Temperament Theory is a scientific model constructed at a statistical level: the model is based upon observations made across a wide population of case studies, and collects the common elements in these observations to form its four patterns. It is closely related to the famous Myers-Briggs type system, and indeed can be seen as a partial projection of this. Everyone expresses all four of the temperament patterns to different degrees and in different situations, so it is not that such-and-such a person “is an Artisan” so much that he or she might express Artisan more obviously than the other three temperaments.

The four patterns, and the skill sets associated with them, are as follows:

In the sections that follow, I will discuss each of the four skill sets that accompany these four temperament patterns in terms of the talents associated with the particular play style (skill set), and the main sources of friction that are likely to frustrate players who prefer a given play style. This is followed by a review of the history of games from the perspective of the relevant skills.

Remember that Temperament Theory, and the skill sets related to it, is a statistical model. When dealing with statistical science, it is important to remember that reasoning in the general does not allow us to make firm statements about the specific. For instance, most university students drink alcohol, but knowing that this is a statistically valid observation does not allow me to know whether an individual university student drinks alcohol—they might be teetotal for religious or for health reasons, or they might not like alcohol.

Although I can currently only speculate, it seems quite likely that the Rational temperament relates to high levels of dopamine in the decision center of the brain (the orbito-frontal cortex). This part of the brain, which lies above the eyes, is involved in making decisions of all kinds, and is closely tied to the pleasure center (nucleus accumbens)—making good decisions is especially rewarding. I hypothesize that the expression of the Rational temperament, and the accompanying Strategic skills, relates to high levels of dopamine in the decision center, and this could easily be tested with the new brain imaging technology.

Complex systems are the focus of most, but not all, Strategic play—with examples including the majority of simulation and turn-based strategy games, as well as many computer RPG games (cRPGs). Players who favor this play style show greater than usual tolerance for complexity, and indeed will generally persevere with games they feel that they do not yet understand, provided they believe their tenacity will eventually be rewarded. This allows them to tolerate far longer learning curves than players favoring other play styles—but note that every player can be frustrated by any game for a variety of reasons. The Strategic play style only gives players the capacity to learn how to use complex game systems. It does not guarantee that they will persist with any given game.

Coupled with this tolerance of complexity comes an ability to perceive ways to optimize the complex systems in question. This gift for optimization is expressed as a tendency to evaluate every situation in order to determine how to get the maximum benefit for minimum cost. So pronounced is this tendency to min-max game situations that it is even mentioned in Keirsey’s description of the Rational temperament, even though play is not a focus of his work. There is a relationship between complexity and min-maxing, since in simple systems there is limited scope for this kind of optimization. The love of turn-based strategy games associated with Strategic play is partly related to the capacity for these games to afford multiple optimal routes, and thus to allow for both min-maxing and choice.

A third talent associated with the Strategic play style is problem solving, and the related ability to think ahead. In many respects, this is simply an extension of tolerance for complexity, since every problem represents a situation of incomplete information (which represents a more convoluted arrangement than the equivalent situation where the solution is known, but must be implemented by skill). Given the relationship between science and the Rational temperament, the gift for problem solving associated with Strategic play is unsurprising, and the games that leverage this talent are often solved by what might be considered a scientific approach—hypothesizing possible solutions, exploring the outcome of those solutions, and using this data to produce new hypotheses until a solution has been found. All classic adventure games—text adventures, point-and-clicks, and modern descendents based on this form—find their most loyal fans among people whose play needs lean towards the Strategic.

The driving force behind Strategic play is the Rational temperament’s desire for knowledge and mastery, and as a result Strategic play can seem more focused on perfectionism than “fun”—although it must be understood that by making perfection the goal, players expressing this play style achieve fiero and personal satisfaction by achieving mastery. The greater trials they endure en route to this goal, the more it enhances the ultimate reward in fiero.

When this theme is expressed purely in Strategic terms, the focus of the perfectionism will tend to be a desire for complete game knowledge. An examination of the FAQs available online for complex games, for example the Pokémon games (Game Freak/Creatures Inc., 1996 onwards), shows the output of this drive for complete understanding. When this theme is tempered by Logistical skills (which I will discuss shortly), the focus will tend more towards complete acquisition—a drive to collect everything that can be found in the game space. Finally, when this theme is tempered by Tactical skills, the focus will tend more towards mastery of skills; the ability to finesse a situation, and not just to win.

Keirsey does not often mention play in his temperament description, so it is noteworthy that he includes the following comment in respect to Strategic skills:

When playing with other people, those preferring the Strategic play style often seem to be highly competitive (which is mentioned in passing in Berens’ account of the Rational temperament). But for those players expressing this style who are introverted by nature, this competitiveness is the product of their personal drive towards a high degree of proficiency. The other players are simply part of the complex system they are trying to master. Such players often prefer to play alone.

