Bartle's Player Archetypes

I talk about the Bartle taxonomy of players and how I have used that in my games.

Book I reference:

Videos I reference:

[tomtalkstropes]

Richard Bartle is actually my professor at Essex University. He is essentially the grandfather of MMO's. Seeing the creator of one of my favorite fictional worlds talk about him actually blows my mind.
I keep forgetting that he is kinda famous..

[ferver-san]

I have noticed that when i max out my character's level and abilities, my interest to continue playing the game greatly drops.
Regardless of what other goals are left inside the game world.

[Validifyed]

Your summary is basically how I feel about every design framework. MDA, Value Chains, Player Archetypes. They're all just different ways of approaching and viewing a problem. They can be helpful in the right situation, and a distraction in the wrong one.

[spectr__]

One important thing to remember with any kind of archetypes, is that people will never be 100% percent one or another. So for games for example, when playes choose their main class or path, I think it's important to not lock them out too much of other experiences.

[Anubis]

There's a surprising amount of psychological depth to Bartle's Taxonomy, especially in how different players change alignments in different situations.

Normally, I'm an Explorer through and through, but in multiplayer situations I become almost 100% a Socializer and prefer to focus on support and steering the group towards quests. In games like EDF and Helldivers, which thrive on the catharsis of combat, I forego them both and become a Killer.
Can't say I ever become an achiever, though. Games that cater to that too heavily give me a headache.

But it's fascinating how people react and change what they enjoy depending on what they're doing, and I love thinking about this stuff every time I play a new game.

[Notemug]

This makes so much sense! My best childhood friend, with whom I played many games, was a killer explorer whereas I was an achiever socializer. This often lead to interesting disagreements.

[TheEternalVortex]

I think there’s a missing archetype which we could call Creator. That would be a player that likes to express creativity in the game. Unlike achiever you set your own goals for yourself and unlike explorer it’s not about finding existing content but making your own. These archetypes would be drawn to games with crafting, customization, builds, etc

[adamcoxworthy]

I would never have called myself a social player, I actively avoid multiplayer games, but based on these descriptions that's the archetype that fits me best.

[jubbyquarkret]

It's been a tough morning. Ty tim

[jamesdavis]

I feel like this also helps players figure out what they like as well, which might result in better feedback from said players. So instead of saying "this game is bad", they might say "I don't feel like this game is rewarding me enough for exploring it" or something to that effect.

I love the theory/psychology content, keep up the good work Tim!

[iftheshuafits]

Your videos are a great way to start the day. Thanks for sharing your insights and wisdom.

[Firnthuleien]

Hearing you talk about the Wildstar Paths brought back a huge wave of nostalgia.

I've always been what I like to call a "wall climber" (Using available in game methods like terrain to get on top of buildings/etc when my character doesn't yet have access to a form of flight/super jump) so I immediately gravitated to the explorer. I have many fond memories of just chillin on top of mountains (and other places) and bumping into other explorers - there are of course other factors, but remembering the joy of the exploration is something that makes me miss Wildstar all the more.

I'll be honest, when you mentioned Wildstar, I went down a Google rabbit hole; Consider me tickled pink that I never realized you had a hand in so many other favourite games of my youth, let alone one of my favourite MMOs!

As for the Bartle's Archetypes, if the above commentary didn't imply it enough, I definitely lean heavily into the explorer type and probably close, if not almost equally, into the socializer type with a healthy sprinkle of the achiever to top things off.

[Beodude]

Tim I just want to say thanks for what you've done. I played Fallout back when it came out, and have enjoyed the series since. I hope you enjoy seeing what you created flourish. I really like your videos, and getting glimpses into the dev side of how things work. Thanks!

[Pedone_Rosso]

For me, a player, those archetypes correspond to some of the different ways I've had pleasure from video-games.
Not a single one of them describes me, they (almost) describe me only when they all combine together.
Therefore I think
- they don't work as archetypes for players' description (they don't encapsulate a single video-game player like me),
- but they can still work in encapsulating defined ways a single video-game player like me can have fun in video-games.
Which makes complete sense since those archetypes are statistical observations and groupings made on players of a single specific game.
I mean, if the specific game in question happened to be Tetris, for sure we would be talking about very different archetypes...

Speaking about game developers, from an outside point of view like mine,
I would think this archetypes approach could be beneficial when the kind of game you're developing is already well defined,
when you deduce your archetypes from an analysis of games with similar game-play features, or at least of the same genre.

Thanks for your videos!

[Distortion]

Tim confirmed wizard, you can spot the orb.

[Krejii]

Idk why but i can play games like fallout or other RPGs like TES for example, i almost can never play as a bad person But when i played red dead 2 i just went completely psychotic.

I feel like I’m more of a explorer, its always fun to see what the developers have built in their game. Especially when its like first hand discovery and not spoiled or from seeing it somewhere else.

Skyrim back in my childhood was like genuinely unbeatable for this, i really wish i could get into games as much as i did as a kid for skyrim.

[franzgriffle]

Got my RP obsession with Muds, they taught me how to retain what I read, and just over all I have fond memories of them.

Great video !

[pitchforker]

Wintermute?? Was that from William Gibson's Neuromancer? OMG I'd love to hear more about that .
Also, re: this topic, I've always been ambivalent about min-maxing characters. How to do it is good info, but that's not why I like playing. Interesting... I'm more of an explorer, apparently.

[KayleighBourquin]

I'm a combination of Explorer and Socialiser. It's why I'm so addicted to Bethesda-style games.

[Balyrion]

I felt exactly the same way about everquest when it came out, I described it as a MUD with graphics. I was a hardcore LP mud player in the 90s, it is actually why I got recessed from the university my freshman year because I stayed up all night in the engineering building MUDing instead of going to class and studying...My favorite MUDs in those days were StickMUD and TimeWarp.