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The lifecycles of a playerJune 16th, 2006 |
A while ago, a poster in the comments thread asked what I thought the lifecycles of players were. I don’t think there is only one lifecycle, is all. I know of several models that have stood up over time, so here they are, briefly described.
This one comes from The Social Dimensions of Habitat’s Citizenry.
The entire point of any thriving community is people. Habitat is an interactive environment where people define the parameters of their experience. Thus it is important to understand how people behave in these cyberspaces. In Habitat I observed five distinct patterns of usage and social commitment:
- The Passives ["they want effortless entertainment"; 75% of the userbase]
- The Actives [committed regular users]
- The Motivators ["They throw parties, start institutions, open businesses, run for office, start moral debates, become outlaws, and win contests."]
- The Caretakers ["They help the new players, mediate interpersonal conflicts, record bugs, suggest improvements, run their own contests, officiate at functions, and in general keep things running smoothly."]
- The Geek Gods [admins]
(Annotations mine).
In the Path to Ascension, Randy basically posits that people need to be encouraged to move up the ladder. In my experience, rarely do we see someone who is successful at being a Geek God without having gone through the other stages.
So that’s one path of development, taken from a fairly social-centric world.
A while back, a UO player named Hedron posted a whole bunch of intriguing design articles. One of them was a postulate he called “Circles” describing the growth of achievement-oriented players. It makes an interesting contrast with Randy’s path.
- First Circle players are newbies who just want to survive.
- Second Circle players are competent, and start to feel like the game is “fun.”
- Third Circle players are excelling. They’re also often cheating, as they take on the tough stuff.
- Fourth Circle players are about proving their mastery by either killing other players or mentoring them.
- Fifth Circle players are “done.” They need new challenges, which they might get by an alt, RP, moving to forums, guild play, a whole new game…
- Sixth Circle players are enlightened Zen beings that understand everything and every mode of play and blend them seamlessly.
You may notice that this approach has some real commonalities with A Theory of Fun. Circle One is about seeing the patterns as noise; Circles 2 and 3 are about recognizing the patterns, and even arriving at means to bypass them in exactly the way I describe in the book. Circle 4 is about exercising mastery, Circlce 5 seeks new challenges, and Circle 6 is grokking the pattern completely.
Both the above are referenced by the lifecycle that Richard Bartle described in his book Designing Virtual Worlds. In this, Dr. Bartle presents an expansion of his player types grid, converting it into a cube. He also identifies some trajectories through the types, which encompass to some degree the above two models.
His initial pass at a progression, with four types, described what he called the “main sequence.” It ran thusly:
- Killer
- Explorer
- Achiever
- Socializer
So players start out testing boundaries, then learn more about their environment, then play the game, then end up staying for their friends.
His more complex path through all the types can be seen here in this quickie photo (I didn’t take the time to scan it or reconstruct it, and it will only make sense if you are familiar with his expanded player type model): Edit: Morgan supplied the diagram I was too lazy to make!
I’m going to offer up just a few points built mostly on anecdotal evidence as regards these models.
First, that Achiever to Killer is a very common path. Once the game’s opponents are no longer interesting, being limited by crude AI, actual other players offer a better challenge. A lot of people never want to take this step, and it’s arguable that they are driven not only by the fact that they dislike PvP, but also by the fact that they are statistically certain to lose most of the time.
Second, that in many ways, we are all heading for a Socialization Destination. Everyone gets bored of a given virtual world (again, cf. Theory of Fun). They then hang out there only because it’s where their friends are. The games in these worlds are like the beer at a bar, the rides at a carnival. They are diversions, and the point for most ends up being the other people.
Third, that age, gender, and behavior are intimately related. Aggression is tightly linked with certain playstyles, including achievement. Anecdotally, many of the most aggressive players I have dealt with have been people in aggressive, confrontational, or dominant roles in real life, such as cops, lawyers, and the like. And of course, teenage males charged up on testosterone tend to drift to the aggressive roles as well. But as they age, older males tend to act more like female players do all along, losing interest in the overtly aggressive play.
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