Acting Like Players Applying the 5 Domains of Play

Acting Like Players Applying the 5 Domains of Play
Jason VandenBerghe Creative Director This talk is the “somewhat final” presentation of my ongoing work to translate the Big 5 into a working tool for game designers. Let’s get this party started.

Openness to Experience Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness
The Big 5 (OCEAN) (Gamer) Openness to Experience Imagination Conscientiousness Artistic Interests Emotionality Extraversion Adventurousness Agreeableness Intellect Neuroticism Why the Big 5? (Start here: Because it has a STUNNING amount of science behind it, because it’s one of the few psychological models that is uncopyrighted (!!), and because it talks about what makes people different, for a start. But, perhaps more importantly, it breaks down beyond the 5 domains, into 30 individual “facets” (6 per domain). And, I have found (through research and stuff) that people’s scores in most of those facets correlate for a preference for specific game elements. For example, a high ‘Imagination’ facet score predicts a preference for fantasy settings, while a low Imagination score predicts a preference for realism. Liberalism

Stimulation Openness to Experience Novelty Conscientiousness Challenge
The Big 5 (OCEAN) (Gamer) 5 Domains of Play (Game) Openness to Experience Novelty Conscientiousness Challenge Stimulation Extraversion Agreeableness Harmony Neuroticism Threat So, my work last year was to establish a correlative link between people’s Big 5 scores and specific types of gameplay or game elements. The 5 ‘Domains of Play’ was the result, a kind of ‘personality type’ for a game. Gameplay elements that fall under the category of Novelty tend to satisfy the personality types/motivation facets in Openness to Exeperience. Cool! But, last year’s prez had a problem: the correlations worked pretty darn well for the top four domains (OCEA), but the fifth one (Neuroticism) didn’t correlate so well. Or, at all. And, that was where we stood last year.

MOAR Research! Including this one.
Since then, I have been doing more research. Specifically, quantitative research.

S O N C C E A H N T The Big 5 (OCEAN) 5 Domains of Play (Gamer) (Game)
0.42 N C C 0.327 S E 0.51 A H 0.28 N T My academic colleage (Vanessa Hemovich) has been giving a kind of high-level, mixed Big 5-and-5-Domains test to her University students. The results have been noisy, but interesting. And, here they are! These numbers may mean nothing to you – they didn’t to me, initially. Basically, in correlative research, a 1.0 means 100% correlation (this score always predicts that outcome), and a 0.0 means the opposite (never predicts, so the outcome is completely random). What is being correlated here is the broad categories of Big 5 vs. 5 Domains (personality vs. gameplay). And, we do see correlation (which is awesome). These numbers are not the kind of rock-solid “yay! victory!” results one looks for in research, but as this was a first-pass look to see if there was any validity, it’s a promising start. More research needed! Except for Neuroticsm. As predicted, there is no correlation evident. But, I believe that one of my game designers (Patrick Harris) gave me the key to the Neuroticism/Threat puzzle last year. 0.015

Neuroticism Reflects a tendency to experience (or not experience) negative emotions. First, what is the problem? Simply this: Neuroticism scores don’t seem to predict game preferences in any meaningful way I can uncover. And, I can tell you that I have tried every imaginable angle I could think of to find one. But it seemed like there should be one! Negative emotions area huge part of play! So what is the solution?

Threat Fearlessness Anxiety Calm Anger-Hostility Resilience Depression
(Neuroticism) Anxiety Fearlessness Intimidation Anger-Hostility Calm “Ragequit” Depression Resilience Despair Self-Consciousness Confidence Judgement Immoderation Temperateness Addiction It came from an off-hand comment Patrick made when we were complaining about how there wasn’t a correlation (it bugged us). He pointed out that we have a word for one of these facets of behavior in gaming already: “Ragequit” is very much our word for anger-hostility. We started asking ourselves if this domain wasn’t pointing us towards the reason people quit playing, instead of the reason they start. And, as you can see from the chart, these line up very nicely. I don’t have much data on this yet (I do have some! Just not much ;), but it looks promising. Vulnerability Poise Hurt

Threat (Neuroticism) Reflects the parts of the game that may cause a player may stop playing when they are otherwise enjoying it. So, for now, the answer to how the domain of Neuroticism fits into our predictive model is to say that the features of gameplay that are in the category of Threat are the reasons that players stop playing games that they are otherwise happy with. It’s why we stop, when we wish we could keep going on.

