player types

Introduction to Gamification Part 8: User Types

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Intro to Gamification Part 8 Introduction to Gamification Part 8 User Types

There are many tools available to gamification designers to help them with their designs. One of the most useful for me, for reasons I will go into here, is the concept of User Types.

There are many views on user profiling and many ways to do it. Some people love it, some hate it. I am in the middle. It is a very useful tool, but it is not the only thing you should rely on. For me, they can be a useful way to understand or at least considers the motivation so those who will be using your system.

Bartle’s Player Types

In the games world there are a few famous player type models, Bartle’s Player Types being the most well known [1]. In these he breaks down players of his famous Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) game into 4 key types. Killer, Achiever, Socliasler and Explorer. Each type of player had a different motivation to play the game. Read More ...

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User Types HEXAD: What Links Philanthropists to Socialisers

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Hexad Evolution 2 User Types HEXAD What Links Philanthropists to Socialisers

A new paper looking to validate the User Types HEXAD Survey has just been released from the HCI Games Group (Games Institute, and Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo). You can find it here Empirical validation of the Gamification User Types Hexad scale in English and Spanish or free… http://hcigames.com/download/empirical-validation-hexad-scale/

One of the findings is something that has been noted before and is not a surprise to me, but something I realise I have never explained. The finding is that the Philanthropist and Socialiser types are very closely linked when you look into them. Read More ...

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Considering Age and other factors in Gamification

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Diersity Considering Age and other factors in Gamification

When speaking to people about gamification, I often hear comments along the line of “Yeah, but games are only for kids”, or “Yeah, but the age groups who work here are not interested in games”.

What is very nice these days, is how easy it is to dispell these myths with statistics (yeah I know, Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics).

Roughly (I say this as this is coming from multiple sources and 2017 quarters), in the UK, 43% of people aged 6-64 say that they play video games in some form. Of that group, 57% are male, 43% female. If we consider that working age is around 18 to 60 (ish), you are looking at about 78% of the total gaming group are potentially playing games., peaking around the 25 to 44 age group, but still significant in the 44 to 64 age group. Read More ...

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Meaningful, Specific Rewards

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Academic excellence award Meaningful Specific Rewards

Many of you will know by now that I intensely dislike the way my daughter’s school uses rewards. However, one teacher has changed some of my views in one simple act. She gave out a truly meaningful reward.

It was a certificate, the exact same certificate that my daughter has had several times. It came signed by the head teacher, as they all do with this type of certificate. However, this time there was one very slight difference… the text on the certificate.

Rather than the usual generic “This award was given for extra effort”, or “This award has been given for being good at spelling”, this one was totally specific to my daughter and the struggles she has had with dyscalculia. Read More ...

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The Trouble With Types

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Type Lenses 1 page The Trouble With Types

Player Types and User Types, I’m not gonna lie, I love ’em. I imagine that is obvious considering I have spent so long making my own!

However, it’s time for a bit of a tidy up of misconceptions about types –  a misconception my love of them may even have helped to perpetuate.

Misconceptions

Bartle has 4 Player Types

Actually, he has 8. He realised there were limitations and duality in his 4 types, so he created a set of 8 that accounted for this. https://mud.co.uk/richard/selfware.htm

Everyone is Just One Type

No matter what model or taxonomy you use, the likelihood is this is just not true. We probably display all types in our personality, just in different amounts and in different contexts (more on that in a moment) Read More ...

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