A quick look at how and why I went from Bartle's four MMO player types to my eight Gamification user types. ------ Bartle’s Player Types work really well for MMO games. However, their interactions rely on one major thing – Gameplay. I decided to create a categorisation that was more suited to gamified systems (with a little input from Richard himself).

1. From MMO Player
Types to Gamification
User Types
Andrzej Marczewski
marczewski.me.uk
@daverage

2. Bartle’s Player Types
• Bartle’s 4 Player Types are well known in game
design and gamification.
• They are; Killer, Achiever, Explorer, Socialiser.
• The player types are a dynamic model based on
MMO games.
• Richard explains all of the various interactions for
each type in great detail.
• There is also a model that explains how many players
will ‘evolve’ through different player types over time.
• Many people don’t know that he later expanded this
4 type model to a more comprehensive 8 types
© Andrzej Marczewski 2013

3. The very well know Bartle’s 4 Player Types
ACTING
Killers Achievers
PLAYERS WORLD
Socialisers Explorers
INTERACTING
© Andrzej Marczewski 2013

4. The less well known Bartle’s 8 Player Types
Griefers Opportunists
ACTING
Politicians Planners
IMPLICIT
PLAYERS WORLD
EXPLICIT
Friends Hackers
INTERACTING
Networkers Scientists
© Andrzej Marczewski 2013

5. Andrzej’s 4 User Types
• Bartle’s Player Types work really well for MMO
games. However, their interactions rely on one major
thing – Gameplay.
• I decided to create a categorisation that was more
suited to gamified systems (with a little input from
Richard himself).
• I came up with 4 main user types; Achiever,
Philanthropist, Free Spirit, Socialiser and one
modifier type that I initially referred to as the Player
type.
• As I explored these categories it became clear that 4
was just not going to be enough.
© Andrzej Marczewski 2013

6. The Initial User Types and their basic motivations
Willing to
Player Rewards
“Play”
Not Willing to Relatedness /
Socialiser
“Play” Social
Free Spirit Autonomy
Achiever Mastery
Philanthropist Purpose
I started by looking at the 4 basic intrinsic
motivations, Relatedness, Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. I then
wanted to represent the types of users who would respond to Extrinsic
rewards.
© Andrzej Marczewski 2013

7. The 4 basic user types mapped against personal gain and structure
Material
Achievers Free Spirits
Mastery Autonomy
Structured Unstructured
Relatedness Purpose
Socialisers Philanthropists
Non - Material
© Andrzej Marczewski 2013

8. Andrzej’s 8 User Types
• Following in Bartle’s footsteps, I moved away from
looking at the types of gain that a user would get and
whether they needed structure or not.
• I decided to go with Richards original axes – Acting
on and What they are acting on. In this case, Users or
Systems (rather than Players or Worlds)
• I now had 8 user types, 4 that were motivated
intrinsically and those that needed extrinsic
motivations.
© Andrzej Marczewski 2013

9. The Player User Type Expanded
Socialiser
+ Reward
= Networker
Free Spirit
+ Reward
= Exploiter
Achiever
+ Reward
= Consumer
Philanthropist
+ Reward
= Self Seeker
I quickly realised that the Player type was a
categorisation in it’s own right, one that was
extrinsically motivated.
© Andrzej Marczewski 2013

10. Andrzej’s 8 User Types
Self Seekers Motivations
Reward
Primary
Secondary
Exploiters
Purpose Networkers
Consumers
Mastery
Philanthropists
Relatedness /
Social Achievers
Socialisers
Autonomy
Free Spirits
© Andrzej Marczewski 2013

11. User Types – Acting On / Intrinsic Motivation
ACTING
Philanthropist Achiever
Purpose Mastery
USERS SYSTEM
Relatedness Autonomy
Socialiser Free Spirit
INTERACTING
© Andrzej Marczewski 2013

12. User Types – Acting On / Extrinsic Motivation
ACTING
Self Seeker Consumer
Reward Reward
USERS SYSTEM
Reward Reward
Networker Exploiter
INTERACTING
© Andrzej Marczewski 2013

13. 8 User Types of Gamification
Self Seekers Consumers
ACTING
Philanthropists Achievers
EXTRINSIC
USERS SYSTEM
INTRINSIC
Networkers Exploiters
INTERACTING
Socialisers Free Spirits
© Andrzej Marczewski 2013

14. Supporting User Types
Social
Virtual Goods Badges Points Social Status Networkers
Connections
Visible Status Virtual Goods Badges Points Exploiters
Virtual Goods Consumers
Exclusive
Leaderboards Virtual Goods Badges Points Self Seekers
Content
Social
Social Status Socialisers
Connections
Unlockable
Customisation Free Spirits
Content
Exclusive
Visible Status Quests Levels Achievers
Content
Social Status Giving Philanthropists
© Andrzej Marczewski 2013

15. For more, please visit http://www.marczewski.me.uk/user-types/
Philanthropists: Seek a sense purpose from a system (e.g.
answering questions on Quora, contributing to Wikipedia).
Achievers: Seek enrichment and mastery from the system
(e.g. learning systems, being best at tasks).
Socialisers: Seek interactions and relatedness with other
people (e.g. engaged social media users).
Free Spirits: Seek autonomy and creativity in a system (e.g.
customisation of environment, avatar, journey).
Self Seekers: Seek rewards from interacting with others (e.g.
answering peoples questions just for points. Quantity over
Quality).
Consumers: Seek to get rewards from the system with little
interaction (e.g. loyalty schemes).
Networkers: Seek to connect to others to increase their
profile and the rewards that may bring (e.g. Klout obsessive’s).
Exploiters: Seek to gain reward from using the
system, possibly by any means (e.g. liking Facebook pages for
prizes, finding the loopholes that help them win).
Acting On for Intrinsic Reasons Acting On for Extrinsic Rewards Personal Gain and need for Structure
© Andrzej Marczewski 2013

16. Andrzej Marczewski
marczewski.me.uk
@daverage
Gamification is one tool to increase engagement, enjoyment and
motivation. However, throwing game elements at a fundamentally
broken system is a like putting a long hairy
tail on a rabbit and calling it a monkey.
It’s not going to work and it
isn’t going to fool anyone.
© Andrzej Marczewski 2013