The Basics of Bartle’s Types

When you're creating a game, you always need to think about the player. Sometimes this is as simple as figuring out what things the player is likely to do and creating feedback for those choices. Sometimes it's accounting for all the ways you need to clearly say "no," like putting in impassable walls or adding an "I don't want to do that" response when you type in something like "EAT rubber chicken with pulley in the middle."

But the most important thing you can do is figure out what kind of player you want enjoying your game. From there, you figure out what kind of content you can give them. Once that ideal player is accounted for, you can start looking at how to create content other types of players can enjoy, too.

Richard Bartle (Credit)

That can be difficult to classify. There are about as many types of players as there are people, after all. But never fear! There's already been some pretty interesting research into trends in player behaviors. The most basic of these is known colloquially as "Bartle's Player Types."

Almost 20 years ago, a researcher named Richard Bartle worked out a system that classified players by their objectives in MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons, a sort of proto-MMO). There's a bit more to the research, but he found he could start by putting people into four different groups of player types. These types are called Explorers, Achievers, Socializers, and Killers.

Explorers are players who are most interested in, appropriately, exploring the game. This can be researching things in a game's codex, finding every nook and cranny in the landscape, and exhausting things like dialogue trees. Games like the Elder Scrolls series are almost tailor-made for these sorts of people.

Achievers get a lot of satisfaction out of beating the game, of course, but they also enjoy, say, finishing quests, completing special events, filling out their character's talent tree, et cetera. Completionists are often Achievers. These kinds of players have been much easier to cater to since Achievements and Trophies became more commonplace.

Socializers love to talk, not only with characters, but other people. They love the social aspect of games. These people are big into participating in multiplayer content like trading Pokémon or playing CTF in shooter games. They're also the players you're most likely to see in RP guilds in MMO games.

Killers are, of course, your PvPers and raiders. They love defeating monsters, other players, and giant bosses. Their biggest thrill is conquering a combat-based challenge. I'm guessing you can think of more than a few AAA games that can scratch this particular itch.

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Now, nobody is meant to be exclusively one type or another. Most people are varying percentages of each category. I find most people I play games with are heavily interested in at least two types of gameplay with a lesser interest in the other two.

This isn't something you can always map onto players in every game type and genre. It was originally an observation made in a multiplayer scenario, after all. But it's a very helpful tool to look at the kind of content you're creating and what kind of person is mostly likely to enjoy it. It's also totally worth reading the original paper, if this kind of thing intrigues you. It's not a perfect system of analysis, by any means, but it really opens your mind to some of the principles of game theory.

Most really successful games take two routes: They either appeal almost exclusively to one or two player types, or they offer a wide range of content for each type. Again, the execution of this depends a lot on what kind of game you're looking at. 

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For example: Gone Home, an indie title, was more interested in Explorers and Achievers. Since it's an indie adventure game, it doesn't have any interest in creating content for Killers or Socializers. The most recent Tomb Raider, an action/adventure game, had plenty of content for Killers, Achievers, and Explorers, but its interest in Socializers was so minimal that there's an achievement just for talking to the handful of NPCs that can carry on a conversation.

 

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An MMO like World of Warcraft, on the other hand, is especially interested in creating content and rewards for a wide variety of players, so they work to make as much content for as many player types as possible (regardless of what the forums might say). They have things like PvP, Achievements, hidden items in the geography, and support for Guilds and roleplay.

Try to look at other games and figure out what kind of player types they might be focused on. Try to figure out how they were able to draw in players with specific kinds of content, and see if they were successful at really knowing their audience. Did they include content for other kinds of players, as well?

Using game theory examples like Bartle's Types can help you figure out the answers to some of your most important questions: what kind of a game are you making? What kind of player do you want? And what kind of content are you trying to offer them?

By Annie Craton Design Lead for NORA