvious. The categories align cleanly without edge cases, caveats or special pleading.

---

First Person: Embodied Physical Play

In first‑person games, the player is the acting body. There is no representational layer.

Examples 

• Tag

• Soccer, basketball, martial arts

• Darts, bowling

• Poker (as bodily participation rather than avatar play)

Perspective Structure

• The player acts directly

• The player’s body is the locus of agency

• There is no token, piece, or proxy

The language of play is unambiguously first person:

I run.

I throw.

I bluff.

No one meaningfully describes these games as issuing commands to a representation. There is no interpretive distance between decision and action.

This is first‑person perspective in its purest form, mapping precisely onto digital first‑person games where avatar and player identity collapse into one.

---

Second Person: Token‑Mediated Play

Second‑person play emerges the moment a personal proxy is introduced.

Examples

• Monopoly

• The Game of Life

• Sorry!

• Most role‑playing board games

Perspective Structure

• The player is personally represented

• Actions are issued to a token

• The token is “you,” but not identical to you

The language shifts naturally:

You move three spaces.

You pass Go.

You go to jail.

No one confuses the plastic token with the player’s physical body. No one treats the token as an unrelated entity either. It is unmistakably you, addressed directly.

This is the exact structural relationship found in traditionally labeled “third‑person” digital games:

• A visible body

• A controllable character

• A personal avatar that can be observed, directed, and positioned

The tabletop world exposes the truth that digital cameras obscure: this is second‑person play.

---

Third Person: Unembodied Command

True third‑person perspective appears when the player has no personal representation at all.

Examples

• Chess

• Checkers

• Go

• Wargames with multiple units per side

Perspective Structure

• No piece represents the player

• All entities are equally external

• The player exists entirely outside the system

The language reflects this detachment:

That piece captured the queen.

These troops were sacrificed units.

That side is losing control of the board.

Even when players identify emotionally with a side or strategy, no single piece is you. The relationship is observational and managerial rather than embodied.

This maps cleanly onto digital strategy games, god games, and simulation titles where the player’s presence is abstract, systemic, or omniscient.

---

Why These Categories Feel Obvious Offline

In physical games, no one argues that Monopoly is “third person” or that chess is “first person.” The distinctions feel intuitive because:

• There is no camera to confuse viewpoint with identity

• Tokens and the actually human self are physically distinct

• Agency is visibly mediated or not

Digital games inherited linguistic categories before these distinctions were fully examined. Real‑world games demonstrate that the confusion is not conceptual, but rather it is terminological.

---

The Consistency Test

A useful diagnostic question emerges:

If this game were played on a table instead of a screen, what would represent the player?

• Your body → First person

• Your personal token → Second person

• Nothing at all → Third person

This test holds across media, genres, and technologies.

---

Implications for Game Analysis

Understanding perspective through real‑world analogs helps clarify:

• Why some games feel intimate despite external cameras

• Why avatar visibility changes player psychology

• Why command‑based games encourage strategic rather than empathetic thinking

• Why VR intensifies embodiment without redefining perspective

Most importantly, it reinforces the fact that perspective is about player–action relationships, not visual framing.

---

Looking beyond

Real‑world games quietly and intuitively preserve the original linguistic meaning of person in the terms of first-, second- and third-person. When we let them inform our understanding of digital play, the long‑standing mislabeling of game perspectives becomes impossible to ignore. The camera never determined perspective; the player's relationship within the game makes that determination.

---

Also see:

• We’ve Been Using “Third-Person” Wrong for 30 Years in Gaming
• A Player-Centric Model of Game Perspective
• Will the Gaming Industry Change Use of FPS and TPS? 

A Player-Centric Model of Game Perspective

From Definitions to Application

The previous article in this series established a narrow but important claim: camera angle does not determine narrative person. "Person" in "first-person" describes who acts, not where the camera viewpoint is placed.

Taking this into consideration, let's apply the concept directly to video games. Doing so requires shifting perspective from what the player sees to how the player is represented within the game system.

This article proposes a player-centric model of perspective and uses it to reëxamine the three categories commonly described as first-person, second-person and third-person.

---

A Player-Centric Definition of Perspective

Rather than anchoring perspective to the camera, this model defines person by the relationship between the player and the acting entity in the game world.

Person	Defining Question	Player Relationship
First	Am I the body acting?	Player and avatar are the same entity
Second	Am I directing a represented “you”?	Player controls a personal avatar
Third	Am I commanding others?	Player is unrepresented in the world

This framework does not replace existing camera terminology. It runs alongside it. A game can still be described as having a first-person perspective with a third-person camera. What changes is how we describe player perspective.

---

First-Person Games: “I Move Here”

In first-person games, the player and the avatar collapse into a single acting subject. There is no meaningful distinction between the decision-maker and the body that carries out those decisions.

