FPS: First Person Shooter documentary criticized for lack of context

A four-and-a-half-hour documentary titled "FPS: First Person Shooter" by David L. Craddock and Chris Stratton, produced by Fandamental, focuses exclusively on the first-person shooter video game genre, tracing its origins from Maze War (1973) to the present. The film primarily features interviews with developers, a few YouTube content creators, professional gamers, journalist Evan Lahti, and David Kushner (author of "Masters of Doom"), but notably excludes any game critics or historians, despite genre expert Richard Moss contributing to the writing. The documentary is criticized for lacking critical context: it fails to discuss 16-hour workdays, sexist representations, or the impact of 9/11 on military-themed FPS games like Halo 2 (2004) and Halo 3 (2007). It omits scholarly works such as "Joystick Soldiers" (Routledge, 2009) and "Playing War" (NYU Press, 2016). The narrative is described as a nostalgic journey for 1990s FPS fans, repeating known information without new insights, and treating the last 15 years of the genre superficially (e.g., smartphone FPS gets one sentence). Co-director Stratton stated the goal is "to give fans what they want." The documentary is available for pre-order in collector's editions until August 1, 2023, and digitally releases on August 31, 2023.