LEGO and the four types of player/creators

[Marek]

I wrote a piece for my blog which was also published on Gamasutra today, which is about trying to distinguish different kinds of creativity in games that allow for player created content. As a starting point I use some of my experiences playing with LEGO as a kid and then sort of extrapolate them into gaming as a whole.

Anyway, I thought some of you guys might enjoy reading it:

http://www.gameslol.com/2009/01/27/the-four-types-of-playercreators/

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22003

[elmuerte]

hmm.. a lot of words, queuing it for tomorrow morning's coffee

[DanJW]

I got where you were coming from immediately (I used Bartle's Four as inspiration for an art project once). Good stuff.

Also, the article includes bonus kid-Marek photos! Marachibi!

Yufster and I are going to contact Marek's mother to see if we can get more of these.

[Roderick]

That's interesting, though a little light here and there. Applying the model to myself, I find a Builder type who will switch to most of the modes at one time or another, but always revert back to planning ahead and then crafting something with a certain aesthetic purity. I fondly remember wanting to create grey, ruined castles with hidden passages and moving walls all out of grey blocks and green vines creeping over the sides.

I think this will be the story of at least 90% of Lego players, whereas the MMO archetypes will be more equally divided. More pictures of young Bronstring playing, please! Animated GIFs, if possible.

[Nick]

Even at this early age, the neck is already beginning to elongate.

[brkl]

Oooh, so this is how it happened.

[miffy495]

I'm waiting for one of him dancing.

[elmuerte]

Interesting read. And it appears to be in line with models others have created (see Bart Stewart's comment on gamasutra). I think I'm a bit all over the place, although usually less of a destructor. The SimCity 2000 example was spot on. I always became bored with the city building after a while and then simply wrecked havok.

But I don't think it should be an important factor in game design to see what types you want to attract, etc. You have no control over that anyway. You will always attrack certain creators in the game that do things you never imagined where possible. A good example are the creators that popped up in FPS games like Halo or UT2004. I don't mean the mod creators, I mean that people that use the objects/vehicles in existing levels and do crazy stunts with it. Like launching a car on top of a tower. (can't find the videos of that stuff)

I think it would be much better to just provide the basic tools for each builder type (e.g. include something that creates a force, like an explosion, for the destructors).

It's not like the creators of LBP imagined the possibilities of creating an space invaders level, or a bsic calculator.

[Marek]

Nick: well done for spotting that. In my mind I read your post in a David Attenborough voice...

Elmuerte: I'm not sure I get what you're trying to say. At one point you write that designers have no control over what 'creator types' a game attracts, etc. Then a bit further on you say that designers should provide basic tools for each creator type. So why bother with that if, as you claim, designers have no control over it anyway?

Okay so, I agree with you that the specific outputs of a player community are often totally unexpected. I mean, I don't think the LBP developers specifically expected someone to make a basic calculator. However, I do think they were very consciously aware of the possibilities they enabled by putting pistons/wires/switches into the game. And... errr... fuck.

I'm sorry, for some reason your post fries my brains completely. I'm so confused. Maybe I'll try again later.

[elmuerte]

Want I meant to say is that designers should try to force a certain creator type, or at least, not focus on a single type. If you include the bare minimum building blocks which each type needs, then you don't put a strict limit on the possibilities. Of course you could focus a bit more on certain creator type.

For example, a game without forces (like gravity, explosions, or a simple "prod") limits the destruction a lot.

My point is that you never know how things will be used, so you shouldn't enforce artificial limitations. If you shift this point to object oriented programming: avoid making class members and methods private.

[DanJW]

Elmuerte, I think that is pretty much the point of Marek's article. He is saying that by paying attention to the four types, you won't accidentally lock-out any of them. Just like Bartle's Four in MMOs - an MMO aimed at a single type will fail, so you need to make sure there is stuff for every type. And you can only do that if you have some idea of the types in the first place.

[elmuerte]

I don't get that indication from the last paragraph. But if that was the indeed the point, then disregard my comment on that.

[syntheticgerbil]

I think I've also been sort of a combination of all four types, although most people will probably answer that way... but when it comes to actual Legos, I was never destructive, because of risk of breaking the toys. It was probably some of my OCD tendencies I inherited to keep everything nice and complete, as well as together.

At a younger age, I would put Legos together as the imaginative type would, but became a more structured builder type up to the point I completely stopped playing with Legos.

This article also made me remember at like age four or something, I had a small Lego set that made a snowman when put together the way the instructions said. I lost the piece that made up half of the snowman's shoe and made the connection that God (the Christian one) took it away because I had been a bad boy. I also used to be afraid of going to hell a lot around that age. Thank goodness I don't believe in that stuff anymore.

But uh, lame childhood stories aside, I used to build more of my own levels and customize in games, especially Worms Armageddon, but as I get older, I really only have time to play as a consumer, since I am required to create in real life for my job. I have no use for using a game more than an entertainment experience or a ride, hence why I will only tend to play single player games with endings these days, none online.