Final Thoughts

The important thing to remember is that these are not player types. It is not the case that we have found a way to categorize players into different boxes. Rather, we have found several distinct motivations that are meaningful and empirically tested constructs. Each individual player has a score for each factor, and it is after looking at the scores of all 5 factors that we can get a good idea of what part of an MMORPG appeals to them. Just because a player scores high on Achievement doesn't mean they will score low on all the other factors.

Therefore, a questionnaire constructed to measure these 5 factors must not force players to choose between one of several motivations, but rather, statements representing each factor should be presented to the respondent separately.

These 5 factors should also be considered as a preliminary empirical model of player motivations. It is very possible that certain important parts of the spectrum were not explored, and that future research will suggest to us what we might have missed. What we have gained from this dataset, however, is a meaningful way to talk about differences in player motivations. We know what should be and should not be clustered together when we talk about particular motivations. And this gives us a more solid foundation to build future research upon that explores how these different motivations affect in-game behavior patterns.

 
Copyright, March 2002, by Nicholas Yee.

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