Common examples include:

• Doom

• Counter-Strike

• Mirror’s Edge

• Most virtual reality titles

Player intent is expressed directly as action:

I reload.

I lean around the corner.

I jump.

The defining feature is not the absence of a visible character model. It is the absence of narrative distance. The player does not instruct a character. The player acts.

---

The Misnamed Middle: Games Labeled “Third-Person”

Most action and role-playing games are grouped under the label of third-person:

• Tomb Raider

• The Witcher

• God of War

• PUBG

This category is where the traditional terminology begins to fail.

In these games, the player does not fully inhabit the avatar in the way first-person play requires. The character on screen is visible, persistent, and separate. The player does not experience the world as the body. The player directs the body.

The internal language of play reflects this relationship clearly:

You roll.

You climb.

You draw your weapon.

This is not metaphorical. It is structurally second person. The avatar represents the player, but the representation is mediated. The player and the character are not the same acting subject.

What distinguishes this middle category is not camera distance, character visibility, or animation style. It is addressability. The player addresses a personal avatar that exists as an object in the game world.

That distinction matters. A player can empathize with, customize, and narratively identify with an avatar while still relating to it as "you" rather than "I." The presence of dialogue choices, equipment management, and movement commands reinforces this relationship. The player tells the character what to do. The character then does it.

The camera makes this separation obvious, but it does not create it. Even if the camera were forced to overlap the character’s head, the underlying relationship would remain unchanged as long as the player continues to issue instructions to a represented self.

The moment a player can observe their own body as something acted upon, perspective has already shifted away from first person.

This is the core of the mislabeling. These games are neither first-person nor third-person in the narrative sense. They occupy a distinct middle ground that aligns cleanly with second-person structure.

---

True Third-Person Games: “They Move There”

Third-person perspective, in the narrative sense, emerges when the player is not embodied at all.

Strategy and command-based games provide clear examples:

• Civilization

• X-COM

• Command & Conquer

• StarCraft

Here, the player does not control a personal avatar. Instead, they direct multiple agents, units, or factions.

The language of play naturally changes:

They advance the unit.

They lose morale.

They capture the city.

Even when the game provides a narrative role such as ruler, commander, or overseer, that role is abstract. No single entity in the game world stands in for the player.

This aligns cleanly with third-person narration in literature. The player observes and directs, but does not inhabit.

---

A Shift in Perspective

Reframing game perspective around player representation reveals a gap in the familiar terminology. What has long been labeled third-person gameplay occupies a distinct middle ground that matches second-person structure far more closely than third.

This does not mean existing labels must be discarded. It does mean they should be understood as describing cameras rather than perspective.

The next article in this series steps away from digital games entirely. By examining board games and other real-world play, it becomes easier to see why camera-based definitions were always an awkward fit.

Continue to Part III: Real-World Games and Player Perspective. 

We’ve Been Using “Third-Person” Wrong for 30 Years in Gaming

A Comfortable Mistake

Video games are routinely sorted into neat perspective boxes: first-person and third-person. The terms feel intuitive, established, and beyond dispute. An FPS shows what the character sees. A third-person game shows the character from the outside. A second-person game doesn't truly exist, per se. Case closed. 

Except that this framing quietly borrows language from literature and then uses it incorrectly.

In grammar and narrative theory, person is not about camera placement. It is about who is the acting subject. Once we apply that definition consistently, a strange realization emerges: what the games industry has long called third-person does not actually describe a third-person relationship at all.

This article is the first in a short series. Its purpose is not to reclassify games yet, but to clear conceptual ground. Before we can argue about first, second, or third person in games, we need to be precise about what those terms mean.

---

Camera Angle Is Not Narrative Person

Before redefining perspective, one clarification is essential: camera angle does not establish narrative person.

Games inherited the terms first-person and third-person largely through visual analogy. The distinction became shorthand for what the player sees on screen, not for how the player is positioned within the system of action. This shortcut made the terminology easy to teach, but conceptually unstable.

In literature and narrative theory, a scene can be described from any imaginable vantage point without changing grammatical person. A third-person novel may describe events from directly behind a character’s eyes. A second-person text may position the reader outside their body. A first-person account may briefly describe the narrator from an external viewpoint for dramatic effect.

The camera, or its literary equivalent, does not determine personhood.

By tying person to camera placement, game discourse quietly collapsed two distinct ideas:

• Cinematography: where the viewpoint is located

• Narrative person: who the acting subject is

Untangling these concepts is the key to understanding why the familiar labels begin to break down under closer inspection.

---

What “Person” Actually Means

In language and literature, person refers to the relationship between the speaker and the subject of action:

• First person: I act ("I walk down the road")

• Second person: You act ("You open the door")

• Third person: They act ("She draws her sword")

Person describes agency and identity, not point of observation. It answers a simple question: who is doing the acting?

