Types of Gamers: What Kind of Gamer Are You According to the Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology
Have you ever heard of an Enneagram test? Perhaps you’ve learned about Myers-Briggs personality types in school or through friends. Maybe you’ve even taken some less serious personality quizzes someone shared on social media. Does “Which Harry Potter Character Are You?” ring any bells?
Technically, these are all tests of your psychology. Psychology tests have become quite popular over the last decade or two, particularly as social media and other internet outlets have made finding, trying, and sharing them easier and more rewarding than ever.
They can be informative, just plain fun, or anywhere in between. Today, we’re talking about one test in particular: the Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology.
The Bartle test evaluates your psychology in the context of gaming. Through it, you can learn more about what specific aspects of video games you enjoy and why you enjoy them.
You can even learn what kind of gamers you’ll get along with best, those you’ll clash with, and what types of games are most likely to appeal to you.
Once you take the test, it might confirm what you already knew, or you may learn something new about yourself! In any case, there’s worthwhile information and entertainment to be had.
Read on for our WTFast guide to the Bartle test of gamer psychology and all the ways you can apply it to your own experiences to make your gaming life even better!
What Is the Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology?
The Bartle test of gamer psychology started as a paper written by Richard Bartle in 1996. It was originally focused on multiplayer gaming, particularly MMORPG’s and forum-based games called MUDs.
Ultimately the test was born out of a forum debate around certain games and what players wanted to see changed or improved. Bartle found that responses were trending towards four different groups of thought, so he formalized some classifications and expanded the work until he ended up with what we have today.
How Does the Bartle Test Work?
The Bartle test of gamer psychology is a short questionnaire that provides a series of questions, each with exactly two answers to choose between. The test determines which of the four types of gamer is your dominant type based on your choices.
The test consists of 30 questions. The answer choices correspond to a positive or negative direction on one of two axes: player vs. world or action vs. interaction.
If that all sounds confusing, don’t worry! We’re going to break it down.
Player vs. World
The player vs. world axis measures whether you find enjoyment from aspects that rely on other players or the game content itself.
When the Bartle test was first conceived, it only considered multiplayer games. Its ideas have since been expanded to include single-player gaming so that we can treat “player” interactions as synonymous with “non-player character” interactions.
If you lean towards the player end of this axis, social interaction is a must. This can manifest in wildly different ways based on your gamer type, but it means you’ll want to interact with other players or characters in one way or another to find value in the game.
The types of players that lean towards the player end of the spectrum are socializers and killers.
On the other hand, the world end of the axis represents enjoyment drawn from the game’s non-character content. This could comprise anything from creating a map of a certain level to beating a survival challenge against natural elements placed into the game world.
Explorers and achievers favor world interaction.
Action vs. Interaction
The second axis measures whether you prefer to act directly on the game (also called unilateral action) or interact.
Action is defined by clearly definable rewards and consequences. Game actions are quantified but not entirely concerned with quality.
Examples of action inside a game could include progressing through and completing a challenge, killing another player, or acquiring gold.
Action is more important for achievers and killers than socializers and explorers.
On the other hand, interaction is all about personal experiences gained through the game. The results of interaction are usually less tangible, more quality-based than quantity.
Examples of interaction inside a game could include learning another character’s backstory, seeing the beauty of a landscape, or discovering how a certain map is laid out.
Interaction is the focus of explorers and socializers.
What Does My Gamer Type Mean?
The four gamer types reflect how you like to play games and why.
Achiever
The achiever wants to overcome challenges, top leaderboards, and generally conquer the game. Achievers are competitive and can also comprise what we might colloquially call “try-hards” in extreme cases.
Other types of achievers in modern gaming include speed runners or highly competitive players, including many professional esports players.
Explorer
The explorer wants to discover as much as they can. Nothing is worthwhile unless it is bringing some new information or experience into the hands of an explorer. You can expect an explorer to get bored of repetitive gameplay loops or any game with low amounts of unique content.
You might think of a “completionist” as an explorer or somewhere between an explorer and achiever.
Socializer
The most important part of the game for a socializer is the players or NPCs around them. Socializers want to experience living stories and personalities. They want to entertain, laugh, and influence in various ways. A socializer could be as simple as a gossip, a class clown, or a genuine leader.
Killer
Killers like to enact their will on everything around them. True to their name, when a game permits, killers often get their enjoyment from killing (or otherwise defeating) other players. The more this frustrates their victim, the more it enthralls the killer.
In today’s terms, you’d probably refer to a killer as a troll.
How the Axes Determine Your Gamer Type
Your answers will move you farther along the two axes until the test determines which gamer type you correspond to most closely:
Achiever: World, Action
Explorer: World, Interaction
Killer: Player, Action
Socializer: Player, Interaction
Bartle admitted that most players have some draw to each of the four gamer types in various ways – in other words, the types are never mutually exclusive. An achiever has little bits of explorer, socializer, and killer inside them, and vice versa.
Your gamer type might also vary on different occasions. One day you might not feel as driven towards achievement and instead opt to play like a socializer. Of course, this is a natural and subconscious adaptation that happens in all gamers.
If This Seems Too Simple…
It’s important to address a common criticism of the Bartle test, which regards the binary nature of the question format and relatively simplistic system for determining your gamer type.
Indeed, this isn’t the most complex psychology test out there by any means. Popular tests such as Myers-Briggs offer much greater depth and require more complexity by nature – after all, they deal with a much wider array of situations.
Ultimately, the Bartle test may not be particularly complex, but its simplicity is elegant and effective.
Nearly a million gamers have taken the test since its inception, and it’s helped gamers find ways to better interact with others or improve themselves for a more healthy gaming environment for all.
Bartle’s test is even used in academic environments and beyond to improve how people can interact with others.
What Your Results Mean for Your Gaming Experience
The Bartle test is just an entertaining waste of time if you don’t consider how your results can impact and improve your gaming experience.
Let’s talk about it together!
Improving Your Multiplayer Etiquette
One of the greatest strengths of the Bartle test is how it breaks down the different ways player types interact with each other.
These relationships are endlessly complex in practice, but some fundamental aspects can be meaningfully defined. Bartle’s paper details how each gamer type relates to the others.
Bartle's analysis's most important recurring theme is that many gamer types often seek to impose, directly or indirectly, their gaming psychology onto other players.
For instance, achievers talk down to explorers as “failures,” explorers see the efforts of achievers as futile, killers mock socializers as useless, and socializers reprimand killers for ruining their experience.
In all these examples, conflicting gamer types see their desires as more important or worthy than those of different gamer types. In many cases, they attempt to impose these thoughts in a toxic way.
Other than extreme lag, toxic social interactions are one of the most common ways a player might lose their love for gaming. Gaming would be better off without these conflicts, and taking Bartle’s test is one step towards that future!
Improving Your Gaming
If there’s anything we should take away from this test at the end, it is this: for the good of everyone’s experience, we should understand that we all play for different reasons and find a balance so that everyone can enjoy themselves.
With Bartle’s test of gamer psychology under your belt, you’re better prepared than ever to go out and enjoy your gaming. If improving your gaming in every way is an important goal for you, consider adding a GPN to your online gaming setup as well!
A GPN not only improves the speed of your online connection (which means reduced ping and better input relay), it also adds serious stability.
Conclusion
From the most competitive online gamer to the most casual player who wants a stress-free experience, a gaming VPN such as our WTFast GPN can completely change the way you game. Try it today!
For all the latest info and ways to upgrade your gaming, stick right here with the WTFast blog.
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