Talk:Third-person shooter

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[edit] Elder Scrolls games are NOT Third Person Shooters

They are first person RPGs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.103.44.251 (talk) 19:00, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Third Person Shooter Term

Although I agree that the use of third person shooter, or third person point of view is quite prevalent when dealing with video games today, its always bugged me since technically this is a misnomer. Any video game in which you are in direct control of a character you can see is technically second person, not third. Although you are witnessing the events on the video game from outside the first person perspective, you are still the one controlling the character, thus it is like you are issuing commands to the character, using second person pronouns. "You jump on this block", "You shoot this monster", "You move over here and open this chest". Third person perspective would be witnessing events without any direct control over what happens, like in a movie or book. Someone is telling you a story using third person pronouns like "These people did this. Then they went over here, then this happened", etc. Thus nearly every game commonly referred to as third person should technically really be second person perspective. There are really no third person shooters unless you are merely a spectator watching what others are doing, and I wouldn't call that much of a game.

Is there anyone that agrees with me? And if so should this article reflect this perspective or remain like it currently is?

Madbunny0 21:49, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

The article is supposed to define the category. Regardless of how technically correct or incorrect the term is, the article is describing the genre, which is still "third-person shooter". Should the industry move to change this based on the same question you have brought up, there would be an article created to reflect this change. Until then, it's not our place to point out the technicalities of the term, only to define the term and games it encompasses. Gamer Junkie 15:33, 17 July 2007 (UTC)