Skip to main content

Player Personas and Game Choice

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:

Synonyms

Gameplay preference categories, Player profiles, Player types, Player typologies

Definition

Player personas are representations of player profile types, based on identified patterns in gameplay type preferences, motivations to play, or player behavior data. Player personas are constructed to support player-centric game design and targeted marketing.

Introduction

Since the early 1980s, categorizing video game preferences has been a sustaining topic in game research and game design literature. However, during the past 10 years, both mobile and non-mobile marketplaces have saturated, and the need for developing advanced player typologies for targeted marketing has become even more striking.

Consequently, many game companies lean today toward player-centric game development, which requires knowledge of the intended player audience and tools for identifying their representative player types or player personas. Determining the target audience impacts game design and monetization...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

References

  • Adams, E.: Fundamentals of Game Design, 3rd edn. New Riders, San Francisco (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  • Bartle, R.: Hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades: players who suit MUDs. J. Virt. Environ. 1(1), (1996.) http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm

  • Bartle, R.A.: Designing Virtual Worlds. New Riders, Boston (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  • Bateman, C., Lowenhaupt, R., Nacke, L. E.: Player typology in theory and practice. In: Proceedings of DiGRA 2011 Conference: Think Design Play, pp. 1–13. Utrecht, The Netherlands (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  • Bean, A., Groth-Marnat, G.: Video gamers and personality: a five-factor model to understand game playing style. Psychol. Pop. Media Cult. 5(1), 27–38 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000025

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bostan, B.: Player motivations: a psychological perspective. Comput. Entertain. 7(2.), Article 22), 1–26 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1145/1541895.1541902

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Braun, B., Stopfer, J.M., Müller, K.W., Beutel, M.E., Egloff, B.: Personality and video gaming: comparing regular gamers, non-gamers, and gaming addicts and differentiating between game genres. Comput. Hum. Behav. 55(A), 406–412 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, A.: About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design. Wiley Publishing Inc., Indianapolis (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  • Cowley, B., Charles, D.: Behavlets: a method for practical player modelling using psychology-based player traits and domain specific features. User Model. User-Adap. Inter. 26(2–3), 257–306 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deterding, S.: Modes of play. A frame analytic account of video game play. Academic Dissertation, University of Hamburg (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  • Drachen, A., Canossa, A., Yannakakis, G.N.: Player modeling using self-organization in Tomb Raider: Underworld. In: Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence and Games, Milan, Italy, 7–10 Sept 2009

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamari, J., Tuunanen, J.: Player types: a meta–synthesis. Trans. Digit. Games Res. Assoc. 1(2), 29 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  • Ip, B., Jacobs, G.: Segmentation of the games market using multivariate analysis. J. Target. Meas. Anal. Mark. 13(3), 275–287 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jeng, S.-P., Teng, C.-I.: Personality and motivations for playing online games. Soc. Behav. Personal. Int. J. 36(8), 1053–1060 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kallio, K.P., Mäyrä, F., Kaipainen, K.: At least nine ways to play: approaching gamer mentalities. Games Cult. 6(4), 327–353 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lankveld, G. v., Spronck, P., van den Herik, H. Arntz, A.: Games as personality profiling tools. In, Preuss, M. (ed). 2011 I.E. Conference on Computational Intelligence in Games (CIG’11), pp. 197–202. Seoul, South Korea (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  • McMahon, N., Wyeth, P., Johnson, D.: Personality and player types in Fallout New Vegas. In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Fun and Games, Association for Computing Machinery, Toulouse, pp. 113–116 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  • Mulligan, J., Patrovsky, B.: Developing Online Games: An Insider’s Guide. New Riders, San Francisco (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  • Pirker, J., Griesmayr, S., Drachen, A., Sifa, R.: How playstyles evolve: progression analysis and profiling in just cause 2. In: Wallner, G., Kriglstein, S., Hlavacs, H., Malaka, R., Lugmayr, A., Yang, H.S. (eds.) Entertainment Computing – ICEC 2016 Lecture notes in computer science, vol. 9926. Springer, Cham (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  • Przybylski, A., Rigby, C.S., Ryan, R.M.: A motivational model of video game engagement. Rev. Gen. Psychol. 14(2), 154–166 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019440

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ryan, R.M., Rigby, C.S., Przybylski, A.: The motivational pull of video games: a self–determination theory approach. Motiv. Emot. 30(4), 344–360 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sherry, J.L., Lucas, K., Greenberg, B.S., Lachlan, K.: Video game uses and gratifications as predictors of use and game preference. In: Vorderer, P., Bryant, J. (eds.) Playing Video Games. Motives, Responses, and Consequences, pp. 213–224. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, New York (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  • Stewart, B.: Personality and play styles: A unified model. In: Gama­sutra. (2011). http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6474/per­sonality_and_play_styles_a_.php

  • Teng, C.-I.: Personality differences between online game players and nonplayers in a student sample. Cyberpsychol. Behav. 11(2), 232–234 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tondello, G.F., Wehbe, R.R., Orji, R., Ribeiro, G., Nacke, L.E.: A framework and taxonomy of videogame playing preferences. CHI PLAY’17, 15–18 Oct, Amsterdam (2017). https://doi.org/10.1145/3116595.3116629

  • Tseng, F.-C.: Segmenting online gamers by motivation. Expert Syst. Appl. 38, 7693–7697 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tychsen, A., Canossa, A.: Defining personas in games using metrics. Future Play 2008, 3–5 Nov, Toronto (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  • Vahlo, J.: An enactive account of the autonomy of videogame gameplay. Game Stud. 17(1), (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  • Vahlo, J., Kaakinen, J., Holm, S., Koponen, A.: Digital game dynamics preferences and player types. J. Comput.-Mediat. Commun. 22(2), 88–103 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12181

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Webster, J.G.: The role of structure in media choice: a theoretical and empirical overview. In: Hartmann, T. (ed.) Media Choice: A Theoretical and Empirical Overview, pp. 221–233. Routledge, New York/London (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  • Worth, N.C., Book, A.S.: Dimensions of video game behavior and their relationships with personality. Comput. Hum. Behav. 50, 132–140 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yannakakis, G.N., Spronck, P., Loiacono, D., André, E.: Player modeling. In: Artificial and Computational Intelligence in Games Dagstuhl seminar 12191, pp. 45–55. Dagstuhl Publishing, Saarbrücken/Wadern (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  • Yee, N.: Motivations for play in online games. Cyberpsychol. Behav. 9(9), 772–775 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yee, N., Ducheneaut, N., Nelson, L.: Online gaming motivations scale: Development and validation. Chi’12, pp. 1–4. (2012). https://doi.org/10.1145/2207676.2208681

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jukka Vahlo .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Vahlo, J., Koponen, A. (2018). Player Personas and Game Choice. In: Lee, N. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08234-9_149-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08234-9_149-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-08234-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-08234-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Computer SciencesReference Module Computer Science and Engineering

Publish with us

Policies and ethics