Bartle taxonomy
Posted: June 4th, 2018, 9:51 pm
So the recent Fallout thread brought this concept at the forefront of my mind again. It's a classification method that organizes video game players into four different main groups based on their tastes and preferences according to two separate sets of factors.
Short version:
People who prefer interacting at their own rhythm, following their own rules and who value agency and exploration in singleplayer games are called Explorers. (Fallout, Heavy Rain, Myst, etc...)
People who seek to overcome pre-determined challenges in singleplayer games or milestones in multiplayer games are called Achievers. (DMC, Ikaruga, Destiny, etc...)
People who value the human interaction aspect of cooperative multiplayer games above all else are called Socializers. (Sims, Minecraft, Sea of Thieves, etc...)
People who want to dominate others in competitive multiplayer games or who enjoy chaotic action in singleplayer are called Killers (sic). (Street Fighter, PUBG, GTA, etc...)
Obviously, that's a very rough outline - most people are a lot more complex as to be pigeonholed so easily. But do you find the basic premise to be valid? Are you leaning towards certain category(ies)? For those of you who are active in video game development, is this the kind of concept you take into consideration when trying to define your target audience? Is this all just debunked pseudo-science?
It's interesting to me because I think that my comparatively narrow preferences might be due to me falling squarely into the singleplayer "Achiever" category with hints of the "Explorer" one. Although I love a good story or artistic design, I care very little for narrative agency, I prefer structure over freedom, and short polished challenge-based games over sprawling timesinks with massive amounts of content and opportunities for expression. When told I can do everything I tend to do absolutely nothing. Cooperative multiplayer doesn't tend to hold my interest for very long, and I find the hyper-competitive nature of certain games to be rather unsavory. I got more mileage out of Nex Machina than Skyrim.
I think we have a lot of Explorers here!
Short version:
People who prefer interacting at their own rhythm, following their own rules and who value agency and exploration in singleplayer games are called Explorers. (Fallout, Heavy Rain, Myst, etc...)
People who seek to overcome pre-determined challenges in singleplayer games or milestones in multiplayer games are called Achievers. (DMC, Ikaruga, Destiny, etc...)
People who value the human interaction aspect of cooperative multiplayer games above all else are called Socializers. (Sims, Minecraft, Sea of Thieves, etc...)
People who want to dominate others in competitive multiplayer games or who enjoy chaotic action in singleplayer are called Killers (sic). (Street Fighter, PUBG, GTA, etc...)
Obviously, that's a very rough outline - most people are a lot more complex as to be pigeonholed so easily. But do you find the basic premise to be valid? Are you leaning towards certain category(ies)? For those of you who are active in video game development, is this the kind of concept you take into consideration when trying to define your target audience? Is this all just debunked pseudo-science?
It's interesting to me because I think that my comparatively narrow preferences might be due to me falling squarely into the singleplayer "Achiever" category with hints of the "Explorer" one. Although I love a good story or artistic design, I care very little for narrative agency, I prefer structure over freedom, and short polished challenge-based games over sprawling timesinks with massive amounts of content and opportunities for expression. When told I can do everything I tend to do absolutely nothing. Cooperative multiplayer doesn't tend to hold my interest for very long, and I find the hyper-competitive nature of certain games to be rather unsavory. I got more mileage out of Nex Machina than Skyrim.
I think we have a lot of Explorers here!