• Chris Bateman’s got a list of the nine basic player types discussion going on at his blog, Only A Game, which is very interesting – I’m always very tickled by the names people use to describe player types. He’s got the conqueror, manager, wanderer, participant, hoarder, zoner, juggernaut, monster and hotshot. The difficult thing about creating player types is that it becomes hard to distinguish between a play method and a player ‘type’, at least that’s what I found in my work. For example a conqueror may easily use one of a hoarder’s play method – but is not a hoarder because of it, she is still a conqueror. This confused me, but it seems Wise Mr. Bateman’s got a good handle on things – I’m looking forward to seeing what he comes up with. The really interesting part was the beginning of the post:

Below you will find descriptions of nine hypothetical player patterns that
I would expect to find by examining the gaming audience in terms of the
following three areas: Caillois’ patterns of play, Agon, Alea, Mimicry
and Ilinx, plus Ludus and Paidia. No study has ever been conducted on player attitudes to these patterns, and I believe it could be useful.
Emotions. Not just the ones Nicole Lazzaro reports in her Four Keys Model (which of course I adore), but all the emotions that might apply: Sadness/Agony, Anger, Surprise/Fear, Disgust/Contempt, Amusement, Contentment, Excitement/Relief, Wonder, Bliss, Fiero, Naches, Elevation, Gratitude, Schadenfreude, Guilt/Shame, Embarrassment, and Envy. Plus emotion-like behaviours such as Curiosity, Belonging and Greed. (See here for more information). I expect to broadly validate the Four Keys model, strengthen the implied connection between Anger and Fiero, and demonstrate further connections previously unexplored such as Amusement outside of People Fun and Contentment as a key play emotion previously overlooked because of the method used for Four Keys. Skills (derived from Temperament Theory), namely Strategic, Tactical, Logistical and Diplomatic skill sets.

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