Players favoring specific play styles are also prone to different frustrations. Different elements of play cause varying degrees of friction for players, according to their preferred way to play.

The principle source of friction associated with Strategic play is limitation, specifically limitation of choice, and the consequent disempowerment this can lead to. The Rational temperament that drives this style of play is associated with a need for autonomy, and players who prefer the Strategic play style have a strong need to feel completely in control of their play—to have the freedom to make choices about how that play will proceed. When insufficient choices are provided, this creates a state of powerless limitation.

For example, a typical first person shooter game consists primarily of a linear sequence of fights. This structure is generally sufficient for players expressing other play needs, but for Strategic play it is unacceptably limited. The player faces no meaningful (Strategic) choices in this situation, and as such, this limitation becomes a source of frustration if the game does not engage the player by other means.

Deus Ex (Ion Storm, 2000) is a good example of a game that sets out to minimize this source of friction for players favoring Strategic play, by adding choice at every level of the design. The player is afforded virtually unlimited choices for proceeding through the game space. But in the process of providing these choices, the game develops such a degree of complexity that only players favoring Strategic play can manage to enjoy it. This is the likely reason for the eventual commercial failure of this franchise, as Strategic players have become a minority among videogame players.

This problem with limitation should not be confused with the Tactical play style’s issue with constraint—constraint is intended to refer to immediate barriers to action or movement, whereas limitation is intended to reflect a lack of meaningful options for affecting the game situation. Players favoring Strategic play may tolerate being temporarily constrained provided they have a sufficient choice of actions with which to figure out a way to remove the constraint, whereas players favoring Tactical play will generally be frustrated by the constraint itself.

Because the Rational temperament is associated with programmers and game designers, early videogames were extremely influenced by Strategic play. Consider, for instance, early mainframe games in the 1970s, such as Star Trek (Mike Mayfield, 1971), Adventure/Colossal Cave (Will Crowther, 1975), and Dungeon (Don Daglow, 1975) and its spiritual descendent Rogue (Toy, Wichman and Arnold, 1980). Many early games were influenced by the tabletop wargames (and role-playing games) of the 1970s, which were also great examples of Strategic play—providing complex play resulting from many different rules and options.

In the 1980s, new computers allowed Strategic play to flourish further. Elite (Braben and Bell, 1984) appealed to a number of different play styles, but the apparent lack of limitations (go anywhere, do anything) had particular Strategic appeal. But the real focus of Strategic play in videogames from the 1980s were adventure games, typified by Zork (Infocom, circa 1980) and its many sequels, and at the latter end of the decade, graphical adventures such as The Pawn (Magnetic Scrolls, 1986) and Guild of Thieves (Magnetic Scrolls, 1987). These games seemed to provide few limitations, since players could enter any command in plain-text, although in practice this was a somewhat illusory state of affairs. Near the end of the decade, simulations drawing from Strategic play, such as SimCity (Maxis, 1989) started to emerge.

In the 1990s, turn-based strategy games raised Strategic play to a new level with games such as Civilization (Microprose, 1991), Master of Orion (Simtex, 1993), and the X-COM series (Mythos Games et al, 1994 onwards). Additionally, strategic role-playing games such as the Heroes of Might and Magic series (New World Computing et al, 1990 onwards), and point-and-click adventures such as The Secret of Monkey Island (LucasArts, 1990) made this decade the golden age of Strategic play for many people preferring this play style.

Sadly for players preferring Strategic play, the arrival of the PlayStation in the mid-90s marked a change in the focus of the videogame market. Until this point, players favoring Strategic play were (arguably) in the majority, and the bulk of the games being made appealed to these players in some way. But a new era was arriving in which effortless 3D graphics opened the door to a wider market. The Strategic player was about to go from being the key audience for videogames, to being a strong but diminished niche market.

This change was to mark the end of the commercial importance of adventure games, and a gradual narrowing of the importance of turn-based strategy games that today support very few viable franchises, and maximum audiences of no more than 2 million units (whereas other types of games were able to pull in maximum audiences of 8 million units during this time). Today, Strategic play in isolation is a commercial backwater, although many successful games support Strategic play along with other play styles.

Strategic play was the force behind adventure games, strategy games, and simulations, as well as an influencing factor in the development of computer RPGs. Once the most important play style in the videogames industry, it has since been eclipsed by the more popular Tactical and Logistical play styles, and now represents something of a niche market.

