Yes — because movement is done with the left.

In arcade games, movement is often the more complex part of the game requiring the most dexterity. In an FPS game, aiming is the more complex part, so it’s given to the right hand. Movement in FPS games, while important, is less complicated than aiming, so it’s given to the less coordinated hand.

Try this game (don’t worry, it’s not one of those jump-scare pranks);

http://www.dailyhaha.com/_flash/mouse_maze.htm

Click on START, then move the spark to FINISH, without touching anything. Try it with both hands and see which one you get farther with. Now consider the fact that if this game was ported to a console, right-handed players would be forced to play it with their left hand.

Arcades want your quarters. So, no, going with the more common dominant hand is not good way to make a profit.

That honestly never occurred to me before, but it makes sense that a good way to make people waste money would be to make them play left-handed.

It’s obvious that early console controllers were a case of follow-the-leader to arcade cabinets.

I’ve actually had people argue that the original Atari joystick and the NES Advantage are both right-handed, despite having the joystick on opposite sides. Some claim it makes a difference if you hold the joystick or if it sits on a table (or is mounted in a cabinet).

Apparently there’s even an arcade playing style called "cross handed" where players use the stick with their right hand and the buttons with their left.

The one thing that always gets me in these arguments is that the people who claim that it makes sense for the movement controls to be on the left for right-handed people, never try to claim that lefties should use a joystick with their right hand.

It’s bad enough that developers constantly forget about the lack of a coin slot on consoles, even when it makes an arcade-port insanely difficult.

I know exactly what you mean. Or when developers forget that computers have hard drives and instead put in console-style checkpoints. There are many games I skipped playing because they only had checkpoints. The last game I played without manual saves was Halo. I hated that I would often cross a checkpoint with the wrong weapons (it only saves the first time you cross it), or with little health.

But since the PC games of today are in a constant decline when it comes to key-mapping, there’s probably a larger underlying problem with the video-game industry, like ignoring the message of their medium.

I’ve played a bunch of small, freeware indie games and I always hate when they don’t let you invert the mouselook. Having played quite a few flight simulators in the past, pushing forward to look down is natural to me, but many small games hardcode it with push forward to look up.

Full disclosure, I don’t have a state of the art system, so I haven’t really played any recent games, however from watching videos of some games, I hate what they’ve become.

Every object you can interact with is marked with a bright, impossible to miss outline. The game tells you what key/button to press for every action you can take. There’s an unskippable cutscene every 30-45 seconds. Achievements for stupid crap keep popping up on the screen. The levels are entirely linear and you get yelled at if you try to stray off the path set for you. Health regenerates for no apparent reason. Not to mention that content that used to be included with a game is now sold separately as DLC. That’s if you even get the full game on the disc, rather than just an installer that downloads the rest. Then there’s the mandatory online registration, ensuring that you can never sell your copy of the game, or buy a used one.

It’s not that new, but a week or so ago, I downloaded a copy of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time for PS2 and tried in an emulator. Graphical glitches aside, the game played fine, but I got so angry at the constant, unskippable cutscenes that I rage-quit after about 10 minutes and erased it from my drive. I downloaded the game for free and still didn’t want it!