Why do We Play? Towards a Comprehensive Player Typology

Abstract

The video games industry has been growing constantly for the past several decades, but there is no empirically validated industry standard for measuring motivation of play. Although there have been a number of player typologies, they display sizable deviations in the player types described, many of which are insufficiently supported by validation studies. The literature thus far lacks an attempt to test these deviations by bringing differences in the specifics on the same scale. A survey (n = 1090) across 440 different games using an 80-item questionnaire found eleven motivations of play: Social, Social Competition, Challenge, Escapism, Role-Playing, Power Fantasy, Creation, Exploration, Completion, Griefing, and Competitive Team-Play. These results map onto some established types, add some new ones that are not as embedded in the literature, and re-contextualize others such as immersion which, while highly present in the literature, were not found to be distinct motivations of play.