First-Person Propaganda, First-Person Shooters, and Gamification: A Different View
First-Person Propaganda, First-Person Shooters, and Gamification: A Different View
First-Person Propaganda, First-Person Shooters, and Gamification: A Different View
By Sam Andrews
June 1, 2023
Summary
The attacker made reference to popular gaming figures and streamed the attack on Facebook using a helmet-mounted camera, producing propaganda with a first-person view.
In The 'First Person Shooter' Perspective: A Different View on First Person Shooters, Gamification, and First Person Terrorist Propaganda I argue against the posited links between FPP and FPS. Instead, I argue that 1) FPP does not look like an FPS game; 2) interaction with this media is not akin to an interaction with a video game; 3) the choice of the first-person shot in FPP is more likely a technical choice than one that rests on a desire to look like an FPS and 4) that this calls in to question many of the arguments that FPP is gamified.
Both media use a perspective that gives the audience a view 'through the eyes' of the game character or person.
Such games demonstrate that one of the joys of gaming can be the exploration of ideas and possibilities which do not seek to be realistic, but instead are imaginative, and their success shows that gaming audiences have as much an appetite for the abstract as they do for the realistic.
In the first instance, video games require interactivity.
These arguments call into question whether such footage is gamified simply by our immediate association between first-person cameras and FPS. Visual similarity is not the only association with video games that has caused some to analyze FPP as a form of gamification.
While there might be a relationship between FPS and terrorist propaganda - and indeed, some terrorist and extremist groups have purposefully developed such games - our current framework of analysis is lacking.
Reference
Andrews, S. (2023, June 1). First-person propaganda, first-person shooters, and Gamification: A different view. GNET. https://gnet-research.org/2023/06/01/first-person-propaganda-first-person-shooters-and-gamification-a-different-view/