Developing a New Major

players ot just teenage boys anymore – lots of new players especially since mid 90s – games on the web are a big reason for that change – look at data from the Entertainment SoftwareAssociation for newest figures

can’t target your games to everyone – gotta find the right part of your market

gotta understand players (your market if you’re trying to sell games) and why players want to play games – gives us ideas about what to include in games, what features, what themes, and it might be different from country to country and from generation to generation

bartle has “player suits” – his 4 groups of people and why they play MUDs from 1996 – socializers, killers, achievers, explorers

Bartle’s 4 “player suits” – from 1996 – do people enjoy acting on (manipulating, exploiting, controlling) or interacting with (learning, communicating, examining) the game world. his 4 suits

• hearts (socializers, enjoy learning about adn communicating with other players)
• clubs (killers, want to manipulate other players – there were 2 kinds of killers (griefers who try to dominate others thru tricks and they’re selfish and don’t thnk about the why of domination only the how; and  politicians who try to manipulate others open and for selfless reasons and think about their actions and try to rationalize them as helping hte game),
• diamonds (achievers, want to interact with the game world)
• spades (explorers, enjoy manipulaint the game world, one kind of explorer explores as experiment, use some strategy and think about their exploring as an experiment, they try to come up with theories about the world and then test the edges of those theories; another kind of exploerer is the guru who doesn’t have to think about their exploration or make theories because they sort of just know stuff about the world and understand it implicity)
• he says that a good MMO (that’s what he studied and owrked on) – needed a healthy mix of the 4 styles,
• he realized that it didn’t take into account how players change over time,he saw many people move from killer to explorer to achiever to socializer, some people went back adn forth between killer and socializer – what explains the change is how much you know about the world, how immersed you are in the world
• doesn’t take into account fun as a motivation for playing or liking immersion, more you know the more you’re able to  feel a part of the world and be yourself
• he says we could link it to Campbell’s the hero’s journey as we move thru the player types – except rather than experiencing it 2nd hand thru reading a story you experience it first hand as the hero/player

- not totally mutually exclusive categories, and players change motivation over time which isn’t reflected in the suits (and players kind of go thru the hero’s journey in their reasons for playing), it is based on his own observation and not theory or experimental work, and importantly for us – doesn’t take into account tha tmany people playing for fun, for immersion

• social interaction is a reason to play – see it a lot in mmog’s, lots of in game communicaiton tools, people can be social even when physically secluded iwht online games, don’t have to be physically together to play together- socialization – can take place at different levels: in person – 2 peopel at the arcade machine, people in the room while you’re playing; virtually – play with and socialize with people in the game – like in an MMO – players might look solitary because there’s no one around in their house while they’re playing but really they’re interacting with thousands of people  – no geographical boundaries; people not always in character, talk about real world stuff

• competition is another reason to play – it’s a thrill, not just videogames but even historic games, it’s thrilling, all kinds of games and sports let you compete against other people or the computer, competition can be combo’d with cooperation
• gaining knowledge is another reason – knowledge and strategies, not always a conscious goal, learn by accident is fun, game strategies, sometimes unconscious motivation, but could also learn content while playing (educational games), could build in learning by accident – and cooking mama is not a kid’s game!
• mastery is related -people want to master the game, gotta increase skills as much as possible, want to see high scores and rankings, want to master the game, want to be an advanced player, level up their character by gaining new skills, want high score
• escapism from real life stress – game worlds often less restrictive than real owrlds, fewer rules, less harsh punishments for breaking rules, get away from stress in real life, might be because game rules have their own rules that are more easily mastered than real life rules, get to participate in these rules not like watching movies or books (passive), can do things in the game you can’t do in real life – fly, shoot bad guys, be a singing star
• addiction is a  reason to play – people get addicted to being involved in the story, the immersion, the decision making and the feedback, the involvement
• exercise – from games like DDR and now Wii Fit

geographics – different countries have different technological infrastructures and market sizes and govt support and govt interference (especially policies about acceptable/allowable content), talks about South Korea – most wired country in the world, lots of homes with broadband, NCSoft launched Lineage MMOG in 1998 during economic crisis in Korea, out of work IT folks set up PC game parlors in their homes wiht low hourly fees to play (called Baangs) and as economy got better they moved out of the homes and became entertainment centers for couples on dates, they have competitive online gaming that are shown on tv, nearly everyone plays games there are game parlors on practically every block, being a professional gamer is a real career, govt helps start up game companies

psychographics – people’s attitudes and lifestyles and behavior patterns, VALS (values, attitudes and lifestyles survey – reports ideals, achievement, self-expresion) can be taken online – http://www.sric-bi.com/VALS/presurvey.shtml, also measured by Myers-Brigs type indicator (soruce of energy, source of info, approach to solving problems, orientation to outside world), Ernest Adams supposedly had a project to apply myers-briggs test to videogame players.

demographics – age, gender, marital status, education, religion, ethnicity, hardcore vs casual game preference – not as useful because there’s no info about why people play the games they do, better to study personality and motivations; generations of gamers (silent – 65+ years old – not many games really target them, boomer 45-65 years old, gen x 25-45 years old, millenials 5 to 25 years old) – chapter has a little info on each of hte generations with some ideas about the kinds of games that might interest them – come back for more notes

questions at the end of hte chapter – question 2 and 8 ask them to look at =themselves and why they play, which of bartles types they are; maybe we have them give their friends the VALS, importance of generational differences and geographic differences – need a question or two/small project – maybe use question 6 and 3, maybe have them look at games in other countries – ? japan, europe?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Gaming May Foster Teen Civic Engagement
• Lineage online RPG makes a comeback
• Gaming is Increasingly Social
• What makes video games ‘addictive’?
• U.S. online video game subscriptions generate $1 billion in revenues per year

Trackback URL