Why Don't People Play Games - Game Invaders: The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games - page 61

perhaps. However, as we already pointed out, due to the cinematic nature of the
gameplay, there are many reports of people enjoying watching other people play
Resident Evil which adds a defi nite social fun dimension in terms of XEODesign's
four emotional keys to gameplay.
This game is not for people who like their fun relaxing, to be reality based, and
to involve real people and real situations. You need to be a pretty serious gamer to
enjoy Resident Evil. This sits well with the brief analysis we already did in terms
of activity profi le, genre, and aesthetics.
But can we relate all this to players in general?
PLAYER TYPES
Various people have attempted to categorized player types. Richard Bartle, the
inventor of MUDs , which gave rise to MOOs , did some work on this (Bartle). MOOs
probably accommodate more player types in more ways than any other game genre
or single game ever made. Because of their unrivaled feature of offering players the
ability to add their own content—weapons, buildings and landscapes, characters,
and so on— MUDs quickly attracted a whole host of player types who could adapt
a MUD to their own gameplay desires and attempt to cohabit with other player types.
In fact, the clash of player types has always been one of the main problems with
MMORPGs . From his own experiences, Richard Bartle identifi ed four players types
commonly found within MUDs / MOOs :
• Hearts: Socializers; they emphasize with other players.
• Clubs: Killers; no more need be said.
• Diamonds: Always seeking treasure.
• Spades: Always searching; for information, for example.
It is not diffi cult to see that we could take these four types and relate them to par-
ticular games, genres, and activity profi les. Hearts might be more interested in
Second Life, The Sims and the more social aspects of MMORPGs . Clubs will, not
surprisingly, prefer shooters , racing games , and the like. Diamonds and Spades
could be expected to be more interested in action adventure , adventure , and RPGs .
International Hobo took this idea a step further and conducted some in-depth
research to see if they could identify the main characteristics that distinguish player
types with respect to computer games in general (International Hobo). We' ll sum-
marize their work.
In talking to a large number of game players, fi nding out their gameplay and
genre preferences and getting them to fi ll out personality profi le questionnaires, they
collected and analyzed a large body of data which they mapped down onto a range
of player types. Again, there were basically four: Conquerors, Managers, Wanderers,
and Participants. They also found players could be distinguished by whether they
were hardcore or casual players. So conquerors could be either hardcore or casual
and their gameplay preferences would differ accordingly.