The Big 5 (OCEAN) (Gamer) 5 Domains of Play (Game) Openness to Experience Novelty Conscientiousness Challenge Stimulation Extraversion Agreeableness Harmony Neuroticism Threat So, for now, I’m going to set that domain (Threat) aside. Because for now, I’m primarily interested in finding a model that helps designers understand what people want from their games, and how variable people are in those expectations. I promise to return to Threat & Neuroticism in a later talk. But for now, let’s call that one as settled as we can make it.

“What’s it good for?” So, I had this producer on Far Cry 3, name of Dan Hay. Dan was a big man. Quite imposing. When I told him last year that I was going to speak at the GDC on a new psychological model I had uncovered, he squinted his eyes, and asked me this question. His voice carried with it the implication that if I didn’t have a real answer, that he would eat me. Dan is not a man to be fucked with. And, actually, it turned out to be the question that dominated my last year. Let me show you my first answer.

= Game = Gamer My first answer was this.
See how cool this is? If your game satisfies these motivations, and a gamer’s personality score are these, then they will probably like your game!

= Game = Gamer And, if the scores don’t match, they probably won’t like it! Isn’t that COOL?!

“So what?” “What’s it good for?” Dan was not impressed.
So, I had to work it. This is a surprisingly difficult question to answer. It took me the better part of a year to find an answer that satisfied. Think about it, though. What is the value that psychology brings to game development that makes it essential for *every single game designer in the entire world* to learn it? Tricky. Here is my answer.

Developing Accurate Empathy
Psychology can be applied to many things. But, in the end, the real value is in helping developers develop accurate empathy. Let’s look at how we go from gamers to designers. Young designers often look at players who are not like them, and simply point and laugh. This is a habit that is reinforced by gamer culture, and it actually works pretty well there (making fun of other groups can often be a successful in-group reinforcement tactic, for example). But this behavior is a handicap for designers. Because, see, there are a *lot* of people who aren’t like you. In fact, if you look at the numbers, almost *everyone* isn’t like you in some important way. And these people have now gone from being people you have no real connection with to being your audience.

As we move into game dev jobs, many designers begin to understand that they have to crack this problem. But MAN is the brain a tough nut to crack! If only there were some SCIENCE out there to help us!

This is where psychological models come in. One of the most important jobs of the game designer is to be able to understand as precisely as possible *why* a particular player is (or is not) enjoying their game. We need this skill almost constantly – when conceiving how mechanics will probably work, when interpreting playtests, when discussing with different team members whether or not the game is fun yet… pretty much any time we are trying to understand someone else’s experience. Psychological models are tools for designers to get better at this. ----- I have a soapbox point to make on this. Robert McKee, the great screenwriting teacher, said something about writers that I find to be true about designers. What he said was that everyone else in the world has the right to live in-authentic, shallow lives, and to misunderstand the universe. Writers (and designers), however, do not have that luxury. The audience expects truth from writers (designers), and so they are obligated to live an honest, rich, deeply-experienced life, in order to best reflect that in their work. Designers who live a life based on a faulty model of human motivation are doing a disservice to our art. There *is* truth to be found on the subject of the human mind, and designers are professionally obligated to find it. So get going.