This definition has remained stable across centuries of grammar, rhetoric, and narrative theory. What changes from medium to medium is not the meaning of person, but the techniques used to express it.

Game terminology drifted away from this definition by anchoring person to the camera rather than to player representation. Once that shift occurred, the labels continued to function socially even as they lost their original precision.

---

Clearing the Ground

At this stage, no games need to be reclassified. The only claim established here is a foundational one: camera placement and narrative person are not the same thing.

If person is understood as a question of who acts rather than where the camera sits, the familiar categories of game perspective become less stable and more interesting. Some labels begin to feel strained. Other labels begin to feel incomplete.

The next article in this series builds on this groundwork by proposing a player-centric definition of perspective and applying it directly to video games.

Continue to Part II: A Player-Centric Model of Game Perspective.

Several of my ships from Elite Dangerous

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/DLsWTDnuxfX/?hl=en

Solo kill of Cyclops during Second Thargoid War

My second-ever solo kill of Cyclops in Elite: Dangerous in defense of Earth against the Thargoids. I'm using this achievement to earn my rank in AXI.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDYuYPkO-1T

Battle of Indrapendence Day

 

From the Battle of Indrapendence Day and before the fall of the Titan Indra in Elite: Dangerous.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/C88O65vOpQt/ and https://www.instagram.com/p/C88OTlEuPfI/?img_index=1

FREE STARS: Children of Infinity ~ or Child of Star Control II

 

FREE STARS: Children of Infinity by Pistol Shrimp ~ An epic space Action-RPG, and the long-awaited sequel to The Ur-Quan Masters.

What it takes to earn Elite rank in Exobiology

It takes a great many scanned lifeforms to earn Elite rank in Exobiology within Elite Dangerous! Check out this slideshow of start to end in a journey around the Galaxy. This three year project is now complete. I'm now working for Elite V, but I'm only going to take a few selfies with the more interesting lifeforms for now on. Enjoy! Oh, and there is additional content in the video throughout, so be sure to watch to the end (I know they always say that).

Response
Frontier Elite Dangerous Forum
Facebook1, Facebook2

How to fix Soldyne's Fruit Stand v12 missing asset prop in Cities Skylines as reported by Loading Screen Mod on Steam Workshop

The Steam Workshop for Cities: Skylines is full of buildings, props and other game assets that are uploaded by "content creators" (aka, users who make their own content for the game).  The problem with Steam Workshop is that many assets come and go all the time.  It's difficult to keep up.  If you subscribe to an asset, that asset can be removed from the Workshop for a number of reasons, and you'll never be notified.  You'll just have to notice the empty lot or missing decoration while playing the game.

The problem is compounded when you subscribe to a building that uses other content creator props.  The props can be removed while your subscribed building is still available for you.  This issue causes a silent error when opening your cities.  In turn, this can drastically slow down how long it takes to open your cities (saved games) within the game.

Soldyne's Fruit Stand v12 missing asset

I use the Loading Screen Mod (or its temporary replacement for Airport DLC) which let's me see such errors.  A strange one that keeps popping up is the missing asset of "Soldyne's Fruit Stand v12".  Even with all Workshop assets turned off, this error still pops up and slows down the opening of saved games.  

After looking into the issue, I discovered that the content creator renamed the asset, but other content creators that used the asset didn't update their own assets in kind.  In my case, the commonly subscribed building H2 4x4 Chinatown Temenent uses the originally named asset and was never updated to use its new name.

The Fix

I fixed the issue for myself.  In the Asset Editor, I opened a similar asset named "Soldyne's Fruit Stand v1" and then saved it as "Soldyne's Fruit Stand v12".  Because the name was already used on the Workshop, and I cannot reupload this new asset for everyone else.  Workshop still recognizes it as the original asset and its original creator.  So, you'll have to do this for yourself in one of two ways.

Open "Soldyne's Fruit Stand v1" within Asset Editor and save it as "Soldyne's Fruit Stand v12"

If you don't want to edit assets directly.  Perhaps you may prefer to just download a fix instead.  I can provide the fix via the following PC file management workaround.  First, be sure to exit the game.  Then, download the attached zip file (at the bottom of this article).  It contains the renamed asset.  Unzip it to your folder here:  

%installfolder%:\Users\%yourwindowsusername%\AppData\Local\Colossal Order\Cities_Skylines\Addons\Assets

For example:

C:\Users\brainfive\AppData\Local\Colossal Order\Cities_Skylines\Addons\Assets

Soldyne's Fruit Stand v12.zip

Once I created this replacement asset, the error was gone.

Note: there are no affiliate links in this article.