POV's in Literature, Films, and Video Games.

[OddLove]

I was watching a YouTube video about different POV for writing, which all made sense to me in the context of literature and movies/TV shows.

But I spent some time thinking (much longer than I care to admit) before I realized video games don't follow the same classic rules for how they describe what POV a video game is in.

If you're looking through your characters eyes, such as Call of Duty and Doom type games, they call it first-person.

If you're looking over your characters shoulders, such as Spyro or Tomb Raider type games, they call it third-person.

Also, there's 'Bird-Eye view' such as Diablo and Sim games, which is still advertised and categorized as third-person.

But what's confusing to me is, the more I think about how both first-person and third-person POV's in video games functionally work, neither of them seem to be first-person OR third-person. Because in a video game, you are a character, whether it be a plumber fighting evil turtles, a barbarian or wizard slaying demons, a sim's character living life, a driver racing down a dangerous road, or a fire-breathing dragon collecting gems. Functionally, those are second-person 'choose-your-own-adventure' stories.

You slide down a sewer pipe into a dark and scary underground city, You see a hostile turtle with a spikey red shell. It's aggressively approaching You. You run straight at it and leap into the air then stomp down on it's head, ringing it's bell and forcing it to retreat into it's shell. When You spot another hostile turtle up ahead, You grab the dazed turtles spiky red shell and hurl it into Your other foe, killing both Your enemies in the process.

Like... how is Mario not a second-person POV choose-your-own-adventure story? Actually, how's every video game ever made not a second-person POV story for that matter?

I don't know if I'm just confused and wrong about this, or baffled from this epiphany. Maybe it's super obvious to others. So I'm kinda curious what people think.

Are video games just 'second-person' films? Or am I tripping?

If I'm tripping, please feel free to explain why I'm wrong.

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

The main thing I think you're driving at is that an interactive computer game and prose are fundamentally different forms of media, and trying to describe one in terms of the other is difficult.

What perspective or 'person' would you describe paintings in? Or ceramics?

I think computer games have borrowed terminology from written prose for convenience's sake but I don't think it means the same thing.

 

[Erozetta]

I was watching a YouTube video about different POV for writing, which all made sense to me in the context of literature and movies/TV shows.

But I spent some time thinking (much longer than I care to admit) before I realized video games don't follow the same classic rules for how they describe what POV a video game is in.

If you're looking through your characters eyes, such as Call of Duty and Doom type games, they call it first-person.

If you're looking over your characters shoulders, such as Spyro or Tomb Raider type games, they call it third-person.

Also, there's 'Bird-Eye view' such as Diablo and Sim games, which is still advertised and categorized as third-person.

But what's confusing to me is, the more I think about how both first-person and third-person POV's in video games functionally work, neither of them seem to be first-person OR third-person. Because in a video game, you are a character, whether it be a plumber fighting evil turtles, a barbarian or wizard slaying demons, a sim's character living life, a driver racing down a dangerous road, or a fire-breathing dragon collecting gems. Functionally, those are second-person 'choose-your-own-adventure' stories.

You slide down a sewer pipe into a dark and scary underground city, You see a hostile turtle with a spikey red shell. It's aggressively approaching You. You run straight at it and leap into the air then stomp down on it's head, ringing it's bell and forcing it to retreat into it's shell. When You spot another hostile turtle up ahead, You grab the dazed turtles spiky red shell and hurl it into Your other foe, killing both Your enemies in the process.

Like... how is Mario not a second-person POV choose-your-own-adventure story? Actually, how's every video game ever made not a second-person POV story for that matter?

I don't know if I'm just confused and wrong about this, or baffled from this epiphany. Maybe it's super obvious to others. So I'm kinda curious what people think.

Are video games just 'second-person' films? Or am I tripping?

If I'm tripping, please feel free to explain why I'm wrong.

I think who the player is and how they interact with the characters matter more than camera angles in a game.

Take the Sims or Black & White: you aren't a character exactly; you are essentially a god directing and controlling characters toward basic objectives. This would be third person omniscient.