With talents for dealing with complexity and problem solving, and a partiality for min-maxing, the Strategic player is something of an expert in figuring out games. Strategic players avoid play that in their eyes is limited, and, armed with their strong drive for perfectionism, they generally master the games they adopt as their own. In many ways, they are the very model of the gamer hobbyist.

The psychological pattern associated with the Guardian temperament and Logistical skills seems to be intimately tied to that part of our neurology which concerns habit formation—namely the pleasure center (nucleus accumbens). Because one of the things associated with Logistical skills is the ability to form and maintain habits, this hypothesis does not seem farfetched. Additionally, there is likely to be some involvement of the association areas (regions surrounding the hippocampus) since a good memory is another trait linked to the Guardian temperament.

Goals are the primary focus of all Logistical play, and players preferring this play style are considerably more goal-oriented than those who do not. Play for the sake of play is all very well, but there must be a goal to focus upon. Rewards are valued, but to some extent the completion of the goal can be a prize in its own right—success is its own reward. There appears to be an accompanying assumption of “fairness”—which is to say, that the difficulty of a goal will be matched by the degree of reward to be gained. However, since players preferring this style of play are generally content with linear stories punctuated with goals that must be completed for the story to continue, the most basic game story structure (effectively an animated film interspersed with play that purports to relate to the next narrative step) is sufficient justification for play—provided the story itself is appealing.

Players who express this play style show great tolerance for repetition, and hence a natural talent for persistence. Such players will persevere with almost any game task provided both the goal and the rules governing play are clear. Their tenacious desire to avoid failure (that is, to complete any goal that has been set) creates an effective split depending upon the individual’s attitude towards the emotion fiero. Those fiero-seekers who thrive on more challenging play will throw themselves repeatedly at difficult tasks, failing over and over again in some cases before eventually completing the task and therefore receiving the reward in fiero (the eventual reward heightened by the frustrations endured along the way). Players who are less fiero-motivated but still engaged by Logistical play instead seek game actions where gain can be acquired through repeating the same tasks without the need to fail to repeat the task—failure and the sense of re-doing a failed task are unpleasant for these players. Both tendencies are well served by the repetitive task structure of computer role-playing games, especially those built upon a linear structure such as the Final Fantasy series (Square, 1987 onwards).

A common recurring theme of Logistical play is the process of acquisition. Whether it is the simulation of an economic model and hence the acquisition of wealth, finding and collecting tokens in order to pursue goals—as in the classic 3D platform game structure, established by Super Mario 64 (Nintendo, 1996)—or the scavenger hunt play of a “stamp collection,” the theme of acquiring is as intimately associated with Logistical play as rules and goals.

The focus on acquiring can be seen clearly in almost all real-time strategy (RTS) games, such as Command & Conquer (Westwood, 1994), which center upon the Logistical play of developing a resource-producing infrastructure, and ironically support very little Strategic play.

Furthermore, the nature of most Logistical play tends to be both thorough and cautious. There is a tendency towards meticulousness—“collect everything, search everywhere” is a motto that many players favoring this approach dutifully execute. For this reason, it is possible to create additional opportunities for Logistical play quite easily in most games—stamp collections of all kinds can become motivating, as exemplified by the museum in Animal Crossing (Nintendo, 2001), where players are encouraged to collect all the insects, fish, and fossils in the game simply by virtue of the implicit goals of these collections. Even when this kind of play is not intended by the developer, some players who express Logistical play (often when expressed alongside a tendency for Strategic play) may pursue this implicit goal anyway, proceeding to collect all things of a kind in a game, and lists of collectibles from all manner of games can be found in great numbers on the Internet.

The principle source of friction associated with Logistical play is bewilderment, especially the perplexity of insufficient instructions. The goal-orientation associated with Logistical play thrives on clear instructions: goals should be spelled out, and completing one goal should lead to the next goal without any uncertainty as to what is expected. Imagine that the relationship between player and game is that of master and servant (or general and captain): players may be in charge of their avatars, but their assignments are being provided by the game. When these tasks are not specified, it is as if the player has been abandoned, and this causes the stress.

An ironic alternative cause of bewilderment is an overabundance of rules. When there are too many rules, the problem is simple confusion: “but what am I supposed to do?” the player in this predicament asks. Again, the game is expected to provide clear directions, and when the complexity of play is too great the player becomes lost. There is no clear goal, and in the absence of a goal, the player feels perplexed and abandoned.

With players who also favor Strategic play, both of these problems can be significantly mitigated, since players expressing both forms of play are usually willing to apply their problem solving skills to the issue of working out what is expected of them. However, when this additional skill is absent, players expressing Logistical play need to have their instructions clearly stated, and generally will not tolerate ambiguous or incomplete directions. Similarly, Strategic play offsets the problem of excessive rules, since a high tolerance for complexity is associated with Strategic play.