My Players All Gamers Players I Want To Understand Players I Naturally
(not to scale) Players I Want To Understand Players I Naturally Understand One more point to make on this topic. I was asked by an insightful friend of mine why I am actually doing all of this. Like, what is it for? Really? What’s the internal motive at work? It took a while to find it, but here’s why. I believe deeply in the Entertainer’s Covenant. I believe that if you buy a ticket to my show, then I owe you the best performance I can give you. That’s the deal. What that means with games is that I want everyone who pays for my game to put down the controller because they are satisfied. Everyone. Now that does *not* mean that I want everyone to play my game and enjoy it. I don’t think such a game exists, and if it did, I’m not sure it should be made. Variety and specificity are necessary for great entertainment. What I mean is I want everyone who *wants to play my game* (which might be a small number of people) to put down the controller with a smile on their face, feeling like they got a great deal. That is the Entertainer’s Covenant. The problem is, the number of players that I naturally understand is (from what we can see in psychological models) necessarily limited. There are a _lot_ of people who like things I don’t like, and a bunch of them are (probably) going to want to play my game. So, my work in psychology is an ongoing effort to understand what those other players want, so that I can entertain them better. Simple enough. All Gamers

Developing Accurate Empathy Overcoming Personal Bias
≅ Overcoming Personal Bias Here’s the thing. Developing accurate empathy actually is a very nice way of saying “getting over your own biases”. But, the miracle of these accurate psychological models (the Big 5 among them) is that they offer us a simple way to find our own biases, and get over them. Let’s talk about how to do that.

‘Empathy Blind Spots’ Openness to Experience Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Take a psychological test. Really, any will do, but for this talk we’ll use the Big 5. (Here’s the test, if you want to take it right now: ) Imagine that the filled-in circles are your scores. Okay, take those scores and reverse them. (Actually, it’s more like invert them, but that’s a detail… which has nevertheless been pointed out to me enough times that I think it merits inclusion here.) These reverse scores are your ‘empathy blind spots’. Those are the sets of human motivations that you do not naturally understand. You might have developed an understanding of some of these motivations during your life, but you most likely started out with nothin’. Your job (your professional obligation, in my view; see above) as a designer is to fill in those blind-spots with knowledge. How?

Learn to play games as though you were someone else.
‘Player-Acting’ Learn to play games as though you were someone else. Well, perhaps there are many ways to go about this, but I have a specific technique for you. I’ve started calling it ‘player-acting’, and it grew out of something I accidentally did in the ‘stage one booster rocket’ phase of my career. But, of course, since it’s me, I have to tell it like a story. So, here we go.

The Bartle Types Explorers Achievers Socialisers Killers
Richard Bartle Explorers Achievers The Bartle Types Socialisers Killers Early in my career, I stumbled on to Richard Bartle’s work (known today as the ‘Bartle Types’, and according to Bartle himself, widely misunderstood). ASIDE: If you haven’t read Richard’s original paper on his study, I *highly* recommend doing so. Working in the business, people will refer to this model of motivation over and over, and it would be wise to be armed with a real understanding of what his observations were. Okay. When I encountered these types, I was completely confounded by the idea of a “killer” player type. Killers revel in making other people’s lives miserable – they hunt other people down and defeat them, and take pleasure from what we now call ‘griefing’. “???!?!?!??!” my younger self responded. Who would *do* that? Who *were* these people? And… there were enough of them that they were a *type*? I was intrigued.

The Four Fun Keys Curiosity Relaxation Amusement Fiero Easy Fun
Nicole Lazzaro Easy Fun Serious fun Curiosity Relaxation The Four Fun Keys People Fun Hard Fun I had a similar experience when I attended Nicole Lazzaro’s now-famous talk at GDC in 2004 on the 4 Fun Keys. ASIDE: Again, if you have not exposed yourself to Nicole’s work, get going. The link isn’t on the slide just for effect. Here, we are talking about the emotions of fun… and I was, again, struck by one of them. “People fun”? Like, with other people? Generally, at that time, having another person in my video games had made them much, much worse (see: Killers). Yet, here was a whole emotion that sprung right from the presence of other people. How did that work? Amusement Fiero

