Why can some people spend hours deciding on the eyebrow shape and shirt colour of their favourite Sims character, whereas others feel they'd rather do their taxes than clean virtual Sims toilets? Why do some immerse themselves in World of Warcraft, spending real money on virtual armour and gear, while others just want to finish a long workday by stealing cars in Grand Theft Auto?

What we play and how we do it can offer astonishing insights into our characters. If you understand how people play, what keeps them hooked for hours, you can help them become better learners. Knowing what types of gamers are out there allows you to tailor your courses and offers to their needs and will increase engagement and learning outcomes. After all, an engaged learner is a motivated learner. Even long courses, dry material or daunting tasks become achievable if they include gamification elements.

How can you use different gaming types for your digital courses? How can understanding gamer personas help you boost engagement and retention? Let's learn about the different types of gamers and how to use them in your gamification design.

What Are the Four Different Types of Gamers?

Before diving into different kinds of gamers, let's remember that gamification is not the same as game design, and your learners in a gamified environment are just that: learners, not gamers. Gamification is adding gaming elements to non-gaming environments (think online courses, banking apps, shopping reward systems), and game design is the process of creating systems and rules of a game. However, there's a significant overlap between gamification and game design. If you understand your learners through the lens of gamers, you can make sure they're more successful in your courses, your completion rates will be higher, and even difficult or tedious material will be easier to digest.

Let's dive into the different types of gamers.

The UK professor Richard Bartle's research into player behaviour and online games led him to define four gamer personas:

• the Achiever,
• the Explorer,
• the Socialiser,
• and the Killer.

Most of us fall into one of these categories when playing a game, but remember that these player types are fluid. Nobody is just an explorer or just a socialiser but will have traits of all categories to varying degrees.

You will have a mix of different gamer types in your online environment, so the goal is not to tailor your content to a specific category but to understand what motivates your learners and how you can reach them more effectively.

Who are Achievers?

Do you know the kind of people who say things like, "as long as we're all having fun, it doesn't matter who wins?" You'd never hear a sentence like that from an Achiever. Achievers are competitive. They play to win and usually want the other players to know they won.

How to Design for Achievers

Challenge them by providing increasingly difficult levels through microlearning units. Break down content into chunks and award badges or other rewards for completing their tasks and assignments.

Don't forget to provide an element of comparison. Leaderboards and public badges are great ways to motivate Achievers. Ensure that your learners' profile section has space to display batches and achievements.

A word of caution: Leaderboards can be tricky to implement. Ensure that other learners don't feel bad when comparing themselves to Achievers. A bit of healthy competition is fun, but balance competitive features with collaborative elements in your course design to foster community.

Who are Explorers?

In an open-world game, explorers would be the first to… explore. They love finding hidden elements and surprises and are less focused on winning the game than on the game itself. If you want to engage Explorers, keep them on their toes and create an immersive world.

How to Design for Explorers

Adding storytelling elements to your course is a great way to motivate this type of gamer. Create a narrative that holds your course together, and consider hiding additional content that can only be unlocked through a specific action. But make sure that Explorers don't lose themselves in your course. Provide clear goals and signposts, and encourage them to regularly check in with you and other learners.

Consider tapping into the curiosity of Explorers by providing optional content that they can discover and unlock. Give points for finding and completing new lessons and create badges specific to Explorers that reflect how much additional content they uncovered.

Who are Socialisers?

We probably all have one friend who needs a gentle reminder that it's their turn during game nights because they were so busy chatting they forgot they were playing. Socialisers are natural communicators, eager to interact with others. They might support other participants or reach out if they don't understand a lesson.

Socialisers still play to win, but the community aspect of the game is just as important to them.

How to Design for Socialisers

A system that allows them to easily chat with other learners or even to trade badges and achievements is highly motivating for Socialisers. A forum would be the simplest way to facilitate communication in an online course. Ensure your learners are active forum users by tying forum participation to course completion or offering a reward (such as a badge) for engaging with others. Group tasks are another way to tap into the communication needs of Socialisers and keep them active. Include a competitive element such as a leaderboard, which allows Socialisers to share their success.

Make sure your socialisers don't exclusively focus on communicating with other learners but have the tools and motivation to complete some tasks themselves.

Who are Killers?

Killers play to win, but there's a crucial difference to Achievers: Killers don't just want to win; they want others to lose and are not afraid to use a variety of tactics to reach their goals.

Ideally, an online learning environment is a positive space where all learners thrive and support each other, so you don't want to include too many design aspects specifically for killers.

How to Design for Killers

Don't.

Designing a course environment for Killers means you are running the risk of alienating other participants. Your goal is to foster a collaborative atmosphere where people can thrive and support each other.

Remember that it's very unlikely that you'll have a pure Killer type in your course but that most players likely have a small percentage of Killer in them. Leaderboards, if done right, are an easy way to motivate Killers without upsetting other participants. Social elements or storytelling most likely won't appeal to them.

How to Create a Balanced Learning Environment

Unless you test each participant beforehand, you probably won't know what kind of gamer they are. In any case, your course will have a mix of different gamer types, so your best bet is to cater to all of them.

Socialisers are the most common gamer type, with roughly 80% of gamers falling into this category, followed by Achievers and Explorers with 10% each. Only 1% of gamers are Killers. Therefore, if you provide plenty of communication and collaboration opportunities, you already reach a good chunk of your audience.

Leaderboards and badges will motivate your Killers and Achievers, Socialisers will appreciate group work, and Explorers will enjoy a sense of mystery and excitement. It might sound daunting, but engaging them all is possible by creating an immersive and varied learning environment.

Three Best Practices When Designing for Gamer Types

1. Variety is key!

Let's say you include microlearning elements such as short videos or texts to engage your Explorers. You add twenty micro lessons and wonder why course completion is abysmal. To address all gamer types, you need to provide as many varied gamification elements as possible. Leaderboards, forums, micro-learning, badges, and storytelling should all be part of all your digital offers. Ideally, you find a platform or product with all these features, so all you need to do is mix and match.

2. Communicate!

Provide plenty of opportunities for communication before, during, and after the course. Your learners need to be able to talk with you and each other. Not only will this motivate Socialisers, but it will also help course completion and learning outcomes if you communicate expectations and rules clearly and if participants feel like you're available to talk if they get stuck or have questions. Always ask for feedback and make an effort to implement it.

3. Don't take gamer types too seriously.

Your learning environment is not a game. Explorers likely won't have the freedom of an open world to roam; Killers most certainly won't find Zombies to shoot. Instead of trying to recreate an immersive gaming environment, focus on the learning outcomes you want to achieve and include gamification elements where they make sense.

Practice makes perfect. Finding the ideal mix between social elements, badges, storytelling, and leaderboards might take a while. Take some time to get to know your participants before the course and follow up with questionnaires during and afterwards, where you ask them about learning preferences and what features they find particularly useful.

When designing your course, remember the four gamer types to ensure your offer includes diverse gamification elements. If you're unsure where to begin, look at our six best practices in gamification. Or talk to us about how to create a gamification product that motivates all gamer types and leads them to success.

Curious to know what gamer type you are? Take the Bartle Test!

PS: I'm a 100% Explorer. Any other Explorers out there? Let me know!