Another source of friction that must be considered in connection with Logistical play is fixation. The fiendishly addictive properties of certain games to certain players almost always relate to the goals of play (implicit or explicit), and when Logistical play is expressed, tasks can be pursued compulsively. Players involved in Logistical play may become obsessive about overcoming a specific challenge. Every failure increases the motivation to return and tackle the same problem again. The tolerance to repetition associated with Logistical play sustains this process—players will keep going until either they achieve victory (in which case the emotional reward of fiero usually drowns out the memories of frustration), or until they are so agitated they angrily stop playing—or, not uncommonly, throw the game controller across the room in frustration.

Another aspect of this fixation is a willingness to carry out repetitive tasks in order to drive forward a Logistical acquisition process. The clearest example of this kind of play is found in computer role-playing games, which provide players with rewards (in terms of improved avatar power or abilities) in return for overall progress through a repetitive progress structure. The exponential level structure typical to cRPGs provides a powerful motivating force for the acquisition of the central resource, namely experience points.

Here, frustration is not usually the issue—rather, players become so absorbed in the repetition of play, so fixated upon the improvements they are earning for their character, that stopping play is difficult, and even when players do break, they will likely return to play at the earliest available opportunity. Note that in this case, the fixation is only a source of friction if players find conflict between their desire to play the game, and the demands of their everyday lives (as is notorious in the play of MMORPG games).

It is this pattern of behavior, allegedly associated with Logistical play, which is probably the underlying reason that many people say (when interviewed) that they do not like videogames because they are “too addictive”.

In board games, Logistical play has always been a significant factor—one cannot help but notice that Monopoly (Parker Brothers, 1933) bears key marks of this flavor of play—specifically its repetitive goal-oriented structure, and the focus on acquisition. However, it did not take long for Logistical play to find its way into videogames.

As early as the 1970s, Logistical play makes an appearance in early computer role-playing games such as Dungeon (Don Daglow, 1975). The form did not achieve popularity however, until the 1980s with the hugely influential Ultima series (Origin Systems, 1980 onwards). Another side of Logistical play that emerges in the 1980s is the platform game (itself an advance of earlier collection games), as epitomized by the most successful game of all time, Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo, 1987), which sold a staggering 40 million units (albeit as a result of being bundled with the NES). However, it is worth remembering that platform games and cRPGs also meet the requirements of other play styles—without exception, successful games support the play needs of many different people.

In terms of sales, the cRPG finally reached the mass market with Final Fantasy VII (Square, 1997), which sold 8.6 million units. Undoubtedly, the popularity of the new PlayStation console, and the shortage of other interesting titles in 1997, contributed to the success of the game, but it also featured a design that favored Logistical play over Strategic play (which was present, but less significant), thus appealing to a wider audience. The same decade saw the arrival of the world’s most popular cRPG franchise, Pokémon with Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow (Gamefreak/Creatures Inc, 1996), ultimately selling some 30 million units on the back of the same mix of primarily Logistical play supplemented with some Strategic play.

In the same decade, developers were experimenting with applying the usual cRPG structure (that is, progress by exponential acquisition) to other game genres. The most notable franchise is perhaps Gran Turismo (Polyphony Digital, 1997 onwards). These games meet many different play styles, but stand out from other car games by their underlying structure of acquisition: earn money to buy new cars in order to progress. The first game in the series sold some 10 million units, and although the largest part of its success was undoubtedly a result of its illusion of realism, its success may have been enhanced by building some Logistical play into the structure.

The ’90s also advanced the platform game, with Nintendo once again leading the charge with its seminal Super Mario 64 (Nintendo, 1996), which specified the form and structure of almost all commercially significant 3D platform games until their eventual near-demise in the 2000s. These games served a number of play needs as well as Logistical, but their overall structure of collection and acquisition was unmistakably in this style. The collapse of the commercial importance of this genre can perhaps be traced to the decision by key players Naughty Dog and Insomniac (who shared a common engine technology) to push away from the established 3D platform structure and towards run-and-gun games with Ratchet and Clank (Insomniac, 2002) and Jak II (Naughty Dog, 2003), thus leaving the genre subscribed to by no major players except Nintendo.

Another key development in the history of Logistical play was also focused in the ’90s, namely the advent of the infrastructure-focused real-time strategy genre, which can be traced to Dune II (Westwood, 1992). This led directly to two significant franchises, Warcraft (Blizzard, 1994 onwards) and Command & Conquer (Westwood, 1995 onwards). Despite the name, these games have very little to do with Strategic play, and in fact are a model of acquisition-focused Logistical play. Success in almost all such games is about building an infrastructure that acquires available resources faster than the opposition, thus allowing a larger army to be built, which then overwhelms the enemy. It is the logistics of building and maintaining the player’s economy that is the focus of play, and these games might better be termed real-time logistical games.

