Bartle taxonomy of player types
Who is Dr. Bartle?
Dr Richard Bartle
Dr Richard A. Bartle is Senior Lecturer and Honorary Professor of Computer Game Design at the University of Essex, UK. He is best known for having co-written in 1978 the first virtual world, MUD, and for his 1996 Player Types model which has seen widespread adoption by the MMO industry. His 2003 book, Designing Virtual Worlds, is the standard text on the subject, and he is an influential writer on all aspects of MMO design and development. In 2010, he was the first recipient of the prestigious GDCOnline Game Legend award.
Taxonomy of Player Types
The Bartle taxonomy of player types is a classification of video game players (gamers) based on a 1996 paper by Richard Bartle according to their preferred actions within the game. The classification originally described players of multiplayer online games (including MUDs and MMORPGs), though now it also refers to players of single-player video games.
The taxonomy is based on a character theory. This character theory consists of four characters: Achievers, Explorers, Socializers, and Killers. These are imagined according to a quadrant model where the X axis represents preference for interacting with other players vs. exploring the world and the Y axis represents preference for interaction vs. unilateral action.
A test known as Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology based on Bartle's taxonomy was created in 1999–2000 by Erwin Andreasen and Brandon Downey, containing a series of questions and an accompanying scoring formula. Although the test has met with some criticism for the dichotomous nature of its question-asking method, as of October 2011, it had been taken over 800,000 times. As at February 2018, the Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology hosted by GamerDNA is no longer available. Alternative online implementations of the test exist, however.
The result of the Bartle Test is the "Bartle Quotient", which is calculated based on the answers to a series of 30 random questions in the test, and totals 200% across all categories, with no single category exceeding 100%.
- Killers like to provoke and cause drama and/or impose them over other players in the scope provided by the virtual world. Trolls, hackers, cheaters, and attention farmers belong in this category, along with the most ferocious and skillful PvP (player versus player) opponents.
- Achievers are competitive and enjoy beating difficult challenges whether they are set by the game or by themselves. The more challenging the goal, the most rewarded they tend to feel.
- Explorers like to explore the world - not just its geography but also the finer details of the game mechanics. These players may end up knowing how the game works and behave better than the game creators themselves. They know all the mechanics, short-cuts, tricks, and glitches that there are to know in the game and thrive on discovering more.
- Socializers are often more interested in having relations with the other players than playing the game itself. They help to spread knowledge and a human feel, and are often involved in the community aspect of the game (by means of managing guilds or role-playing, for instance).
What Type of Player are You?
Bartle's Taxonomy was the earliest attempt to break down player psychology in a multiplayer environment. Richard Bartle, who created the first MUD in 1978, interviewed the players of his games about why they played. Their responses fit into four categories, which we now call Achievers, Explorers, Socializers, and Killers.