It would definitely have to be thought out to avoid that. But consider a UI design such as the picture below and I don't think it would present that problem.

http://egamer.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/battlefield_3_october_6_v1-Medium.png

Other than a map in the top corner, that's basically how Black Ops is laid out. But when you aim down your sights, it gets centered.

The end result of any frame is just a 2D image that gets read like any other. Left to right and top to bottom.

That's also why you move to the right to advance in most 2D games.

Keep in mind this is a cultural phenomenon.

e.g. in Japan, left->right/top->bottom order can be used, but AFAIK, top->bottom/right->left ordering is more common, so we should expect that Mario (being Japanese) would scroll downwards or leftwards

Shells coming out of the barrel on the wrong side won't burn you... many left handed rifle shooters shoot very large rifles made for right handed shooters without too much of a problem. It is different, but you don't have to have a gun necessarily made for left handed people.

Indeed, the worst part for us lefties when it comes to using assault rifles made for righthanded people is loading/reloading the weapon since the bolt handle is normally placed on the wrong side for us which makes things a bit awkward.

The end result of any frame is just a 2D image that gets read like any other. Left to right and top to bottom.
That's also why you move to the right to advance in most 2D games.

Keep in mind this is a cultural phenomenon.
e.g. in Japan, left->right/top->bottom order can be used, but AFAIK, top->bottom/right->left ordering is more common, so we should expect that Mario (being Japanese) would scroll downwards or leftwards

Correct. Color theory also changes a bit. Not which colors look nice with which, but the meanings behind them. But I find that most tend to use them same composition rules as we use here.

I'm not sure if it has to do with how text is laid out, or if it's a sub-consious thing.

Japanese manga books are read in reverse order (our last page is their first. pages turned to the left), but the image composition in the panels and the layout of the pages is still the same isn't it? Same with other media. I've never seen it to be differently composed other than color schemes.



Japanese color tastes are so strange. They use every color imaginable and at the highest possible brightness. All their stuff looks to me like those old demos you'd see when 256 color VGA videos cards were new.

like..

As far as I know there's no technical issue.

I think that Unreal Tournament (the original one), or maybe another game in that time period, let you pick which hand your character would hold the weapon in.

Doesn't Half-Life and other Valve games have an option to swap hands?

Don't most games have this option, on PS3 I press R3 and it does this.

Shells coming out of the barrel on the wrong side won't burn you... many left handed rifle shooters shoot very large rifles made for right handed shooters without too much of a problem. It is different, but you don't have to have a gun necessarily made for left handed people.

Indeed, the worst part for us lefties when it comes to using assault rifles made for righthanded people is loading/reloading the weapon since the bolt handle is normally placed on the wrong side for us which makes things a bit awkward.

Yep. The reloading process is slower when a rifle is used on the wrong side. For a realistic implementation you would have to make a separate animation for the new reload. And because it's worse, what player would elect to use a left-eye dominant character and a right-handed rifle?

I could only see this functionality making sense when the game is a SWAT-type, extremely slow, extremely realistic simulation where it is beneficial for the players to occasionally switch the weapon to the wrong side during the game. Even then, my personal preference (as a right-handed, right eye dominant shooter) is to keep my grip on the rifle the same even if I switch the butt to left shoulder. I will also bring the rifle back to right shoulder for reloading or clearing.

If you aren't going for realism, you can just mirror the model and the animations.