History of Perspective Terms in Video Games

[Psyren]

Hi Folks,

I'm a game studies student doing an article on the history of perspective terminology in video games. It's been fascinating to learn the history of the terms "first person" and "first person shooter" but I'm trying to find some of the earliest references to games being described as "third person" or when the term started to become more common?

From what I've found, "first person" didn't get used the way we use it today until the late 1990s, and that was a gradual process. I'm wondering if "third person" came about as a response to that, or whether the rise of third person 3D gaming with the Playstation and N64 resulted in certain games being referred to as "third person" which lead to the migration away from the terms "Doom-like" or "virtual reality" for first person games.

Really interested to hear your thoughts, or if you know when these terms started being used in magazines!

[Areala]

11 hours ago, Psyren said:

Hi Folks,

I'm a game studies student doing an article on the history of perspective terminology in video games. It's been fascinating to learn the history of the terms "first person" and "first person shooter" but I'm trying to find some of the earliest references to games being described as "third person" or when the term started to become more common?

From what I've found, "first person" didn't get used the way we use it today until the late 1990s, and that was a gradual process. I'm wondering if "third person" came about as a response to that, or whether the rise of third person 3D gaming with the Playstation and N64 resulted in certain games being referred to as "third person" which lead to the migration away from the terms "Doom-like" or "virtual reality" for first person games.

Really interested to hear your thoughts, or if you know when these terms started being used in magazines!

In the early days of video gaming, perspective wasn't discussed in the gaming media, but genre was. Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Galaxian were 'space games'. Rally-X and Fire Truck were 'driving games'. Pong was a 'ball and paddle' or 'tennis' game. Pac-Man and Dig Dug were 'maze games'. Missile Command and Robotron 2084 were 'shooting games'. Perspective was unnecessary to discuss, since virtually all games were third-person, with titles like 1980's Battlezone and 1982's Tunnel Hunt being the exceptions. It's kind of like how, until the introduction of the colour development process, it was unnecessary to refer to a photograph as being 'black and white'. Up until colour photography gained traction, the 'black and white' descriptor was baked in to the idea of a photograph by default.

Play Meter Vol. 8, No. 14 features an ad for Tunnel Hunt, but though you might expect something to be made of the perspective, the words 'first person' don't appear anywhere. Instead, the focus is on the idea of the player stepping into the wrap-around cabinet to 'become' a part of the game. On the other hand, an ad for Zaxxon in the same issue points out the game's three-dimensional aspect, so clearly the idea of how the game is presented was a consideration for the times.

The earliest usage of 'first person' I can find to describe a video game comes from the first issue of Video Games magazine (August 1982) where, in a sidebar on page 31 about the rise of Imagic as the second third-party developer for the Atari VCS (aka the 2600), the game Star Voyager is referred to as 'a first-person space game'. I'm not saying this was the first time the term was employed, just the first I could locate with some brief research, but even in this case, the genre seemed to be more important a descriptor than a less-common perspective, even in the 80's.

*huggles*
Areala

 

[kitsunebi]

Based on the way the OP was phrased, I'm assuming they aren't old enough to have lived through that period of time.  I'm not gonna spend time trying to back this up with proof, but here's my 2 cents as someone who was there. 

Obviously most early games were third-person, but early first-person games weren't labeled as such. No one made a point of referring to early flight-sims as "first-person" games, nor were early FPS's referred to as such.  Wolfenstein, Doom and the like were "3D" (or "virtual reality," though that's just ad copy - no one actually said that.) 

The terms "first-person" and "third-person" as the OP seems to mean them, probably originated in response to one-another.  Not until 3D over-the-shoulder perspective games came about was it suddenly necessary to make a distinction between a 1st-person shooter and a 3rd-person shooter.  Because in this sense, "third-person" is a very specific over-the-shoulder 3D perspective, and doesn't apply to any other third-person perspective where the player's character is visible on screen, like side-scrollers, platformers, fighting games, etc.

There will be instances of the terms being used prior to that I'm sure, but as I remember it, the terms as the OP seems to be using them didn't become widely used until both types of games existed concurrently.

[Psyren]

17 minutes ago, kitsunebi said:

Based on the way the OP was phrased, I'm assuming they aren't old enough to have lived through that period of time.  I'm not gonna spend time trying to back this up with proof, but here's my 2 cents as someone who was there. 

Obviously most early games were third-person, but early first-person games weren't labeled as such. No one made a point of referring to early flight-sims as "first-person" games, nor were early FPS's referred to as such.  Wolfenstein, Doom and the like were "3D" (or "virtual reality," though that's just ad copy - no one actually said that.) 

The terms "first-person" and "third-person" as the OP seems to mean them, probably originated in response to one-another.  Not until 3D over-the-shoulder perspective games came about was it suddenly necessary to make a distinction between a 1st-person shooter and a 3rd-person shooter.  Because in this sense, "third-person" is a very specific over-the-shoulder 3D perspective, and doesn't apply to any other third-person perspective where the player's character is visible on screen, like side-scrollers, platformers, fighting games, etc.

There will be instances of the terms being used prior to that I'm sure, but as I remember it, the terms as the OP seems to be using them didn't become widely used until both types of games existed concurrently.

I'm 40 years old I remember the old ways. Just need more than my memory for a game study. 

Yeah I agree. The term likely didn't become common until the same time as first person started getting used the way we do today, mid to late 90s. Which is the same time as 3D games started to become the norm. 

There is an excellent study on the origin of the term "first person shooter" and they tracked the term's usage through old gaming magazines.

https://gamestudies.org/1502/articles/therrien

So we're pretty confident on how the term "first person" has been used historically. The question is whether "third person" came about as a response to that, or whether one influenced the use of the other. 

 

[Psyren]

8 hours ago, Areala said:

In the early days of video gaming, perspective wasn't discussed in the gaming media, but genre was. Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Galaxian were 'space games'. Rally-X and Fire Truck were 'driving games'. Pong was a 'ball and paddle' or 'tennis' game. Pac-Man and Dig Dug were 'maze games'. Missile Command and Robotron 2084 were 'shooting games'. Perspective was unnecessary to discuss, since virtually all games were third-person, with titles like 1980's Battlezone and 1982's Tunnel Hunt being the exceptions. It's kind of like how, until the introduction of the colour development process, it was unnecessary to refer to a photograph as being 'black and white'. Up until colour photography gained traction, the 'black and white' descriptor was baked in to the idea of a photograph by default.

Play Meter Vol. 8, No. 14 features an ad for Tunnel Hunt, but though you might expect something to be made of the perspective, the words 'first person' don't appear anywhere. Instead, the focus is on the idea of the player stepping into the wrap-around cabinet to 'become' a part of the game. On the other hand, an ad for Zaxxon in the same issue points out the game's three-dimensional aspect, so clearly the idea of how the game is presented was a consideration for the times.

The earliest usage of 'first person' I can find to describe a video game comes from the first issue of Video Games magazine (August 1982) where, in a sidebar on page 31 about the rise of Imagic as the second third-party developer for the Atari VCS (aka the 2600), the game Star Voyager is referred to as 'a first-person space game'. I'm not saying this was the first time the term was employed, just the first I could locate with some brief research, but even in this case, the genre seemed to be more important a descriptor than a less-common perspective, even in the 80's.

*huggles*
Areala

 

Interesting points! I like your analogy with photography and how we used to categorise games. Thank you