An Extraordinary History of the Modern First-Person Shooter and
its Unsung Heroes  Level designer and writer Robert Yang has
written up a fascinating "People's History of the FPS" as a
three part series at Rock, Paper, Shotgun. In it, Yang posits
that first-person gaming and first-person-shooters are not, as
we tend to think of them, just an industry-dominated gorefest
with a linear evolution, but rather, have always been influenced
highly by the communities that play them.  It starts with a look
at how the first-person perspective became a hit in gaming, with
Myst's successful 1993 launch almost immediately being
overshadowed by Doom's release three months later. But it wasn't
just the guns and combat that made Doom so overwhelmingly
popular, Yang argues: it was the very file structure itself. The
ability for players—amateurs—to easily mod Doom and games that
came after influenced how the games were made, who was making
them, and how fans engaged with them.  While at one point, Yang
explains, players modded