Motivations of Play in MMORPGs.pdf

Motivations of Play in MMORPGs

Results from a Factor Analytic Approach

by Nick Yee

Available at http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/motivations.pdf

Introduction

Asking MMORPG players why they play reveals a dazzling array of varied motivations. Indeed, this wide

variation illustrates why MMORPGs are so appealing - because they are able to attract people with very

different motivations for playing.

After many weeks of watching I found myself interested in the interactions between people in

the game, it was totally absorbing!!!! The fact that I was able to immerse myself in the game and

relate to other people or just listen in to the 'chatter' was appealing. [DAoC, F, 34]

I play MMORPGs with my husband as a source of entertainment. Overall it can be a cheaper

form of entertainment where you can spend quite a bit of time with a significant other. To play

well you end up developing more ways of communicating. [DAoC, F, 31]

I like the whole progression, advancement thing ... gradually getting better and better as a player,

being able to handle situations that previously I wouldn’t have been able to. [EQ, M, 48]

No one complains about jobs or other meaningless things. It's a great stress reducer. I like that I

can be someone else for a couple hours. [SWG, M, 28]

Currently, I am trying to establish a working corporation within the economic boundaries of the

virtual world. Primarily, to learn more about how real world social theories play out in a virtual

economy. [EVE Online, M, 30]

Being able to articulate and build an empirical model of these underlying motivations provides an

important foundation to several other avenues of research. First, it gives us a meaningful way to

differentiate players from one another as well as allowing us to explore, for example, how older gamers

are different from younger gamers. Second, a model of player motivations provides a tool to explore in-

game preferences and behaviors. For example, which players are most likely to become guild leaders or

which players are most likely to exhibit problematic usage?

Bartle’s Player Types

Bartle’s Player Types ( http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm ) are a well-known model of player

motivations. In that paper, Bartle provides important insight into how players may differ from one

another and he suggests a categorization of 4 Types (Socializer, Achievers, Killers and Explorers) based

on two underlying axes. Recently, Bartle further developed this model into a model of 8 Player Types (see

Designing Virtual Worlds by Bartle, 2004).

Bartle’s theoretical model, while providing important insight, suffers from several limitations.

1) Proposed components of each Type may not be related. For example, Bartle proposes that role-

playing and socialization both fall under the same Type, but they may not be highly-correlated.

2) Proposed Types may overlap with each other. For example, aren’t members of raid-oriented

guilds both Achievers and Socializers? But in Bartle’s Types, they are on opposite corners of the

model.

3) The purely theoretical model provides no means to assess players as to what Type they are.

But more importantly, without resolving the problem in (1), any attempted assessment of players

based on this model might be creating player types rather than measuring them.

In essence, it would be hard to use Bartle’s model on a practical basis unless it was validated with and

grounded in empirical data. For example, Bartle suggested that different Player Types influenced each

other in certain ways. But unless we have a way of assessing and identifying players of different Types,

theories built on top of Bartle’s model are inherently unfalsifiable. While a “Bartle Test” (not made by

Bartle) does exist, the dichotomous, forced-choice nature of that assessment tool merely perpetuates the

assumptions of Bartle’s Types rather than validating them. In this article, I present a methodology used to

validate Bartle’s model and how the results are similar and different from Bartle’s proposed model.

A Factor Analytic Approach

I used an iterative process to validate, expand and refine a player motivation model empirically over the

past few years. First, a list of possible motivations for playing an MMORPG was generated from existing

literature (such as Bartle’s Types) or open-ended responses from earlier surveys:

http://www.nickyee.com/everquest/mgame.html

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/000777.php

These motivations were then converted into survey questions, such as:

How important is it you to level up as fast as possible?

- Not Important At All

- Slightly Important

- Moderately Important

- Very Important

- Tremendously Important

The full list of questions used and information on administering the assessment tool is provided at the

end of the paper.

