freedom and strategy, the evolution into TFPS, and games like crackdown where shooter platforming are mixed well with RPGing thrown in. the fun of owning a friend multiple times in a row online (battle mode in super mario kart snes is a good preview of the FPS future)

the stories in some games halo:ce , bad company the characters were well thought out and fun to play with,

I think a refinement and further blending of genres will keep developments going strong

or its just funny duke nukem was there

and then portal a puzzle fps brilliant

Violence is cathartic.
You get guns.
You get to shoot things.
Doesn't require much thinking or teamwork (usually).
Instant gratification.
It's familiar.
Did I mention guns?

The ultimate hook in videogames is perfection.

From the early days of arcade high-scores to the nerds who collected every last star in Mario to the guys who like to inch up their kill/death and win/loss ratios, the essence of gaming for a lot of people has been perfectionism. The reason shooters are so popular nowadays is because they're highly social games that are fun to play and allow people to aim to be their best against others.

My question to you: did you ever play an FPS? I was skeptical at first and used to think that they were games for blood and gore lovers, but it's more than that. For some developers, it's just the type of gameplay they decided to take to explain the story in their games. And yeah, like you said, Halo introduced co-op into the living room. I guess that's where it all started for most people (older people played Quake or Unreal, heck even Perfect Dark).

shooters in general is more interactive than most genres. games are meant to be played, not watched, so other genres which might emphasize heavily on cutscenes are starting to lose steam when compared to shooters.

people in this world (and especially in this country) seem to be entertained by people dying and things blowing up

cause u dont gotta pay attention to the story just shoot and kill lol

genre's like rpgs just have got boring for me over the years. would i rather walk around finding out what to do, talking to people half the time, being in the action only for 10 percent of the time, or actually get into the fun of things like i could in fps'?

i love them cause they are so competitive...im a competetive type of guy lol

I grew up playing shooters. They are fun.
Multiplayer is great. Some of them have good storylines like Half-Life (better story than a lot of JRPGs I have played that's for sure). There are different types of shooters like team based shooters (Battlefield), tournement shooters (Quake, Halo, Unreal, Team Fortress) and there's also Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Counter-Strike etc...