But arguably the most significant development in the history of Logistical play was the release of The Sims (Maxis, 2000), which went on to sell 16 million units of its basic game, and a staggering 54 million units across the franchise. For the first time, the Logistical cRPG structure was divorced from its traditional fantasy and science fiction context and instead attached to an apparently mundane domestic context. The result was a virtual dollhouse game whose play was expressly Logistical—much of the play is guiding the characters through repetitive tasks in order to earn rewards such as promotions—and which enjoyed unprecedented success with female players (between 60 and 70% of its audience). That the game was set in the familiar and ordinary world of people’s homes only added to its appeal with a non-traditional game audience.

In the same decade, the success of the MMORPG at acquiring loyal players with its extremely well established Logistical structure (unmistakably the same as in most cRPGs) is also notable. This genre has hit its current peak with World of Warcraft (Blizzard, 2004), which enjoys some 8 million subscribers globally. Although this is considerably smaller than the maximum sales figures that can be achieved by single player games, the subscription model at its heart means that in commercial terms it is at least as significant as the most successful game sold through a traditional retail model, if not more so.

MMORPG games, including World of Warcraft, offer only one feature in addition to the traditional Logistical play of the cRPG: the capacity to play with other people. Since Logistical play is presumed to correlate with the Guardian temperament, and a core need of this pattern is membership, the ability to engage in Logistical play as part of a group (a guild, for instance, or a party on a smaller scale) provides an intoxicatingly powerful combination for players favoring this play style. Furthermore, because Guardian correlates with some 50% of the population as its primary temperament, it is perhaps to be expected that the commercial importance of this form of play will necessarily dominate the mass market.

Logistical play is present to some degree in almost all games, but especially in those games with a focus on acquisition such as most platform games and almost all computer RPGs and RTS games. Indeed, the conventional cRPG structure (acquire some resource in exponential increments to progress) finds its way into many different genres, bringing with it elements of Logistical play. Although not proven, it may be that Logistical play is the most commercially important play style, since it correlates with the Guardian temperament, which is dominant in about 50% of people.

With a natural goal-orientation, talents for persistence and meticulousness, and a taste for unfettered acquisition, Logistical players will tackle their chosen challenges tenaciously, even to the point of becoming fixated upon victory. Such players generally desire clear instructions to avoid bewilderment, but provided they are given comprehensible goals and straightforward rules, they will patiently work their way along the spine of any game, collecting what they can, and generally enjoying what other players might dismiss as a grind.

It is possible that the Artisan temperament and the associated Tactical skills may relate to the cerebellum, since this is associated with motor skills, and these are associated with this pattern. It is possible that the association areas are also involved, however.

Whereas Logistical play is focused on goals and Strategic play on systems, the focus of Tactical play is improvisation. Every game grants players a number of possible actions they can take, and players gifted in Tactical play will naturally conceive of immediate and effective ways of combining these actions to have an effect. For any situation, they will naturally have ideas as to what they can do, and proceed rapidly to trying these ideas out. Sometimes, they will even chance upon novel and unexpected solutions to problems, which can be a particular source of satisfaction for such a player.

The effect produced may advance the game by meeting a goal, but it is the capacity to have an impact that is important to players favoring Tactical play, not the goal itself. Indeed, such a player may have just as much fun making something happen that has nothing to do with advancing in the game—with a sufficiently interesting game world, such players can entertain themselves for some time just by exploring what they can make happen as a consequence of their own actions. (The playground worlds of the GTA games in particular lend themselves to this approach.)

Another key talent associated with Tactical play is a natural proficiency with machines and tools. Players who prefer Tactical play seem to possess an immediate degree of competence with any tool or vehicle the game provides them—provided they are in control of it. A device that does everything without player input is not an interesting source of Tactical play; a device that allows players to demonstrate their natural skills is what is desired. The most obvious example is with driving games of all kinds—these base their play around the player’s capacity to control a vehicle, and generally have immediate appeal to players who enjoy this play style. (Note that players preferring Logistical play may also enjoy a driving game, but in such instances competence is learned through repetition, rather than being immediately present.)

What seems to be desired for Tactical play are tools (weapons, vehicles, and such) with a degree of analogue control, such as the analogue control of a car through both its steering and acceleration, or the analogue control of a gun through a free aiming mechanism. Given the games industry’s obsession with the commercial appeal of guns and cars, these are by far the most common examples of analogue control found in modern videogames, although environmental negotiation abilities (jumping, climbing, and so forth) occasionally afford opportunities for Tactical play—especially with secondary jumping abilities, such as a double jump or gliding ability.

