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Player Types Reflecting Player Identities

With the influx of open world games, players have been given increasing amounts of freedom to their ways
of play. It is no surprise this game type has become so popular in today's day an age as players demand for more diversity in their games. I believe that it is within these types of open world role-playing games (RPG) that we see Bartle's Taxonomy (Bartle, 1995) really flourish. 


According to Bartle, there are 5 types of Player types: The explorer, the social, the achiever and the killer. He states that every player fits into at least one of these types as their dominant type though certain players may share some characteristics with other types (Bartle, 1995). I appreciative that these player types may reflect aspects of a players identity in the same way that I personality test may reflect ones personality. 



Pyschologists David Keirsey personality model 4 dominant patterns in the sixteen types of the Myers-Briggs Personality Model:
  • 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 (intuition + Thinking): innovative, strategic, logical, scientific/technological, future-oriented, result-focused, knowledge-seeking.
  • Idealist (intuition + Feeling): imaginative, diplomatic, emotional, relationship-oriented, dramatic, person-focused, identity-seeking.

     


Comparing it to Bartle's Diagram. Differences here is Change, Structure, Internals, Externals as they are they are the fundamental distinctive dimensions of human behaviour (Keisay, 1984).
  • The idealist/Socializer
  • The Guardian/Achiever
  • The Rational/Explorer
  • The Artisan/Killer 
Though these do not align perfectly, it is interesting to note the similarities between both theories and the possibility that player types and player identities reflect each other.
 

Bibliography

  • Bartle, R., 1996. Hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades: Players who suit MUDs. Journal of MUD research, 1(1), p.19.
  • Gamasutra.com. (2017). Gamasutra - Personality And Play Styles: A Unified Model. [online] Available at: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6474/personality_and_play_styles_a_.php?print=1 [Accessed 22 April 2017].
  • Keirsey, D. and Bates, M.M., 1984. Please understand me. Prometheas Nemesis.

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