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“I Don’t Fit into a Single Type”: A Trait Model and Scale of Game Playing Preferences

  • Gustavo F. TondelloEmail author
  • Karina Arrambide
  • Giovanni Ribeiro
  • Andrew Jian-lan Cen
  • Lennart E. Nacke
Conference paper
First Online:
Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNCS, volume 11747)

Abstract

Player typology models classify different player motivations and behaviours. These models are necessary to design personalized games or to target specific audiences. However, many models lack validation and standard measurement instruments. Additionally, they rely on type theories, which split players into separate categories. Yet, personality research has lately favoured trait theories, which recognize that people’s preferences are composed of a sum of different characteristics. Given these shortcomings of existing models, we developed a player traits model built on a detailed review and synthesis of the extant literature, which introduces five player traits: aesthetic orientation, narrative orientation, goal orientation, social orientation, and challenge orientation. Furthermore, we created and validated a 25-item measurement scale for the five player traits. This scale outputs a player profile, which describes participants’ preferences for different game elements and game playing styles. Finally, we demonstrate that this is the first validated player preferences model and how it serves as an actionable tool for personalized game design.

Keywords

Player traits Player types Player experience Video games Games user research 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the CNPq, Brazil; SSHRC [895-2011-1014, IMMERSe]; NSERC Discovery [RGPIN-2018-06576]; NSERC CREATE SWaGUR; and CFI [35819, JELF].

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© IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2019

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.University of WaterlooWaterlooCanada

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