Eight Kinds of Fun Sensation Fantasy Narrative Challenge Fellowship
Marc LeBlanc Eight Kinds of Fun Sensation Game as sense-pleasure Fantasy Game as make-believe Narrative Game as unfolding story Challenge Game as obstacle course Fellowship Game as social framework Discovery Game as uncharted territory Expression Game as soap box Submission Game as mindless pastime Marc LeBlanc had, around the same time, produced a theory he called the 8 Kinds of Fun. I found the exercise fascinating, but one in particular was difficult for my colleagues at the time to understand. “Submission”? We now call this “work gaming” or perhaps “grinding”, but ten years ago the idea that people would *pay* for the opportunity to submit to a mindless task seemed exotic at best. Still does, to many folk. I wanted to understand this process better.

“How do I learn all this?”
8 “How do I learn all this?” How do learn it?

Process Pick an archetype
Pretend to play as that archetype for that session Next session, pick a new archetype At the time, I worked at a(nother) large, multi-national video game publisher. They had a thing there called the “IRC” (Information Resource Center). It was a media library, and it contained hundreds of games from the decade past. Almost anything you had heard of published at that time was available there for check-out. I had a thought: what if I tried playing some of these exotic game types that seemed elusive to me, while pretending that I was a player like that? What if I just faked it? So, I started checking out games, and trying them out.

Rules 4 games per week, minimum 1 hour playtime required
New thing = + 1 hour playtime Being the OCD-completist that I am, however, I decided that I would just play them *all*. And, I sort of did it in alphabetical order. Don’t judge me. It took 2½ years. I learned a *lot* during that time, but the first thing I learned was that there were going to have to be rules. See, this might sound fun. It wasn’t, really. Remember, I was playing all the games that I hadn’t already played. The ones I really liked were already checked off the list. And, I was deliberately targeting games that were outside my comfort zone. Imagine going to your local game store, starting at one end of the shelf, and playing literally everything. It’s gonna hurt. So, I made rules. I had to play at least 4 games a week (I often played more, but a forced clip was necessary in some spots). I gave each game 1 hour from the moment I selected New Game. I *had* to stick with it for at least that. And, if the game showed me something new, something I hadn’t seen before, or if I had some insight about my project of learning about why people liked these games, I had to stick around for another hour. After that I was on my own. So, what did I learn?

Learning WWII Shooters Are Fun Horses and farms are a big deal
“Realism” doesn’t mean ‘boring’ Horses and farms are a big deal “Serene” doesn’t mean ‘boring’ The Sims is a blast “No story” doesn’t mean ‘boring’ First, I learned that WWII shooters are actually kinda cool. At the time, I was a 100% fantasy/sci-fi player, and so my shooter of choice was Quake 3. But, after my 10th or so WWII shooter, something strange started to happen. I started to recognize the gear. The games were all using the same weapons… because those were the weapons. The vehicles started to sink in… and I started to understand that “realism” doesn’t mean “boring” – it means “affinity”. Seeing something that you know and appreciate in the real world appear in your video game gives a feeling of familiarity that is… well, it’s actually quite nice. Realism started to make sense to me. Second, I played a lot of Barbie games, and I’m here to tell you: horses are a big deal. They are not only cool inherently, there is something strange and mystical about them that… well, yeah. It’s a thing, and it’s not (as I had imagined it was) a simple appeal. They are complex and difficult, and there is as much symbolism tied up in horses as there is tied up in cars (if not more). Third, games without a story can be cool, but games where the player is creating their own story can be *amazing* in the right circumstances. We know this now, but back then, it was something of a revelation. I learned all that and more. The list of stuff I picked up from this exercise is actually enormous, and those insights formed the foundation of starting to appreciate the types of players that were not like me. It worked!!

