It was a major revelation when we stumbled upon Richard Bartle’s player type paper a few years ago – imagine being able to discuss such things!
Straightforward copy from Greg Costikyan’s excellent post on the subject. He lists 5 different categorizations of player types:
Ron Edwards: Gamist-Narrativist-Simulationist.
Richard Bartle: Categories of achievers, explorers, socialisers, and killers.
Nick Yee: players who desire relationships, immersion, grief play, achievement, and leadership.
Nicole Lazzaro (at GDC 2004): desire for “internal experience,” for “challenge and strategy,” for “immersion,” and for social experiences.
Richard Rouse: Players want either a challenge, to socialize, a dynamic solitaire experience, bragging rights, an emotional experience, or to fantasize.
Game Design Workshop: At least ten player types: competitors, explorers, collectors, achievers, jokers, artists, directors, storytellers, performers, and craftsmen.
As I recall, Nokia also has a categorization somewhere, but I can’t find it right now.
And I think Greg is right in saying that it’s hard to justify any particular categorization. On the other hand, it’s usually pretty productive to do the attempt – don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
