2周前

Why do some gamers invert their controls? Scientists now have answers, but they’re not what you think

www.theguardian.com

Consequently, Corbett says that it may improve you as a gamer to try the controller setup you are currently not using. “Non-inverters should give inversion a try – and inverters should give non-inversion another shot,” she says. “You might even want to force yourself to stick with it for a few hours. People have learned one way. That doesn’t mean they won’t learn another way even better.

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2周前

Why do some gamers invert their controls? Scientists now have answers, but they’re not what you think

www.theguardian.com /games/2025/sep/18/why-do-some-gamers-invert-their-controls-scientists-now-have-answers-but-theyre-not-what-you-think

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2周前

Why do some gamers invert their controls?

www.theguardian.com /games/2025/sep/18/why-do-some-gamers-invert-their-controls-scientists-now-have-answers-but-theyre-not-what-you-think

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2周前

Why do some gamers invert their controls? Scientists now have answers, but they’re not what you think

www.theguardian.com /games/2025/sep/18/why-do-some-gamers-invert-their-controls-scientists-now-have-answers-but-theyre-not-what-you-think

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Clickbait title.
In short, gamers think they are an inverter or a non-inverter because of how they were first exposed to game controls. Someone who played a lot of flight sims in the 1980s may have unconsciously taught themselves to invert and now they consider that their innate preference; alternatively a gamer who grew up in the 2000s, when non-inverted controls became prevalent may think they are naturally a non-inverter. However, cognitive tests suggest otherwise. It’s much more likely that you invert or don’t invert due to how your brain perceives objects in 3D space.
Im not even consistent, it very much depends on the game I am playing. FPS games fet non inverted, but anything heavily utilizing vehicles is inverted.
- Same, for me it's about perspective and what I'm controlling. In an FPS, I'm controlling the view window and I want it to directly follow my intention: non-inverted.
  In a 3rd person game like Dark Souls, I'm controlling an external camera. It's the angle I'm viewing my character from and not necessarily the frame of the scene I am considering: inverted.
  Flying games? Inverted. Rail shooter like Panzer Dragoon, I'm controlling the absolute position of a targeting reticle: non-inverted.
  Those are just by preferences and how I perceive things, some people may take the opposite stand than me. But even those aren't strict rules, if a specific game doesn't feel right I'll try mixing it up to see if something works better for whatever reason.
  
  That's similar to how I do it, except that I also invert most FPSes.
  Basically, my mental model is that I move the camera around. In third-person games with a from-behind perspective, the character's position is usually a fulcrum that the camera pivots around. So if I want to look up I have to pull the camera down. Hence inverted.
  For first-person games I'm less consistent with inverting but I usually do. The camera may not pivot around a point ahead of it but in my head it pivots around a point directly at its front. Some games don't feel like that to me but most do.
  That's also why I insist on inverting my mouse wheel, by the way – my mental model is not that I send up or down commands to the computer, it's that I push the document up or down with my finger like I would on a smartphone. The mouse wheel is a touchscreen surrogate. Having the document move up when I push it up feels wrong.
- Thats exactly how I rock as well. Used to be full inverter, but after I went to PC / mouse and keyboard, shooters with controllers im not inverted and vehicle games I am. I am also one of those people who does have hours on flight sims though.
Goldeneye forced me to invert. Now its also flight sims
Flight sims made me invert when playing with a controller but k/m I dont invert. I used to back in the 90s but it became clear that I would be a problem moving forward so I taught myself not to.
I actually switched from inverter to non inverter after some time not playing with a controller. After the break inverted controls felt wrong 🤷‍♂️
I play with non-inverted controls 99% of the time, but for some reason when I'm flying a starship/plane in first-person, I invert the flight controls. If I'm in a ship in third-person, I tend to prefer non-inverted although I can play with both. I think it matters how physically close I am to the fulcrum (wrong word?) of the rotation, combined with the fact that the thing I'm rotating isn't myself, but the contraption I'm travelling in. On foot in first-person, inverted controls don't work for me at all.
It's like if you imagine you're controlling a seesaw in a 3D environment. The seesaw is positioned such that it forms a vertical line on the screen in a top-down or isometric view. You're adding or removing weight to the bottom-most end. If you press down on your controller, you add pressure/weight and so the top-most end moves upwards, which is equivalent to the front of your plane/ship rising upwards. I think that's kinda why it feels more intuitive for me to fly ships with inverted controls. It's about where you place your consciousness in 3D space.
Another example is scrolling a document on a computer. Some people I know, when they say "scroll up for me", they mean "move the document upwards", while others say it to mean "move the viewport upwards in relation to the document" (so the text moves downwards). Besides it being a simple language issue, I think the idea that one person thinks of the system as being "I control a viewport" and another person thinks of it as "I control the document itself" is similar to the inverted/non-inverted controls debate. Where your mind's eye is sitting is hugely important.
Mandatory "the pro who plays CS like a flight Sim" video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0HDT9VdcJs
a functional central nervous system

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