It’s for developing accurate empathy.
‘Player-Acting’ It’s for developing accurate empathy. It worked. At least, it worked for me. So, yes, I am proposing you do this. I am proposing you go and play a whole bunch of games that you might not otherwise play, and that during that process you do your best to pretend to be a person who would like those games. Or, find the part of yourself that would actually like it. Or, whatever other process that works for you, with the goal of increasing your empathy accuracy. But, perhaps you would like to do it in less than 2½ years, and with less than several hundred games?

Which games? Which motivations?
Yeah, those are good questions. Right. And, what player types/motivations/desires should you be shooting for?

The Big 5 (Gamer) Domains of Play (Game) Openness to Experience Novelty Conscientiousness Challenge Extraversion Stimulation Agreeableness Harmony So, now we loop back around to the Domains of Play. We have this tool, see. One that connects player (life) behavior with specific game elements. It’s a map. We’re going to build it out in detail now.

Brace yourself.

(Openness to Experience)
Novelty (Openness to Experience) Challenge (Conscientiousness) Harmony (Agreeableness) Stimulation (Extraversion) What we are going to build is a map, using our four domains, between individual player types and the kinds of games that they like. Easier than it sounds.

Novelty Challenge Harmony Stimulation
First, we have to confront a rather sticky problem. We have too many spectrums. The Big 5 offers us 30 facets, total. We’ve reduced it to 24 by putting Neuroticism to the side, but we are still left with 24 individual spectrums of preference. That’s too many for designers to be able to use on a daily basis. We need to reduce. How do we do that?

Are there ‘primary’ motivations for gaming?
“Which game features, if they don’t fit your preferences, will cause you to not play?” The simplest way to reduce the list might be to look for what motivations are the most important to gamers. Remember that facets like “Liberalism” don’t seem to correlate at all with gamer preferences, where other facets correlate well. That implies a spectrum of importance! I took a step towards this answer by inserting a new question into my ongoing interviews with players (remember, Big 5 test, qualitative interviews, etc.), inspired by a study I read that was looking at the differences between the Big 5 and SDT (Self-Determination Theory) in gamers. For each facet, I asked my interviewees whether or not that particular facet was important enough to them that if the game wasn’t giving them what they wanted, they would put down the controller (or keyboard).

This reduced the field dramatically. I found that these 24 facets fell in to three rough categories of importance, and that the top of the list were 8-10 specific facets.

(Openness to Experience) (Excitement-Seeking)
Realism vs. Fantasy Easy vs. Hard (Imagination) (Self-Efficacy) Novelty (Openness to Experience) Challenge Building vs. Exploring Work vs. Impulse (Adventurousness) (Self-Discipline) PvP vs Team Groups vs. Solo (Accomodation) (Gregariousness) Harmony Stimulation Context vs. Mechanics Here they are. For the record, this is where the bias inherent in trying to design something that fits on a page in a 4-type system influences the result. ;) The domain of Challenge actually has 2 other candidates for ‘primary-ness’ (achievement and caution), but because I was looking for something that designers would be able to hold in their mind, I made a selection. Just, you know, FYI. This is where “science” becomes “presentation” – but I hope that by now I have made the case that all the mnemonics I am building are based on a solid foundation. Thrilling vs. Serene (Sympathy) (Excitement-Seeking)

(Excitement-Seeking)
Explores Builds Fantasy Realism Novelty Easy vs. Hard (Self-Efficacy) Challenge Work vs. Impulse (Self-Discipline) PvP vs Team Groups vs. Solo (Accomodation) (Gregariousness) Harmony Stimulation Context vs. Mechanics Given that each domain now had two spectrums associated with it, the most natural thing to do next was to convert each domain into its own system of 4 types, and see what happened. It worked out well, I think. Thrilling vs. Serene (Sympathy) (Excitement-Seeking)

(Excitement-Seeking)
Explores Builds Fantasy Realism Novelty Skilled Less Skilled Work Challenge Not Work PvP vs Team Groups vs. Solo (Accomodation) (Gregariousness) Harmony Stimulation Context vs. Mechanics Thrilling vs. Serene (Sympathy) (Excitement-Seeking)

