Types of Gamers and How to Please Them

[Kyttias]

Above is a diagram for something called the Bartle Test. The Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology is a series of questions and an accompanying scoring formula that classifies players of multiplayer online games (including MUDs and MMORPGs) into categories based on their gaming preferences. The entire linked wikipedia article is worth a good read over and bookmark, as it helps reveal what makes a game appealing to a variety of audiences.

With Mysidia, at the core, we're running an adoptable site. Some people just want to collect, and merely having adoptables will keep them happy. But if you throw in an achievement system, give them a world to explore, a story to read into, a quest system, and NPCs to interact with - you're hitting more audiences.

So ask yourself: What can you do to make your site more appealing? Cater to types of gamers that you can't relate to, as well as the ones you can.

• Killers: They interfere with the functioning of the game world or the play experience of other players. Without a battle system and PVP readily in place as a packaged part of the Mysidia framework, your game obviously won't appeal towards this first category.
• Achievers: These guys accumulate status tokens by beating the rules-based challenges of the game world. Put in a ranking system, rewards, and special stores, rare pets, and items just for these guys. Their most precious pets will be earned by achieving high scores. Keep them satisfied with a lot of things to do. New things to achieve need to be added regularly to keep them coming back when they're done with everything they wanted to do.
• Explorers: They want to discover the systems governing the operation of the game world. They're interested in the mythology, plot, and overall story of the world. Give them pets after they've completed quests, or leave them around to find in mysterious places. Add new content relevant to the world of your site on a regular basis and they will eat it up like free seconds from the dessert bar.
• Socializers: This group form relationships with other players by telling stories within the game world. They'll be the most active on the forum, and many of them could be roleplayers. They will probably be the most interested in breeding pets with the help of other players and working towards very specific things that match their personality. Achievements based on just how much interacting they've done on the forums may be of interest to them. They may seem like the least demanding, easiest to please group, but they're also the group most likely to talk about your site on other websites - and you want what they're saying to be full of nothing but good things.

These four styles emerged from the combination of two primary gameplay interests, Content and Control, each of which has two mutually exclusive forms. Content is defined to mean either acting simply and directly on objects in the game world, or interacting more deeply with world-systems. Control refers to how players want to experience the game world -- either through the dynamic behaviors of other players, or with the relatively static world of the game itself.

A similar, yet completely unrelated to gaming, psychological study was done in the 1970s by psychologist David Keirsey, where he identified four main types of personalities:

• Artisan (Sensing + Perceiving): realistic, tactical, manipulative (of things or people), pragmatic, impulsive, action-focused, sensation-seeking
• Guardian (Sensing + Judging): practical, logistical, hierarchical, organized, detail-oriented, possessive, process-focused, security-seeking
• Rational (Intuitive + Thinking): innovative, strategic, logical, scientific/technological, future-oriented, result-focused, knowledge-seeking
• Idealist (Intuitive + Feeling): imaginative, diplomatic, emotional, relationship-oriented, dramatic, person-focused, identity-seeking

Just some fun thoughts to think on as you plan out further development for Mysidia, or any game-related project where players can interact with your world alongside other players. What are you doing to make YOUR site unique in terms of:

dynamics:
social interaction (cooperative rewards)
emotion (sources of frustration, accomplishment, etc)
constraints (things getting harder)
progression (unlockables, things getting more rewarding)
narrative (choose your own adventure, world immersion)

mechanics:
rewards (prizes)
feedback ('good job' notifications)
competition (winning and losing)
challenges (effort)

elements:
leaderboards (bragging rights)
levels (defined steps in progression)
badges (visual representations of achievements)