Other examples can also be found. When The Legend of Zelda franchise moved into a 3D world with Ocarina of Time (Nintendo, 1998), it centered its play on a diverse collection of tools, most of which are essentially analogue in nature. (The roots of the toolset lie in earlier 2D games in the franchise, but these earlier tools were not analogue in nature.) The slingshot, boomerang, and bow are effectively variations on the gun theme but each still allows for skillful free aiming. The hookshot (a type of grapple) has more of the nature of an analogue tool, cuccos (chickens) can be used for gliding, bombs have a variety of uses, and the ocarina of the game’s title provides all manner of additional abilities to its players. Although the Zelda games meet a variety of play needs, they are notable examples of the tool-focus associated with Tactical play.

Players who favor Tactical play sometimes seem to be naturally lucky. This is not to suggest any supernatural element, however—rather, this capacity for serendipity seems borne of simple psychological roots. Players who express this play style often show an exceptional tolerance for adapting to random variation—what might be considered compensating for noise (again, this may relate to a preference for analogue controls). Furthermore, Tactical play can be associated with openness to risk, sometimes expressed as impulsive recklessness. It is this combination of a willingness to take chances and capacity to adapt quickly and effectively to random events that creates the impression that players with strong Tactical skills are naturally lucky—the more chances one is willing to take, the more opportunities one has to fluke success. On analysis, then, this is simply a further expression of the spirit of improvisation that lies at the heart of Tactical play.

The chief source of friction associated with Tactical play is constraint. The player favoring this style seeks to improvise and overcome, and anything that gets in the way of this approach is an annoyance. Tactical play thrives on the freedom of the player to act, and to have an impact in the game world, and thus anything that constrains the player’s freedom will frustrate a player preferring this play style. If a game prevents players from using one of their tools in an arbitrary manner, this is an unacceptable constraint—“why can’t I use that here?” is the natural question. If Tactical players cannot act freely in a game, they would often prefer not to play at all—“I’m not putting up with that!” is the natural response to excessive constraint.

This should not be confused with the Strategic player’s problem with limitation, which is concerned with insufficient choice of actions—the Tactical player is annoyed by immediate constraints to action, rather than too narrow a set of choices. For instance, in a typical FPS the player often only has the capacity to move, and a choice of weapons—limited from a Strategic perspective, but more than sufficient for Tactical play. Conversely, if a game’s story imprisons the players and takes away their weapons and tools this can be an engaging puzzle from a Strategic perspective, but it is pure irritation for solely Tactical players.

Another source of friction associated with Tactical play is boredom. This may seem a strange suggestion—don’t all players have a problem with boredom? But players favoring Logistical play have tremendous tolerance for repetition provided they are progressing towards a goal, and players favoring Strategic play can be willing to spend considerable time trying to solve a tough puzzle or beat a difficult foe. Neither situation will suit a player whose preferences lie firmly in Tactical play; such players will quickly lose interest if what they are doing becomes routine, or takes too long to achieve. The opportunity to have an impact must always be present, and when it is not, boredom is the natural result. Often it will cause such a player to give up entirely and play something else instead, and players favoring this play style start many more games than they ever finish.

The early arcade games of the 1970s were too abstract to have wide appeal for players favoring Tactical play, although such players probably did enjoy early videogames such as Space Invaders (Taito/Bally Midway, 1978), Pac-Man (Namco/Midway, 1980), and so forth, for the novelty if for nothing else. The players who persisted at these games, however, were more likely to prefer Logistical play, as the capacity to have an impact was limited.

The 1980s moved arcade games into a more accessible place, and driving games such as Out Run (Sega, 1986) and Hard Drivin’ (Atari, 1989) could be found alongside shooting games such as Operation Wolf (Taito, 1987), all of which provided opportunities for solid Tactical play. Additionally, it is likely that fighting games such as Street Fighter (Capcom, 1987) attracted Tactical players. On the home computers and consoles, the most Tactical games were probably the early platform games, such as Manic Miner (Mathew Smith, 1983) or Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo, 1985), although inevitably these also supported Logistical play through their structures.

The move to polygonal 3D in the 1990s was to see an explosion of interest in Tactical play. Wolfenstein 3D (id Software, 1992) and Doom (id Software, 1993) laid down the first person shooter (FPS) template, which has always been distinctly Tactical. Although the only tools provided are guns, the properties of the weapons are sufficiently different that Tactical play can emerge in the capacity to choose the right weapon for the right situation, as well as the spatial play elements key to FPS games, which also suit players favoring this play style.