Novelty Challenge Stimulation Harmony
Explores Builds Fantasy Realism Novelty Skilled Less Skilled Work Challenge Not Work Thrill Calm Multiplayer Solo Stimulation PvP vs Team (Accomodation) Harmony Context vs. Mechanics (Sympathy)

Explores Builds Fantasy Realism Novelty Skilled Less Skilled Work Challenge Not Work Team PvP Harmony Context Mechanics Thrill Calm Multiplayer Solo Stimulation So, this is what we are going to build. We’re going to talk about what player archetypes represent each of these aspects of the four domains of play, and then talk about what games satisfy those archetypes. Remember, everyone has scores in all four of these domains (Novelty, Challenge, Stimulation, Harmony).

Inventor Fantasy Realism Adventurer Explores Builds Novelty (Openness to Experience) Let’s start with Novelty. North-South axix is Fantasy vs. Realism. East-West axis is Exploration vs. Building (roughly). Our Fantasy Explorer (the Adventurer, perhaps) is Alice (from Alice in Wonderland). Alice, who is happy to follow a rabbit down a hole, eat and drink whatever she comes across, and wander across the realm of Wonderland (and miss it when she comes home). Our Realism Explorer (the Investigator, perhaps) is Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock, who will get to the bottom of whatever it is he is confronted with, and is sure there is a reasonable explanation for all of this. Our Realism Builder (the Architect, perhaps) is Samwise Gamgee, who after going on the greatest adventure of all time and saving the world, wants nothing more than to just go back home to his garden. Really, that’s what he wanted all along. And, our Fantasy Builder (the Inventor, perhaps) is Tony Stark, who makes everything in the world that cannot possibly exist. Architect Investigator

Imagineer Fantasy Realism Adventurer Explores Builds Novelty (Openness to Experience) What games do these archetypes play? Alice is a big fan of Skyrim – but primarily the exploration part. Sherlock, unsurprisingly, is a fan of Pheonix Wright. Sam loves Anno. Build build build. And Tony plays a lot of StarCraft II, perhaps. Maybe some Minecraft. ----- So. Let’s return to empathy. You, as a designer, fall somewhere in one of these four quadrants (or, maybe two, if you have a score that is middling… or in some rare cases, you might be dead in the middle). For you, understanding the motivation of players like you is simple. So, now, here is a map to three other types of gamers, and an idea of the kind of games that they play. Go play these games. And, try to play them as though you were these people. Play-act. Fake it ‘till you make it. Architect Investigator

Challenge Novelty Harmony Stimulation
Fantasy Skilled Less Skilled Work Challenge Not Work Builds Novelty Explores Realism Team PvP Harmony Context Mechanics Thrill Calm Multiplayer Solo Stimulation Let’s put our Novelty build-out there. Onward!

Challenge Talent Masterer Perseverer Dabbler Skilled Play Impulse Play
Less Skilled Play Masterer Work Play Impulse Play Challenge (Conscientiousness) Challenge is next. North-South axis is skilled-play vs. less-skilled play. Note that it says ‘less-skilled’, not ‘suck’. People don’t generally play games that they cannot even functionally manage – what is being measured here is one’s tolerance for being less good at a game than the people around you. East-West axis is Impulse vs. Work play. Work, in this case, means repeated tasks. Grinding. Our Skilled-Work Gamer (the ‘Masterer’, perhaps) is Hermione Granger, who always always always gets the highest marks, has the answer, has done all her homework, and is prepared for any contingency. Our Less Skilled Work Gamer (the ‘Perseverer’, perhaps, although that is totally not a word) is Ron. Ron, who just isn’t very good at his work… but who gets along eventually, and is willing (although perhaps with some complaining) to go ahead and grind through it. Our Skilled-Impulse gamer (the Talent, perhaps) is Harry. Harry comes in with a great deal of initial ability, but doesn’t really want to do the work that is necessary to ace it. And, lastly, our Less Skilled Impulse gamer (the Dabbler, perhaps) is the Dude. (And if you haven’t seen The Big Lebowski, I highly recommend it.) The Dude, who’s primary ambition in life is to just bowl and hang out… Games? Dabbler Perseverer

