Wow this thread is more or less flamebait incarnate. I didn't even realize it until Kyros' reaction.

Or...

Its because the challenge is FPS is extremely real. To get good at them, they require many skills, including patience, hand IQ, precision, and reflexes. Add to that the fact that you are able to test these reflexes of yours against living, breathing people makes the challenge real.

Really real. Which makes them exciting and fun.

I came in expecting a well thought out intelligent post and then I was heavily disappointed, so I guess I now know how you feel.

OT: I'm sorry I thught that rule applied to just about any game type. When will I get to look down on hundreds of units and flawlessly tell them where and what to do? When will I be a super secret agent? When will I use any weapon for any extended amount of time? When will I suddenly grow spiky hair and go off to save the world with 3 of my friends while random shit aappears out of nowhere just to kill us?

FPS games sell well because the concept is simple.

Shoot.

It's not the ONLY reason (there really isn't just ONE thing that makes a genre popular) but it's definitely a factor.

What he said, I do feel insulted having just come from playing Gears of War 2 and CoD WaW all weekend

I've always considered it to be more of luck, lag and knowing the map layout.  Once you know what will happen in a battle then the only thing to stop you are noobs who don't know what they are doing and catch you off guard by being in spots they should not be.  Or random grenades and the rest of the time it was lag.

It's easy to explain why shootan gaems are so successful: they produce a rush of aggression hormones that's difficult to match without actually going out and getting in a fight yourself. Put that in the hands of the adolescent male "hardcore gamer" market, and you've got a guaranteed hit, more so if you can add some sex hormones to the mix. Stick in multiplayer for the domination instinct and you've got the perfect trifecta for controlling a market that hasn't yet mastered control of the R-complex.

This, ultimately, is why games like No More Heroes and Mirror's Edge fail, and why MadWorld will do the same: when you don't go for generic-but-gritty photorealism in your graphics, you just can't just produce the kind of rush that fans of these games crave. The market realizes this, and so sales inevitably fall short.

This HAS to be sarcasm!

wow, who is the "retard" that needs 1.5 seconds to make a headshot?? An average Counter-Strike player can do it in like 0.2 seconds.

yeah we get it.. PC gaming is better... blah blah blah