Richard Bartle

3/10/2008 Richard Bartle spoke to Metanomics about real-money trade, game design, his famous model of player types, and his critiques of existing virtual worlds. This discussion generated considerable commentary on other blogs.

  Watch the Metanomics Archived Video Now!

Listen or download the audio. (MP3)
Read the transcript.
Read the backchat & local chat.
Subscribe to the Metanomics RSS Feed.



Richard Bartle is the author of Designing Virtual Worlds , and was one of the co-designers of the "MUD," the Multi-User Dungeon, which forms the basis of virtual worlds today. "The MUD was to MMORPGs what the Beatles were to rock and roll. And by all accounts, Richard Bartle was (and remains to this day) a man ahead of his time. "

Download the video (Quicktime)
Download the audio (MP3)
Read the transcript
Read the backchat (txt)
Metaversed video archive at SLCN
Subscribe to the Metanomics '08 feed

Last Monday, March 10rd, 2008, Robert Bloomfield and Metanomics hosted Richard Bartle, veteran game-maker and author of the first book on the design of MUDs, Designing Virtual Worlds.

This event covered how current worlds embody the tenets of his book and analyzed the extent to which the current state of virtual worlds reflects the hopes Bartle had for this medium when he co-developed the Multi-User Dungeon.

Richard Bartle's classification system rating online multiplayer gamers by the degree to which they are are achievers, explorers, socializers and killers. This framework seems to apply strongly to immersionists, or those who derive value from the experience within the virtual worlds. However, the framework does not seem to apply as strongly to augmentationists, who value virtual worlds because they provide an environment and technology to advance their real-life strategic goals. Perhaps augmentationists are missing because most MMOs are role-playing games. However, I contend that leaving out this segment is a tragic mistake as even the most closed, role-playing virtual worlds contain a segment of augmentationists: the game developers themselves.

Consider Bartle's attitude about his own gaming. As Richard Bartle clearly put it, "I'm not playing to have fun. I'm playing to have designer fun, which isn't the same thing as player fun." He continues:

I just see the design, I don't see what's going on in there. I mean right now I've got my Second Life screen consists of a very, very large text window obliterating everything behind it. So I can see what's being typed on the different channels, but I don't get to see all the pictures because I'm not particularly interested in the pictures. Whereas, if I were playing Second Life [for an] immersive reason, then I would want to see the pictures because that's part of what's projecting me there. But because I understand all this kind of stuff, that's not a factor to me because it's like I see underneath what's going on. The magic's not there. So although I really envy the people for whom the magic is there, my fun comes in making the magic, not in experiencing it.

This begs a question: How different are game developers from other augmentationalists active in virtual worlds? Clearly there is a power differential, but it is worth noting that the driving force behind Bartle's virtual world activity is actually quite similar to that of many participants in the Metanomics series. Perhaps some attend each week to hear Rob's soothing voice, but my impression is that many of us are active in virtual worlds because of its meaning to our real lives.

For example, Rob and I are active in Second Life for explicitly augmentationist purposes. Rob has been offering a directed study course on Business and Ovesight in Second Life since August 2007 and has used the medium to advance his research agenda, in part through the interviews that take place weekly in the Metanomics broadcast. Similarly, I was attracted to Second Life as a medium to conduct economic experiments at astonishingly low cost (at the cost of an ambiguous external validity). There are undoubtedly countless other examples among those who have constructed part- or full-time professional careers around their Second Life activities who escape the predictions of Bartle's model which assumes all players seek immersion in virtual worlds.

The primary policy implication of this reasoning is that virtual world features valued by immersionists are clearly not the same as those desired by augmentationalists. Augmentationalists are driven by their real world ambitions and require an ability to establish property rights over their own player-created content. In closed worlds explicitly designed for immersion (e.g. World of Warcraft), there exists a natural conflict between in-game augmentationalists who would benefit from a more open virtual world and the game developers who recognize that non-immersive activity (such as RMT) can spoil the immersive value of their world. However, in relatively open worlds like Second Life, perhaps it is immersionists who are out of place and ill-served by the developers. The net result is that this inherent conflict seems to provide an opportunity for businesses to serve the needs of these divergent groups.

Bartle has written extensively on the policy issues of virtual worlds. Please follow these links for some background reading related to Monday's event:

- For starters, explore Richard Bartle's website and wikipedia page

- His criticism that World of Warcraft delays the development of new virtual worlds can be read here.

- Read the basics on the Bartle Test, then take the test yourself.

As an aside, Bloomfield reported his results here:

SEAK

SEAK players are usually very interested in the the 'total experience' of a virtual world--meeting other people and finding the unique places within it. They don't care much for PVP or leveling, but meeting up with online friends to see new parts of the world is usually fun and exciting.

Breakdown: Achiever 26.67%, Explorer 73.33%, Killer 26.67%, Socializer 73.33%

- Read about applications of the Bartle Test to non-game worlds in an article on Terra Nova by Tomothy Burke, which also includes more on Bartle's take on various policy issues in virtual worlds, including those involving avatar rights, griefing, and intellectual property.

- Bloomfield plans to ask Bartle about academics' ambitions to build virtual worlds as serious games for research and teaching. Bartle has written on this subject on Terra Nova in the past.

- For more on Bartle's view on virtual property, he identifies five pitfalls of virtual property in this 2004 article.

- Bartle has historically been critical of the rising importances of graphics over text and content. For his perspective on voice in multiplayer games, see this link.

- Read Bartle's discussion of the forces that drive game design, and in this context. consider these "bad ideas for games"

- Here is Bartle's take on the 5 most important people in virtual worlds.