Challenge Talent Masterer Perseverer Dabbler Skilled Play Impulse Play
Less Skilled Play Masterer Work Play Impulse Play Challenge (Conscientiousness) Hermione is a big fan of Dark Souls. Yes she is. Harry likes action-adventures, where he can jump in and be awesome right from the start, without too much effort. Ron is a fan of Farmville. He can make forward progress, without having to excel at anything in particular. And The Dude plays The Sims… but only with the money cheat, and without all the questing and missions and blah blah blah. Again, you fall into one (two, four) of these categories. The other categories are where your empathy blind spots are lurking. Play these games, as though you were these people. Learn to enjoy them. Develop accurate empathy. Dabbler Perseverer

Skilled Novelty Not Work Challenge Work Less Skilled Team PvP Harmony Context Mechanics Thrill Calm Multiplayer Solo Stimulation Two down!

Stimulation Shepherd Party Animal Lone Wolf Hermit Multiplayer
Solo Party Animal Excitement Serenity Stimulation (Extraversion) Stimulation! Our Multiplayer-Excitement player (the Party Animal, if you will) is Austin Powers. He’s always where the fun is, and it’s always a party. Our Solo-Excitement player (the Lone Wolf, perhaps) is Wolverine. Operates alone (although can be convinced to help out!), and is always at the center of the whirlwind. Our Multiplayer-Serenity player is Professor Charles Xavier (the Shepherd, perhaps). He believes in the power of the group, and will only allow violence as a last, last, last resort. Really, he would be happiest if peace actually was the answer. And, our Solo-Serenity player is Yoda (the Hermit, perhaps), who moved to his own planet to avoid other people. “Adventure. Heh! Excitement. Heh! A Jedi craves not these things!” Hermit Lone Wolf

Stimulation Shepherd Party Animal Lone Wolf Hermit Multiplayer
Solo Party Animal Excitement Serenity Stimulation (Extraversion) Austin and Wolverine both play Call of Duty, but for different reasons. Austin plays the multiplayer, and Logan plays the single-player (or, lone-wolfs the multiplayer game ;). Austin is also a fan of Just Dance 2. MAN that game is crazy fun at a party. (Not just saying that because I’m a Ubisoft dude. Seriously, try it with friends who are into it.) Yoda is a fan of Flower. Plays a lot of Flow, perhaps. Professor X’s habits are trickier to identify – not many games target the ‘peaceful multiplayer’ motivation. But they are out there! Animal Crossing is a good one, especially with the recent expansions in the 3DS version. Journey often comes up as an example for Professor X. Remember: a second player is not “multiplayer”. Hermit Lone Wolf

Team PvP Harmony Context Mechanics Multiplayer Calm Stimulation Thrill Play these games like these people. Three down. Solo

Harmony Soldier Sport Knight Killer Team Mechanics Context PvP
(Agreeableness) Harmony! North-South axis is Team vs. PvP. In general, ‘team’ means ‘happy when we win’, and PvP means ‘happy when someone else loses’. East-West axis is Mechanics vs. Context. This is generally the split you see in people who just want to play the game, and people who want to understand why, what is happening, who are these people, and what is behind the conflict. Our Team-Context player is Mickey Mouse (the Sport, perhaps), who is always always always there for his friends, and cares very deeply about why we are doing what we are doing. (Also, don’t fuck with Mickey – I’m talking about the King from Kindgom Hearts. He’s a badass.) Our PvP-Context player is Qui-Gon Jinn (the Knight, perhaps). Actually, it could be any Jedi, I just picked the one who wears his hair the same way I do. (Bonus for people reading the slides: female Knight archetype is The Bride from Kill Bill, perhaps). Our PvP-Mechanics player is Snake Plissken (the Killer, perhaps – and I’m borrowing Bartle’s term here, because it just fits so damn well). Snake, who in order to get him to care about another human being needed to have explosives planted in his neck connected to that person’s heartbeat. And, even then (spoilers!), he managed to stick it to The Man at the end. Our PvP-Team player is Nick Fury (the Soldier, perhaps), who doesn’t really need to know much more than that there’s a fight needing winning, but is all about his team. Killer Knight

