作者：Mike Langlois

首先我要说明的是，我个人不是非常喜欢第一人称射击游（FPS）。这会让我在体验时紧张不安，我很容易因此而变得不知所措。但现在回头看自己之前的文章，我发现自己对FPS游戏的看法有失偏颇，我觉得有必要为其平反。

FPS from gamasutra.com

FPS游戏存在很多优点，下面是若干例子。

1. 很多FPS游戏（例如《光晕2》）虽有暴力元素却也鼓励合作模式。玩家加入小群组，需学习如何在快节奏的环境中进行合作、沟通和解决问题。《光晕》之类的游戏也向玩家提供相应空间，供他们从中学习如何担任领导角色，如何遵照其他玩家的指示，及谨慎把握游戏的紧张情境。

2. FPS游戏支持冲动控制和侵略性。FPS游戏成功的一大关键因素在于玩家能够选择时机开展进攻和军事演习。这要求玩家懂得控制推动力，然后顺利扣动扳机。虽然我们倾向锁定FPS游戏的侵略性内容，但其实游戏也包含许多秘密操作。《生化奇兵》包含许多实际决策点，其中放弃杀死角色将改变整个游戏结果。虽然玩家未能在单人游戏中学习团队合作，但他们能够从中学到类似的决策和冲动控制方式。

3. 第一人称射击游戏能够提高眼手协调性。眼手协调的一个重要元素就是视觉空间注意力。Green所进行的研究表明，电子游戏能够提高视觉空间注意力，深入来说，第一人称射击游戏在此所起到的作用比《俄罗斯方块》之类的游戏更显著。在多数人看来，眼手协调都是非常重要的技能。它能够提高你的学习状态和运动技能，提高你的自信心，让你更轻松地驾驭休闲活动。

4. 第一人称射击游戏还能够提高玩家的控制能力和警惕性。许多父母和老师都会抱怨称，孩子无法集中注意力。而FPS游戏之所以如此富有吸引力的原因在于游戏具有沉浸特性。就如Grimshaw等人所说的，文学以各式各样的方式描述沉浸性，例如“是指沉浸者的生理自我逐步消失，完全沉浸在引人入胜的虚拟空间中的一种意识状态。”此外，想要完全沉浸于空间中，“玩家”要能够在其中施加重要影响。在游戏世界中闲逛不足以令玩家进入飘飘然的状态，而射击某人却不会让玩家感到自己在游戏世界中无足轻重。想象下若是教室能够创造如此的沉浸性氛围，情况会是怎样。这要比大声说出“请注意”（游戏邦注：这通常带来相反结果）有效得多。

既然FPS游戏存在如此多的优点，它们为什么总是被视作电子游戏的糟糕典范呢？这根植于社会政治原因，那就是玩家完全忽略这类游戏。

科学通常具有政治性，它和民权运动的关系不是很融洽。这里我首先想到的例子就是LGBTQ民权运动。当LGBTQ群体的科学主导观念被社会视作病态心理时，所有思想家、活动分子和亚文化族群的团结性达到空前规模。从Stonewall到早期的AIDS危机，这里相关群体的成员呈现出更少分裂，更多团结，他们深知民权运动能够令所有人都受益。

但在过去20年里，LGBTQ社区的很多成员逐步被社会接受和认可。目前，美国有7个州的法律都承认同性婚姻，许多州都接受同性情侣的同居关系。基于性向的恃强凌弱和仇恨犯罪案例得到媒体更多的关注，他们多半都持同情LGBTQ年轻人的立场。

游戏社区要是能够在此吸取教训将会表现得很好。近来，电子游戏日益被大家看作艺术形式，教育工具，甚至是贫困、AIDS等世界问题的解决方案。随着社会在技术和电子游戏上的态度日益进步，越来越多研究将焦点锁定在对此复杂多元化群体的一般性概括上。

在我看来，最糟糕的例子体现在“屏幕”和“播放时间”概念。调查询问诸如此类的问题：被调查者在电子设备中投入多少时间，仿佛其操作活动的体验和效果完全相同。看电视、玩电子游戏及登陆Facebook都被视作相似的神经学问题，即便事实并非如此。最近就连认为所有播放时间将以相同方式打乱休息的观点也受到质疑，他们表示，相比电视，iPad更容易抑制褪黑激素的产生。所以你所面对的是什么屏幕，你所操作的内容是什么，这都会产生不同后果。

在我看来，看电视相比玩电子游戏，是个更被动的静态活动。这里我不会引证具体的研究成果，因为我希望大家能够将焦点放在批判性地思考研究构思，而不是具体数据上。就如Paul Howard Jones在其视频中所指出的，学习本身会在活动周期的不同阶段激活大脑的不同部位。所以，电子游戏玩家的大脑组织会和非玩家不同，这并不代表有什么坏处，他们只是运用大脑功能的不同部位，掌握不同的东西。人们所谓的“播放时间”通常是指看电视、玩游戏或上网，而不是编辑博士论文、规划假期、做作业或查阅食谱的时间。