The superior graphics of Quake (id Software, 1996) gave it notoriety in game fandom, but the title sold only a few million copies (Doom is estimated to have sold 4 million copies, and to have been downloaded and played by some 10 million players). The most commercially successful FPS games of this decade were GoldenEye 007 (Rare, 1997), which combined solid game design with a hugely popular license, and Half-Life (Valve, 1998), which combined the technology of Quake with an inventive story implementation. Both sold 8 million units, the highest sales figures achieved by FPS games to date.

Driving games were similarly invigorated by the move to 3D, with games such as Virtua Racing (Sega, 1992), Ridge Racer (Namco, 1993), and the seminal kart racer, Mario Kart (Nintendo, 1992). All of these games afforded the Tactical play of driving (although most driving games also supported Logistical play, in that courses could be learned by repetition). Other racing games to provide opportunities for Tactical play included skiing games such as Alpine Racer (Namco, 1995) and the more successful genre of snowboarding games such as 1080 (Nintendo, 1998). However, cars remained the commercial center of racing games, and Gran Turismo (Polyphony Digital, 1997) sold 10.5 million units on the PlayStation, with each of its sequels selling roughly the same numbers, to total 44 million units across the franchise.

The next decade was to see cars and guns combined in the same titles, thus concentrating the Tactical focus of certain games. A notable title is Halo: Combat Evolved (Bungie, 2001), which featured a greater focus on the shooting element than the vehicular element, and which provided excellent opportunities for Tactical play—players enjoyed being able to make an impact with weaponry, explosives, and vehicles. Commercially, the game enjoyed reasonable success, selling some 5 million units; sufficient to mark it as a hit, and certainly nothing else on the Microsoft Xbox console enjoyed greater commercial success.

But it was the advent of the playground world structure in games such as Grand Theft Auto III (DMA Design, 2001) and its sequels that served to take Tactical play further. For a start, these games combined both driving and shooting elements (thus combining the most popular sources of Tactical play into one game), but additionally the capacity to wreak free-roaming mischief allowed players the opportunity to have an impact in a more direct way than ever before. (Although the playground world structure has earlier roots, it was only when it was used in 3D and in the context of cars and guns that it achieved the full measure of its success.) Such games also included an effectively linear sequence of missions, and thus supported Logistical play as well; by strongly appealing to the two most significant play styles—and doing so with the added appeal of cars and guns—commercial success was all but guaranteed, and the games have sold up to 14 million units in their recent iterations.

Note

The use of the term “Tactical” may cause some confusion as to why games that are characterized as being “tactics” games are not mentioned. Although some real-time tactical games do indeed correlate with what is being discussed here as the Tactical play style, most tactics games—such as Final Fantasy Tactics (Square, 1997)—are turn-based and thus represent a form of Strategic play in the terms discussed here.

Assuming the distributions of players preferring the Tactical play style correlate with the Artisan temperament, I would expect some 25% of the population to greatly enjoy this style of play—second only to the Logistical play style in hypothetical popularity (50% of the population, if it correlates directly with the Guardian temperament). As a result, games that meet the needs of both Logistical and Tactical play could appeal to as much as 75% of the population, and thus supporting both play styles is increasingly essential to mass market success.

Tactical play is a key factor behind the success of driving games and shooting games—especially the ever-popular first person shooter—although it can be found to some degree in a wide variety of different game genres that focus on a single avatar, and provide the capacity to have an impact. Although not proven, it is hypothetically the case that Tactical play is second in commercial importance only to Logistical play, and comparisons of sales figures for the most popular games support this claim.

With an irrepressible capacity for improvisation, and a reckless experimentation that can result in them seeming to be naturally lucky, players favoring Tactical play seek immediate freedom in their game worlds. Constraints are a particular annoyance, and such players can become bored easily when they lose the ability to have an impact. Naturally proficient with machines and tools with analogue controls, Tactical players seem to have an immediate competence with almost any game that attracts their interest.

The expression of the Idealist temperament is related to a need for meaning and significance, a desire for authenticity, and a drive to seek the unique identity of all things. Those who strongly express this pattern of emotional response are empathic, cooperative, and altruistic, and it is arguably the driving pattern behind the humanities—especially literature, poetry, and fine art—counseling, journalism, mysticism, and humanitarianism.

The Idealist temperament is defined as abstract affiliation with a focus on the motivations that allow people to be themselves. Those affected by it seek meaning and significance in all aspects of their lives, and strive for authenticity. The Diplomatic intellect associated with this pattern unifies through abstraction, and can use this to see how different perspectives are similar, as well as expressing this similarity in symbolic terms, such as metaphors. Empathy and cooperation are recurring themes.