Harmony Soldier Sport Knight Killer Team Mechanics Context PvP
(Agreeableness) Mickey plays games where there is lots and lots of context, and he can play with and within a team. That means RPGs, usually, which was a surprise to me, but whatever. Qui-Gon plays EVE Online. Lots of context, but can PvP to his heart’s content. Snake plays Quake-like games – not team deathmatch, mind you. Pure deathmatch. And Nick is a fan of League of Legends. Why do we fight? BECAUSE! Get out there and win! Killer Knight

Team Mechanics Harmony Stimulation Context And, here it is. This is the full map that I have managed to assemble from the Big 5 -> 5 Domains work. Here are 16 archetypes of player motivation (at least 4 of which you align with), and a rough idea of the types of games they play. So. PvP

“What’s it good for?” Yeah. What’s it good for? Let’s come back to our question.

‘Empathy Blind Spots’ Openness to Experience Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Remember: we are trying to find a map to our empathy blind spots?

Explores Builds Fantasy Realism Novelty Skilled Less Skilled Work Challenge Not Work Team PvP Harmony Context Mechanics Thrill Calm Multiplayer Solo Stimulation Here it is. These are the primary archetypes of player motivation (from the work I have done so far, at least).

Explores Builds Fantasy Realism Novelty Skilled Less Skilled Work Challenge Not Work Team PvP Harmony Context Mechanics Thrill Calm Multiplayer Solo Stimulation As an example, here are my motivations. I am a Tony Stark / Hermione Granger / Wolverine / Mickey Mouse player (TS/HG/WV/MM? Yeah, probably not). And, I can tell you : that’s pretty accurate for me.

What’s it good for?

Your players fit somewhere in this motivation system (at least, that’s what the modern science of the mind is telling us). Learn why they like what they like. Develop accurate empathy. (And you will become a Great Designer. Like Tim.)

Play these games as though you were these people.

Develop Accurate Empathy
Make Great Games 256 Player Types from 4 Domains The system produces 256 unique player types. That sounds like a lot! And, it is. Here’s the thing: the human mind does not owe it to you to be so simple that it can be explained in simple system. People are complex. And, perhaps, 256 individual types is a number that is getting close to something like the kind of variability we see in the real world. We can’t market to 256 types. We can’t even necessarily understand all 256 types. But we can understand a 4x4 system, and we can empathize with each part of this map. We can develop accurate empathy. Get going.

What’s Next? More focused quantitative studies on individual facet/element correlations Need to do more studies. I’m psyched to have come this far. More is coming.

“Are you using it on your game?”
“What’s it good for?” “Are you using it on your game?” There is this other question I get asked all the time. “Are you using it on your game?” I’m going to be frank: this question demonstrates a deep misunderstanding of how psychological knowledge actually works in a design (and in a designer). Yes, I’m using it on my game. But will I hook up “Novelty” electrodes, and measure each player’s desire for Adventurousness? No, probably not. But I absolutely will use my understanding of the human mind to make a game that satisfies as many of my players as I can, regardless of how much like me they are. And, in my humble opinion, so should you.

Thank You jason.vandenberghe@ubisoft.com @the_darklorde
The Big 5 test: That’s it! Make great games.

Acting Like Players Applying the 5 Domains of Play

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Acting Like Players Applying the 5 Domains of Play

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