I remember playing the original Rainbow Six game in 1998 inverted. Can’t remember why, or if that was the default, but I got used to it and haven’t been able to use the controls backwards since. Besides, if you lean forward you look down - why would controls be any different?

Yep. And for me, it changed. I played fps on controller my whole childhood, I was always standard. I started playing less controller and more mouse and keyboard as I got older.

A few years ago I started flying fpv drones.

Recently tried to use a controller again? Whoops I can only play inverted now 🤷‍♂️

Same. The first few PC games I played in the mid 90's were ms flight sim and my dad had the joystick. Then MechWarrior 2. Also inverted by default. Tbh it's a perspective shift. In most games with 3rd person I usually don't invert. But if I'm first person I have to invert.

Also probably if you played Descent

Elite, Wing Commander, and Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe shaped me before looking up or down was even a thing in FPS games.

Yes!. I remember when my brother and I played our first 3D fps (half life), we both agreed it made more sense to invert the y axis. I hadn't even considered all our history playing joystick flight sims as an influence

I was this way up to roughly the Xbox 360 era.

And then it just didn't feel right any more. In fact neither way felt right for a while.

Now I'm a right way up boy.

Well first game I played was pacman and down was down!

Or anything on the N64. Nintendo really loved inverted y in the early days of analog.

Literally just realized this is why I always invert.

Before that the down-arrow key was "up".