First-person is Not an Accurate Representation of Reality

There's a long running debate on first-person vs third-person camera angles for video games. Typically it's seen that a first-person view is more realistic than a third because we use first-person in real life. And that argument is bullshit.

A third-person camera angle combines touch and sight into one sense. A first person camera cannot do this as intuitively.

If you are walking through a bramble patch in real life and you catch on a thorn, you will know what it is without looking at it.Your body experiences the touch sense regarding pain, and you know what hurt you without looking at it. You'll know if you were touched by a person, or a bramble, or a bird landed on your shoulder, without looking.

Now walk through the same bramble patch in a video game with a first-person camera, and your character stutters in his walk, or takes 1 damage. You won't know what hit you! Was it a bird pecking you, someone clipping you with their sword, a misguided arrow, or a simple bramble?

And now the same scenario... with a third person camera in the bramble patch. You'll know. Not by touch (since you can't) but by touch-replacement: third-person angle.

First person has always felt funny to me. Now I think I know why: I feel alienated by lack of an important sense - touch. In third person I don't feel it so much because I have extra sight to make up for it.

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