Respondents then rated each statement on an online survey. In the current data set, 3200 respondents

completed an inventory of 39 items. A factor analysis was then performed on this data to separate the

statements into clusters where items within each cluster were as highly correlated as possible while

clusters themselves were as uncorrelated as possible. This methodology achieved three goals:

1) Ensured that components of each motivation are indeed related.

2) Ensured that different motivations are indeed different.

3) Provided a way to assess these motivations.

I’d like to stress the iterative nature of this endeavor. The open-ended responses and brainstorming hint

at the boundaries of the territory, tested by the factor analysis, at which point I return to open-ended

responses to better explore the areas the factor analysis identified as coherent constructs. Respondent

responses then inevitably shed light on nuances of motivations that I generate further statements to

explore.

The current data set revealed 10 factors that then neatly factored into 3 overarching factors. We can think

of these as subcomponents and main components respectively.

A principal components analysis was performed to arrive at a parsimonious representation of the

associations among the 39 items. 10 factors were extracted with eigenvalues greater than 1. Together,

these factors accounted for 60% of the overall variance. The chart below shows the factor loadings of the

survey items used.

Factor

Subcomponent

Inventory Item

Advancement

Leveling up your character as fast as possible.

.68

Acquiring rare items that most players will never have.

.77

α = .79

Becoming powerful.

.81

Accumulating resources, items or money.

.69

How important is it to you to be well-known in the game?

.53

Being part of a serious, raid/loot-oriented guild.

.60

Mechanics

How interested are you in the precise numbers and percentages

underlying the game mechanics?

.78

α = .68

How important is it to you that your character is as optimized as

possible for their profession / role?

.65

How often do you use a character builder or a template to plan out

your character's advancement at an early level?

.67

Knowing as much about the game mechanics and rules as possible.

.69

Competition

Competing with other players.

.64

How often do you purposefully try to provoke or irritate other players?

.81

α = .75

Dominating/killing other players.

.72

Doing things that annoy other players.

.82

Socializing

Getting to know other players.

.82

α = .74

Helping other players.

.65

Chatting with other players.

.77

Being part of a friendly, casual guild.

.63

Relationship

How often do you find yourself having meaningful conversations with

other players?

.71

How often do you talk to your online friends about your personal

issues?

.88

α = .80

How often have your online friends offered you support when you had

a real life problem?

.86

Teamwork

Would you rather be grouped or soloing?

.79

α = .71

How important is it to you that your character can solo well?

.77

How much do you enjoy working with others in a group?

.60

Having a self-sufficient character.

.63

Discovery

How much do you enjoy exploring the world just for the sake of

exploring it?

.82

How much do you enjoy finding quests, NPCs or locations that most

people do not know about?

.77

α = .73

How much do you enjoy collecting distinctive objects or clothing that

have no functional value in the game?

.55

Exploring every map or zone in the world.

.80

Role-Playing

Trying out new roles and personalities with your characters.

.66

α = .87

Being immersed in a fantasy world.

.62

How often do you make up stories and histories for your characters?

.83

How often do you role-play your character?

.85

Customization

How much time do you spend customizing your character during

character creation?

.73

α = .74

How important is it to you that your character's armor / outfit matches

in color and style?

.81

How important is it to you that your character looks different from

other characters?

.80

Escapism

How often do you play so you can avoid thinking about some of your

real-life problems or worries?

.81

How often do you play to relax from the day's work?

.62

α = .65

Escaping from the real world.

.83

The scores for all subcomponents were generated for each of the 3200 respondents using a regression

method. Another principal components was performed on the 10 subcomponent scores. 3 factors were

extracted with eigenvalues greater than 1. Together, these 3 factors accounted for 54% of the overall

variance. These 3 factors are largely uncorrelated (r’s ~ .10). The chart below shows the factor loadings of

the subcomponents on the 3 main components.

Main

Component

Factor

Subcomponents

Achievement

Advancement

.85

Mechanics

.77

Competition

.68

Social

Socializing

.74

Relationship

.62

Teamwork

.76

Immersion

Discovery

.72

Role-Play

.70

Customization

.66

Escapism

.53

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