https://www.cybersport.ru/games/articles/istoriya-poyavleniya-shuterov-ot-pervogo-lica-ot-laboratorii-nasa-do-podvala-dzhona-karmaka

Etymology. Why Doom was considered a genre and which game was first called FPS

Before starting to study the history of FPS, it should be clarified what exactly we mean by this genre, since there is no generally accepted video game terminology. The easiest way is to take the literal path: first-person shooter is a game, the main gameplay of which is first-person shooting.

This definition suits us, since it has the broadest coverage. In the early days of the game industry, there weren’t very many, so due to too strict restrictions, we might overlook important milestones in the history of the genre. Nevertheless, some consider this interpretation to be inconsistent with modern trends.

It is believed that an avatar in an FPS can only be a person – well, or a humanoid, a robot, a highly developed chicken. In general, anything except controlled vehicles, since in this case it is already a simulator – of an airplane, a tank, or something else. In addition, you can find definitions that require contenders for the FPS title to necessarily display weapons on the screen and use only their firearm variants. This is also understandable – in many RPGs there is a first-person view and shooting (spells, archery, etc.), but they are not often called shooters because of this.

By itself, the combination “first-person” (“from the first person”) was used quite early, since it was already widely used. But in order to convey to the audience what awaits it in the box with the game, publishers had to look for additional words to define the genre.

In 1980, some Battlezone marketing brochures used the term “first-person combat”. This can be considered one of the first, albeit not the most accurate, uses of the term FPS. According to Professor of the University of Montreal Carl Terrien, the word “combat” in the text was used to associate with the Combat released in 1977 for the Atari 2600, in which, like in Battlezone, there were tank battles – only with a top view. He also noted that the circulation of the brochures was limited, which is why the term never caught on.

In one of the interviews, Atari game designer Chris Crawford said that even earlier the developers wanted to promote Battlezone under the description of “First-person firing squad” (“A game about a fighting squad / firing squad in the first person”). And in the design document for the pitching, the game was called “first-person Space Invaders” (“Space Invaders from the first person”).

In October 1991, Computer Gaming World magazine coined the more familiar term “first-person shoot ’em up” – this is how the reviewer described the game The Terminator. Initially, the definition was not very popular, but in 1996, after a review of Duke Nukem 3D by Computer and Video Games, it was firmly entrenched in the press for a while.

In addition, shooters were often called “Doom clones” – some publications even have the word “Doom” as the name of the genre. After this game, only GTA, XCOM and Dark Souls achieved the same recognition.

The term “first-person shooter” began to appear actively in the specialized press only in the second half of the 1990s. At the same time, journalists began to call shooters shooters even before the publishers reached it. For example, in the official brochures, Wolfenstein 3D and Duke Nukem 3D were “3D adventures” and “virtual reality experiences”. At that time, the phrases “3D” and “virtual reality” were very popular and made up the lion’s share of the marketing strategy of any game.

One of the earliest references to the expression “first-person shooter” appeared in Computer Gaming World magazine in November 1994. At the same time, as in the case of Battlezone, it was not about a shooter in the modern sense (where the protagonist is a man with a weapon). Journalists called this term Quarantine: in it you had to drive a car and shoot enemies from it.

In 1996, IGN co-founder Tal Blevins, then at GameSpot, reviewed Terminator: Future Shock using the phrase “first-person shooter” to describe the game, making it clear that it was a lot of shooting. Gradually, she began to supplant the expressions “first-person perspective shoot ’em up” and “Doom-alike” from the media, and by the end of the 1990s, the term FPS finally took root as the name of the genre.

Maze War (1973) – first in all

Many (and not without reason) consider the living room of John Carmack to be the cradle of first-person shooters, where the future founders of id Software pored over their first games. But in fact, the FPS genre was born in one of the divisions of NASA – the Ames Research Center – when “Lords of Doom” was still walking under the table.

Maze War, created in the summer of 1973, is considered to be the ancestor of first-person shooters. At its core, its gameplay almost did not differ from any of the modern FPS – users explored the maze and shot enemies. At the same time, they looked at the playing field with “the eyes of a character”, or rather, with an eye – flying and shooting eyeballs served as avatars in Maze War. So you can also consider it one of the first virtual horror games.

Fun fact. Maze War isn’t the only link between aerospace exploration and the birth of the FPS genre. In addition to creating games, John Carmack – the chief programmer for Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake – was involved in the creation of spaceships.

They say that many great inventions were created because of the mortal sin of laziness – they say, people are ready to come up with anything to work less. Maze War owes much of its appearance to the gluttony of several students and schoolchildren.

Co-creator of the game Howard Palmer toldthat during their internship at the Ames Research Center, students were allowed to use computers for scientific work. However, resourceful young minds have adapted them for slightly different purposes.

For example, Don O’Brian used them to recreate a game from an arcade machine that was in a local diner Togo’s. The process wasn’t just about saving money: the diner owners gave a free sandwich to everyone who completed the game. So hungry students practiced at NASA to win a free lunch. Unfortunately, the submachine gun was removed before they reached mastery. Nevertheless, the example turned out to be contagious, and Palmer invited his friend from California Institute of Technology Steve Colley to write his own game.

“‘>

Look