Because most of the people are right hands. Left hands do actually use arrow keys.

Because the location of the WASD keys simulate a control pad that the direction buttons are to the left and the action buttons are to the right. The keyboard will also have optimised natural ergonomics as many are already familiar with the typing positions.

Originally posted by Angel:

Because the location of the WASD keys simulate a control pad that the direction buttons are to the left and the action buttons are to the right. The keyboard will also have optimised natural ergonomics as many are already familiar with the typing positions.

Consoles simulated the PC experience by using joysticks originally.

A long time ago some PC games used the arrow keys by default, instead of WASD.

Originally posted by =(^ ^)=:

Because most of the people are right hands. Left hands do actually use arrow keys.

Cause of the mouse.

Originally posted by Pierce Dalton:

A long time ago some PC games used the arrow keys by default, instead of WASD.

Those were dark times.

there are much more keys close to your wasd then your arrow keys.

If I remeber right this setting became popular since the late 90's because of the FPS competition scenes.

Right hand is used for other activities.

I guess because a lot of people find it more comfortable? Personally, I'm fine with either.

Because the arrow keys are in the worst place.

ijkl would be the right-handed version but that leaves the rest of your keyboard out of reach.

Originally posted by isomorphic_projection:

Originally posted by =(^ ^)=:

Because most of the people are right hands. Left hands do actually use arrow keys.

Cause of the mouse.

You can switch your mouse to left hand too.

WASD closer to other big keys like shift, control, space. My brain already registered shift as run and space as jump. Yeah I play lots of action games. Easier to access numbered buttons as well.

Having said that I still prefer using gamepad as it is more relaxing to play games.

Have you tried playing old PC games? That's how they used to play games. It was very awkward.

I think it's because that's how the earliest games were being done, and everyone else copied them.

WASD isn't objectively superior, it just is.

At this point, there are generations of gamers who know and expect it to work that way.

Societal inertia is powerful. There are superior keyboards, languages... anything you can think of really, but people tend to stick with what they know because it comforts them.