Skip to main content

Week 7

What is the implication of player type on game design?

In his article Richard Bartle discusses his four styles of game play. These styles come from the "inter-relationship of two dimensions of playing style: action versus interaction, and world-orientated versus player-orientated" (pg 1). 

1. Achievers- Interested in acting on the world. Want to be immersed in the game environment. These players believe that the point of the game is to master the game and make it do what you want. Achievers are proud of their status in the game. 

2. Explorers- Interested in having the game surprise them, want to interact with the game. The sense of wonder in the virtual world that makes these players crave playing. They believe scoring points is worthless because it defies the very open-mindedness that makes the virtual world unique. Getting as many points as possible is not a explorers main goal. instead they are more proud of their knowledge of the games smaller details. 

3. Socializers- This player is interested in interacting with other players. They want to figure out people get to know them. Socializers are proud of their friendships and contacts within the game.

4. Killers- Interested in doing things to other players. If something gets in the way of their game they don't care of the consequences to others in the game. They only want to demonstrate their superiority over others in the game. Killers are proud of their reputation and fighting skills.

So taking these in mind we can focus more on our question this week. The biggest idea I got from reading the material this week is we can learn a lot about someone from this player quiz. It was interesting when i looked at my results (mostly explorer) I noticed a lot of similarities between my personal life and the explanation in the article. I am not a competitive person and don't really care about scores, or points. It seems the same as my results from the test. 
With this information I think teachers need to realize that when taking into account students player results it can help a lot with classroom management and students interactions in the classroom. The article by Bartle brought up a lot of good points including how we can balance out the negatives from each style of game play to be more in favor of fair and kind play. 
The author also discussed bringing behavior in a game into real life and player interactions. Since these four different game styles have such drastic end goals it can cause conflict within the game. Bartel did a wonderful job explaining and laying out ideas to help each different style get along with each other. 

Bartle, R. (August 28). Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players who Suit MUDs. Retrieved October 10, 2018, from https://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm








Comments

  1. Hi Erika, yes I like your point about "balance", often in my adult training facilitations I have a diverse group of participants and I am often balancing different group characteristics to create a learning equilibrium of sorts that maximizes the train for every one, this does not always go as planned though and definitely take some effort to wrangle back on topic. I imagine it is the same in the classroom...sometime you have a good understanding of the class based on interactions over time. If not it could be useful to create a quick quiz similar to the Bartel to test for player characteristics to get better collaboration for designing a particular gameified activity.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Erika, you brought up a really good point about grouping students in a way to keep everything balanced. In my classroom, I have to create groups based on personality. I certainly wouldn't want a group of competitive people working together. It sounds like it would be similar to creating groups for gaming.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 8

How do you or might you use language to change the way that your students think about learning in the classroom? One simple idea of this is the concept of a growth mindset. As a teacher we need to remember that the way we interact with students, families, and other teachers is being watched by out students. I have a 4 year old and everyday I need to remind myself that he is watching me model behavior and bases his responses, interactions, and attitudes on what he sees me do. This is a very basic and simple understanding of this weeks topic but I think it really applies to our work in the classroom.  The attitude we have towards simple things like grading papers, the stress we show about deadlines, or the frustration about something that happened yesterday at dinner. These are all things that can have a negative impact on student learning, because it can affect the way we teach. Young kiddos are so intuitive and can tell when we act d...

Week 9

Which aspects of story and game mechanics will be useful in your class and how might you use them? This weeks main question has a lot of room for  interpretation. I feel that with everyones unique situation and experience the blog posts this week will be a lot of fun to read. For me I will need to think of this question in hypothetical situation because I am not currently working in a classroom.  When I was in my own classroom I used games a lot. We would play games with Osmo sets. We would also play structured games outside on the playground to help them understand and practice taking turns, sharing, and playing nicely with each other.  There are so many aspects of game mechanics and stories that can have a positive impact on students learning. Whether it be from actual games that are played like ones that allow students to practice their letter or sound recognition, look at parts of speech, or prepare for a quiz. All the...

Week 2- engaging games

In order for a game to be effective at teaching children it needs to engaging. Students at all ages will very quickly loose interest in a provided game if it does not meet certain criteria. The most important engaging game play experience is one that taps into many of players sense. They may include thoughts, feelings, actions, and meaning making.  According to Laura Ermi’s article engaging games are ones that allow the players to fail. Players need to feel they are challenged by the game. They work to improve their performance, learn new moves, and improve their understanding of the game. With this in mind players will feel suspense, anxiety, and physical arousal which can be translated to positive feelings with the anticipatory feeling of success when a level is beaten, or a certain achievement in the game is met.               This may sound like a cheesy example, but as I read the articles and paper for this ...