所以玩家都一致抵制这种以偏盖全的看法，这好极了。但我发现当舆论攻击转而指向FPS和暴力游戏的科学和政治意义时，玩家团结性就开始土崩瓦解。研究称这些内容促使孩子冷眼看待暴力，会提高他们的侵略性，容易培养他们的消极个性。但也有些研究结果与此相反，这里我想要提出一个更发人深省的问题：

富有侵略性有什么错？

我觉得孩子们的玩耍内容向来就有侵略性传统：警察与小偷、玩具水枪、足球、摔跤和拳击，所有这些活动都包含一定的侵略性元素。我们多半都有玩过这些游戏，我们最终是否真的变得麻木不仁，富有侵略性？

若我们将侵略性视作一无是处的特性，那么我们向孩子和青少年所传递的信息就会自相矛盾。不是所有人或所有工作都需要同等程度的侵略性。想要获得第一名（游戏邦注：无论是拳击手，还是总统）就需要一定的雄心壮志。侵略性其实是个领导品质。它促使我们进行冒险，权衡潜在危险，进行探索。侵略性情感能够强化我们的感觉敏锐度，加快对某情境的评估，帮助我们应对侵略者。无论我们是否赞同此战争，我们是否真的希望自己的战士在服役和防御过程中毫无进取之心？正如俗语所说的，成功从来都是抛弃弱懦者而垂青勇者。

FPS游戏在Gamestop货架和游戏社区都有自己的一席之地。这些游戏使得我们能够沉浸在对生活有所启发的活动中。它们是许多玩家的最爱，我相信，剖析这些内容的架构将有助于我们探究如何提高工作和学习环境。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

I Come To Praise First-Person Shooters, Not To Bury Them

by Mike Langlois

I should begin by saying that I don’t personally enjoy the type of video game known as a first-person shooter (FPS) very much.  They make me jittery when I play, and I am easily overwhelmed by them.  I’m still stuck in the tutorial room with Jacob in Mass Effect 2.  If there are settings to disable gore and swearing on a game I’ll click ‘em.  But as I looked back on my past posts I realized that I have neglected to weigh in on FPS, and in doing so am guilty of the same kind of dismissal I critique in colleagues.  (Note to gamers: I know there are several important distinctions between FPS and TPS or third-person shooters, but that’s for another post.)

There’s a lot to like about FPS games, and here’s a few examples.

1. Many FPS such as Halo 2 can be collaborative as well as violent.  Players join platoons and need to learn how to coordinate, communicate and problem-solve in a fast-paced environment.  Games like Halo also provide environments for players to learn how to assume leadership roles, follow directions from other players, and think critically about stressful in-world situations.

2. FPS encourage impulse control as well as aggression.  Crucial to success in FPS games is the ability to time attacks and maneuvers.  This requires the ability to control the impulse to pull that trigger.  Although we tend to focus on the aggression in FPS, there’s often a lot of sneaking going on as well.  In Bioshock there are actual decision points in the game where refraining from killing characters changes the entire outcome of the game.  Even though the player is not learning teamwork in single-player games, they are often learning the same sorts of forms of decision-making and impulse control in good old-fashioned “Red Light, Green Light.”

3. First-person shooters improve hand-eye coordination.  One important component of hand-eye coordination is visuospatial attention.  Research by Green et al. suggests that video games improve visuospatial attention, and further that FPS video games do it even better than games like Tetris.  Hand-eye coordination is a skill most of us would agree is a good thing to have.  It helps improve your readiness to learn, increases your ability to excel at sports, increases your confidence and makes juggling less stressful.

4. First-Person Shooters may increase a sense of mastery and alertness.  So many parents and educators lament how children aren’t able to pay attention.  And yet, what makes FPS games so compelling is their immersive quality.  As Grimshaw et al. discuss, the literature describes immersion in varying ways, such as ‘the state of consciousness when an immersant’s awareness of physical self is diminished or lost by being surrounded in an engrossing total environment, often artificial’  Further, in order to be completely immersed in an environment, “players ‘must have a non-trivial impact on the environment.”  Wandering around the game world may not be sufficient to immerse players into a flow-like state, and shooting people, whatever else you may say about it, does not lend itself to feeling trivial in an environment.  Imagine if classrooms could harness the ability to create such immersive qualities in the classroom.  Much more effective than saying loudly, “Pay attention!” which usually has the exact opposite effect than the statement intended.

Given the above compelling reasons to think well of FPS, why are they so often singled out as the bad seed of video games? The answer, I would suggest, is a sociopolitical one that gamers as a whole ignore at their peril.

Science is often, maybe always, political, and has an uneasy relationship with civil rights movements.  The example that springs to my mind is the LGBTQ civil rights movement.  Back when a preponderance of science was pathologizing of all LGBTQ people, there was a more predominant solidarity amongst the various thinkers, activists, and citizens of those subcultures.  From Stonewall up through the early AIDS crisis, there was less fragmentation and more coordination, with the understanding that civil rights benefited everyone.

