Week 7

Essential Question: What is the implication of player type on game design?

There are four player types according to the Bartle Test, which was originally designed for MMOs, or Massive Multiplayer Online games. Bartle’s theory “offers insights into gamers’ likes, dislikes, and motivations” (Matera, 2015, p. 54). The four key groups of gamer personalities are achievers, socializers, explorers, and killers.

According to Richard Bartle (n.d.), the personalities to be expected for each type of player are as follows:
  1. Achievers are interested in doing things to the game, ie. in ACTING on the WORLD. Achievers are proud of their formal status in the game's built-in level hierarchy.
  2. Explorers are interested in having the game surprise them, ie. in INTERACTING with the WORLD. Explorers are proud of their knowledge of the game's finer points, especially if new players treat them as founts of all knowledge.
  3. Socialisers are interested in INTERACTING with other PLAYERS. Socialisers are proud of their friendships, their contacts and their influence.
  4. Killers are interested in doing things to people, ie. in ACTING on other PLAYERS. Killers are proud of their reputation and of their oft-practiced fighting skills. 
Matera adapted killers for a school setting by calling the "griefers". He says they “like to sow destruction in high-action game environments. They like to be the bad guy and are very good at evaluating the cost-benefit of attacking” (2015, p.57).

Figure 1 (Matera, 2015, p. 54) shows a nice visual of how the gamer types relate to one another:


Douglas Kiang says that “students will often be a mixture of more than one category, although most of the weight will usually be in one category” (2014). He echoes Matera in saying that he starts the school year with students taking the Bartle Test and then uses these results to inform how he arranges the groups and encourages collaboration. He wrote that it “offers useful insight into how students will react in different situations, and also provides a starting point for me at the beginning of the semester” (Kiang, 2014).

Naturally I had to take the test… Some questions I had to guess which I would prefer because I have never played any MMOs. The closest thing I could think of, which I kept in my mind while doing the test, was when I used to play Goldeneye 007 on the N64 with my friends in high school. Below are my results!


The results were pretty spot on with what I would have expected. If I was thinking of another game while taking the test, I might expect to have a switch in killer and socialiser.  I can certainly see this being a very valuable way to group students together when gamifying your classroom! Understanding students’ styles of play will help me create a game that keeps them engaged. Creating projects and team challenges for all the gamer types will ensure the game really takes off (Matera, 2015, p. 55).


 Resources:
Barr, M. (n.d.). The Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology. Retrieved from The Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology: http://matthewbarr.co.uk/bartle/index.php

Bartle, R. (n.d.). HEARTS, CLUBS, DIAMONDS, SPADES: PLAYERS WHO SUIT MUDS. Retrieved June 25, 2020, from http://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm

Kiang, D. (2014, January 21). Use the Four Gamer Types to Help Your Students Collaborate - from Douglas Kiang on Edudemic. Retrieved June 25, 2020, from https://edtechteacher.org/use-the-four-gamer-types-to-help-your-students-collaborate-from-douglas-kiang-on-edudemic/

Matera, M. (2015). Explore Like A Pirate: Gamification and Game-Inspired Course Design to Engage, Enrich, and Elevate Your Learners. San Diego, CA, CA: Dave Burgess Consulting.

Comments

  1. Douglas WJuly 9, 2020 at 7:47 PM

    I like the Bartle test. This would make for some great classroom discussion. I do wish he would change the name of the Killer category.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJuly 13, 2020 at 5:25 PM

    We play a game called Dominion. It is a build up your points by playing characters who use their talents game. In it there are characters who take points away from other players. Some of our friends like those characters and use them. I like to see how many points I can get and rarely use characters that can harm others. But, I am not really playing against others. I just want to see how high a score I can get. This week's reading is valuable for anyone who wants to incorporate gaming into their teaching. Nice post.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Coby HaasJuly 20, 2020 at 1:35 PM

    As a gamer of all kinds (MMO's, board games, table-top roleplaying) I was very curious to see where I came out on this little test and it evaluated my likes and dislikes quite well. I think a lot of teachers will find ourselves with fairly high percentages in the Explorer and Achiever categories, because something drew us to teaching. :)

    ReplyDelete

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