Player Types in Virtual Worlds

It has been studied in a number of studies what kind of people play video games and how they usually like to play. One of the researcher’s is Richard Bartle, who presents the four player types in MUD-games (Multi-User Dungeons) (1996). Later on, Bartle has extended the types to include modern MMO-games as well (2003). The player types are Achiever, Explorer, Killer and Socializer.

Achievers are usually satisfied by game mechanics such as gaining levels, learning new skills, and getting new equipment, i.e. when they achieve something. Achievers are also somewhat competitive.

Adventurers enjoy finding new or hidden places and discovering new things. They enjoy the game’s plot and like to examine it via detail.

Killers are all about competition and action, as they like to fight or compete with other players. They usually feel comfortable knowing that they are better players than others and that their characters are stronger.

Socializers like to interact with other players, non-player characters and the game world. Socializers could be seen as people who just like to hang around, they don’t necessarily want to compete or make progress in the game.

Bartle’s player types are also interesting, because he presents that no player type discloses the others, i.e. every player is more or less of every type, but the magnitude varies. Usually one type is clearly dominant. Bartle’s player test can be done through http://www.gamerdna.com/quizzes/bartle-test-of-gamer-psychology/.

Other player type studies include Bateman & Boon (2005) and Schuurman et al. (2008), but looking at their results, they seem to be really close to Bartle’s player types.

This conveniently brings us to my first blog post, where I wondered whether or not games themselves were groupware or whether the individual elements in a game could be groupware, and I think the answer would be yes. Take a situation where a group of players set out in a dungeon to kill a dragon or whatever, which is so hard to kill that the group really needs to work together and come up with a tactic. There is most likely a party chat, a map and many elements in the game, and they certainly help the players to communicate and achieve the goal of killing the dragon.

References

Player Test: http://www.gamerdna.com/quizzes/bartle-test-of-gamer-psychology/

[Bartle, 1996] Richard Bartle. Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs. The Journal of Virtual Environments. 1, 1996.

[Bartle, 2003] Richard Bartle. Designing Virtual Worlds. New Riders Publishing, 2003.

[Bateman and Boon, 2005] Chris Bateman and Richard Boon. 21st Century Game Design. Charles River Media, 2005.

[Schuurman et al., 2008] Dimitri Schuurman, Katrien De Moor, Lieven De Marez, Jan Van Looy. Fanboys, competers, escapists and time-killers: a typology based on gamers' motivations for playing video games. Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Digital Interactive Media in Entertainment and Arts, ACM Press, 2008, 46-50.