But within the past two decades, many members of the LGBTQ community have begun to receive recognition and acceptance in society as a whole.  At this writing 7 states have legalized gay marriage (Welcome Washington!) and more accept domestic partnerships between same-sex couples.  Bullying based on sexual orientation and hate crimes have received more coverage from media with sympathetic stances towards LGBTQ youth.  And I can’t remember the last time I heard talk about the latest study locating the “gay gene.”

And yet, science and politics have turned their gaze towards specific subsets of the LGBTQ population.  Transgender rights (a notable recent gain in my home state) are still ignored or reduced to bathroom conversations and debates about the poor parenting of those who don’t make their children conform to Cisgender norms.  The status of LGBTQ youth of color as a priority population is met with grumbling.  Bisexuals are still considered in transition or confused, asexuals frigid or repressed.  Polyamory is confused with lack of commitment or neurotic ambivalence, and BDSM isn’t even recognized as worthy of any sort of advocacy.

And to a large extent, whenever one of these specific subcultures are targeted, the other factions of the LGBTQ community remain silent.  And in doing so, they become allied with the perpetrator.  As Judith Herman points out in her seminal work, Trauma And Recovery, “It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing.”  This is exactly what members of the LGBTQ community are doing when they cease to maintain the solidarity and mutual support that helped get homosexuality removed from the DSM-III.

And so the focus shifts from the general “gay people are bad/sick” to the more specific populations also under the LGBTQ umbrella, and rather than fighting for them we allow them to be omitted from civil rights.  A case in point was made by openly trans HRC member Donna Rose, when she resigned in protest to HRC supporting an Employment Non-Discrimination Act which included sexual orientation but didn’t include protections for transgender people.  A group may only be as strong as its weakest member, but solidarity often ends when the strongest members of an alliance get what they want.

The gaming community would do well to take a lesson here.  Recently video games have been getting increasing recognition as an art form, an educational tool, and possible solution to world problems ranging from poverty to .  As society moves to a more progressive stance on technology and video games, studies come under scrutiny for their sweeping and pathological generalizations of a complex and diverse group.

(The most pernicious example of this in my opinion is the concept of the “screen” and “screentime.”  Studies ask questions about how much time subjects spend in front of electronic devices, as if all activities were identical in experience and effect.  Watching television, playing video games, surfing on Facebook are all treated as similar neurological phenomenon, when they aren’t.  It’s much more complicated than that, and different physiological systems are affected in different ways.  Even the idea that all screen time dysregulates sleep the same way is being questioned recently, with televisions showing less repression of melatonin than iPads.  So what screen you’re doing things on makes a difference.  And then there’s what you are doing.

Watching television is a more passive and anergic activiy than playing video games in my experience.  No, I’m not going to cite a particular study here, because I want us to focus on thinking critically about the designs of studies not the data.  And as Paul Howard Jones points out in his video, learning itself activates different parts of the brain at different phases of the individual’s learning cycle of a particular activity.  So yes, video game users have different looking brains than those that aren’t using them, that doesn’t mean it is bad, but that they are using different parts of their brain function and learning different things.  Most people in the gaming community would have some solidarity here with other gamers, and balk at the idea that a screen is a screen is a screen.  And “screen time” is usually implying screens watching television, playing games or surfing the net, not screens compiling doctoral dissertation lit reviews, planning a vacation, doing your homework, or looking up a recipe.)

So gamers are solidly behind fighting these blanket generalizations.  That’s great.  But I find that where gamer solidarity is starting to fall apart is around the more specific attacks that are being levied in science and politics around FPS and violent games.  Studies says these desensitize children to violence, increase aggression and correlate to hostile personalities.  There are also studies that conflict these findings, but I want to ask a different, albeit more provocative question:

What’s wrong with being aggressive?

I think that child’s play has a long history of being aggressive:  Cops and Robbers, water pistols, football, wrestling, boxing, tag all encourage some element of aggression.  Most of us have played several of these in our lifetime with some regularity, have we become desensitized and aggressive as a result?  Am I sounding too hostile?

And we are sending children and adolescents a mixed message if we label aggression as all out bad.  Not everyone or every job requires the same amount of aggression.  Wanting to be #1 and competing, whether it be in a boxer or a president, requires some aggression.  Aggression is in fact a leadership quality.  It allows us to take risks, weigh the potential hazards, and go for something.  Feelings of aggression heighten our sense acumen, can speed up our assessment of a situation and help us stand up to bullies.  Whether we agree with this war or that, would we really want our soldiers to be in-country with no aggression to help them serve and defend?  Fortune, as the saying goes, favors the bold, not the timid.

FPS games have a place on the Gamestop shelf and a place in the gaming community.  They allow us to engage in virtual activities that have real-life benefits.  They are a focal point for millions of gamers, and I believe unlocking their DNA will go a long way to discovering how to improve work and learning environments.  Stop letting critics shoot them down, or don’t be surprised if you’re in the crossfires next.（Source：gamasutra）