Stressed by conflict, insincerity, and all things impersonal, people expressing the Idealist temperament often find themselves in extremely conflicted states as they try to balance their need for authenticity with their desire to be benevolent, or at least positive. Trapped between the demands of society and their own need for unique identity, those who express Idealist can ensnare themselves in a terrible emotional oubliette. Yet the Idealist temperament seems to express all that is good and valuable about humanity—fine art, poetry, literature, altruism, and spirituality all seem to spring from this pattern of emotional response, which enriches both our lives and our cultures.

Given the link to empathy, it is possible that mirror neurons are involved in the underlying neurology associated with this pattern, but since research on these is still in its infancy, it would be premature to draw a conclusion.

Although a discernible Diplomatic play style might be expected, the research is currently not sufficiently developed for anyone to have much confidence as to what constitutes this play style. It may be that Diplomatic play can be identified, but that it does not relate well to videogames, or it may be that there is no form of play that relates to the Diplomatic skill set (although this seems highly unlikely).

I will hypothesize as to what Diplomatic play might involve by looking at the skills that have been related to the Idealist temperament. Thus, I expect Diplomatic play to be involved in a process of unifying or harmonizing through an abstractive process, and also to be rooted in communication and empathy. This relationship with communication (either the private communication of writing and art, or the public communication that takes place directly between people) suggests that Diplomatic play might be found more easily by examining multiplayer games, but it may also be difficult to separate from extroverted play (see the next section).

It is also possible, given the Idealist temperament’s relationship to narrative and metaphor, that certain forms of story play might be opportunities for Diplomatic play to be expressed. But since our current videogames are not especially good at supporting story play, this may be difficult to ascertain. An examination of tabletop roleplay might be the best place to search for such a play style. I would expect a player expressing this play style in such a game to be enjoying resolving disputes and conflicts; given the general bias in most tabletop RPG play towards combat, an empirical study should easily show if there was a contrary form of play taking place in such games.

I mentioned earlier that Temperament Theory was related to Myers-Briggs typology. One aspect of the latter which is not expressed in the former is the notion of introversion and extraversion. When this is taken into account, there is another side to play to be considered: extroverted play. This relates to the People Fun discussed in Step 1, and the social play discussed in Step 2.

According to Linda Berens’ extension to Temperament Theory, there are four distinct Interaction Styles that, when combined with the four temperaments, yield the same inventory of 16 general “types” as the Myers-Briggs typological system (although since individuals express many different “types,” it is perhaps better to think of these as roles they are capable of adopting). Two of these Interaction Styles, which Berens calls Get Things Going and In Charge, relate to extroversion (the remaining two—Chart the Course and Behind the Scenes—relate to introversion) [Berens01].

There are, therefore, two hypothetical extroverted play styles that accompany the four temperament-derived play styles you have already learned about:

It is possible that the two introverted Interaction Styles also have a corresponding play style. More research is needed to investigate this.

Finally, I want to suggest some play styles relate to the key emotions of play, as exemplified by the Four Fun Keys model you learned about in the first step. It is possible that the play styles already identified have specific relationships to the key emotions of play—for instance, the DGD1 model that I developed with Richard Boon [Bateman04] [Bateman05] suggests that the emotion fiero is more intimately connected to Strategic and Logistical play than to other forms, and that the emotion of curiosity might be more intimately connected to Diplomatic or Tactical play. However, the DGD1 research is by no means robust enough to postulate anything more than hypothetical connections. As ever, further research is required.

One of the Four Fun Keys—People Fun—relates to extroverted play, described previously. The emotions associated with this key, namely amusement, schadenfreude (delight in other’s misfortune) and naches (the mentor’s delight in her student’s successes) should all be considered to contribute to extroverted play in general. You will see now how the other emotions of play can be considered possible play styles in their own right:

The nine play styles you have been introduced to here represent an early attempt at an inventory of the different ways people approach the play of games, with a particular focus on videogames. There are many unanswered questions at this point, and of particular interest is whether or not the emotional play styles correlate in any measurable way with the temperament-based play styles—and indeed, whether the combination of factors associated with the temperament-based styles really constitute measurable patterns. In order to investigate this question, it would be necessary to devise instrumentation that could identify elements of the play style definitions without building the assumptions of the underlying model into this instrument.

There can be little doubt, however, that the play of games is a diverse activity, and that attempts to understand it in terms of a sole underlying factor (a purely reductionist approach) will deliver an incomplete picture. Different people approach play with radically different play needs, and the way they meet those needs can be highly varied, but beyond this it is hard to reach any firm conclusions. More research is needed on player skills. In the meantime, the models we have give us an incomplete but intriguing picture of the diverse ways people play games.