Tell-tale style games are what I'd consider 2nd person. You are making choices for the characters that affect the outcome of the story, but not controlling the character explicitly. You are meant to be the character making the necessary choices in the moment. Life is Strange is another good example of this.

First-person games are ones where you are the character and you are controlling every aspect of what the character does and how they interact with the world around them in a way that has *some* impact on the end game. Persona is a good example of this.

Third close are those games where you control a character, but your choices don't affect the storyline. The Last of Us is a good example of this. It doesn't matter what you do, the end game is the same, you are just getting them from point A to point B, the details ultimately don't matter once you get to the end.

All of this also depends on if the game is open-ended, open world, or linear. Linear games are going to lean more first or third person. 2nd and omniscient tend to be more open-ended. Open-world games can fall between those as they can be linear or open-ended but gives the player a lot more freedom within the world even if that freedom doesn't really matter.

Ultimately, games can be cross POV as well where a game can straddle two of these categories easily depending on how you look at the game and how you personally play.

 

[OddLove]

I think who the player is and how they interact with the characters matter more than camera angles in a game.

Take the Sims or Black & White: you aren't a character exactly, you are essentially a god directing and controlling characters toward basic objectives. This would be third person omniscient.

Tell-tale style games are what I'd consider 2nd person. You are making choices for the characters that affect the outcome of the story, but not controlling the character exactly. You are meant to be the character making the necessary choices in the moment. Life is Strange is another good example of this.

First person games are ones where you are the character and you are controlling every aspect of what the character does and how they interact with the world around them in a way that has *some* impact on the end game. Persona is a good example of this.

Third close are those games where you control a character, but your choices don't affect the storyline. The Last of Us is a good example of this. It doesn't matter what you do, the end game is the same, you are just getting them from point A to point B, the details ultimately don't matter once you get to the end.

All of this also depends on if the game is open ended, open world, or linear. Linear games are going to lean more first or third person. 2nd and omniscient tend to be more open ended. Open world games can fall between those as they can be linear or open ended but gives the player a lot more freedom within the world even if that freedom doesn't really matter.

Ultimately, games can be cross POV as well where a game can straddle two of these categories easily depending on how you look at the game and how you personally play.

I can follow your logic with this line of thinking, and it makes a lotta sense.

I haven't read any, but I'm guessing choose-your-own-adventure stories can be written in first or third person, so I'm not sure why my brain thought it was exclusively linked with second-person.

Another confusing part for me, is video games often put players in the position of 'the narrator' which is kinda like introducing choice. But it goes a little further. Like with Sims, you're kinda just the narrator because it goes beyond making story choices for a character. I'm not sure that's even something that could be done with writing or making films.

 

[UnexpectedLuggage]

Another confusing part for me, is video games often put players in the position of 'the narrator' which is kinda like introducing choice. But it goes a little further. Like with Sims, you're kinda just the narrator because it goes beyond making story choices for a character. I'm not sure that's even something that could be done with writing or making films.

This is all going to vary depending on the game. Something like the Sims can, effectively, play itself. You create the characters, but you can let the game do whatever it's gonna do. You never actually have to play or make decisions if you don't want to, and the game will go on.

Compare that to something like a Mario game, where if you put thr controller down, nothing happens. Mario will just stand there doing idle animations until the heat death of the universe.

Video games cover such a broad scope of things, that it's sort of hard to narrow things down even in the same broad genre. In grand strategy you have Civilization and Crusader Kings, and those two games approach the genre in wildly different ways. In Civ your leader is static, they just confer some bonuses to their nation/empire. In CK, you play  as that leder, and their subsequent succcessors. They age, have to get married and have kids, can die in battle. In Civ, your leader is just a name and face and some static buffs.

As far as POV goes, I think it sort of fits the same general terms as we use in literature. A first person game/story is through the eyes of a character, only ever experiencing what they directly experience. Whereas third person can cover much more, allowing you, thr player, to see things beyond your character's field of vision.