Although not all students are gamers, the number of those who define themselves as gamers is increasing quickly. As eSports gains popularity, this will only rise. However, not all gamers are determined to compete in eSports. Instead, the toxic competition attributed to online games fails to match the reasons the majority of people engage in games.
Richard Bartle identified four basic types of game players: Socializer. Achiever. Explorer. Killer. About 80% of gamers are primarily Socializers, with 20% split evenly between Achievers and Explorers. Killers are less than 1%. Bartle also attributed these four terms to the suit found in playing cards. The pyramid below suggests a simplification of this breakdown.
Social interaction is the reason 80% of players play rather than win. These players play games to hang out with friends. This should not be understated. People primarily play games to be social. The majority of people play to find community, like-minded individuals, acceptance, and, ultimately, love. It is for this reason, that social gamers are represented also as hearts.
Zelda had it right all along: Fill hearts. Stay alive.
Games, online and in real life, should promote inclusion and acceptance above all other motivations. This is the reason, the why, people enjoy or join a game. Digital games specifically create a unique opportunity to remove barriers that prevent people from playing together based on physical limitations or exclusion. Investing in an educational foundation to promote equity is an opportunity humanity cannot afford to squander.
Explorers, 10% of gamers, are also known as spades to reference the digging through the entire map in search of secrets. A shovel to discover the buried treasure, unlocking every award, and hunting for easter eggs and glitches. Ten percent of players identify with this profile more than the others.
Explorers make the ideal game testers.
Discovering program errors and glitches motivates them rather than friendship. Individuals who pursue game testing as a profession are social gamers and are often dissatisfied with their career path. These members should be inspired and discovered as they will suggest and find bugs within the system. These will be people who desire to create content for Schools with ideas that stretch the model. These gamers will be less driven by social engagement but rather more ambitious in discovering the flaws and finding a new way to attack that problem in order to fix it.
Achievers, as 10% of gamers, are also known as diamonds, which suggest the collection of trophies and treasures as a personal horde—a collection of achievements and gold stars representing completion. Applications to academic courses are often best represented by a badge specific to the task that is completed. Level, cosmetic customization, and even altered borders around the avatar icon give the player a sense of personal accomplishment. Again, many of these can be used to flaunt personal skill or dedication.
However, for achievers, these are more personal goals.
Privately, progress bars show the personal journey without the purpose of showing it off to other players. This is a personal benefit and not advertised to the whole of the community; rather, it is a personalized goal that does not rank any member against others.
The journey through it is the most important, rather than a comparison to others. You are only comparing yourself to the version of you yesterday rather than others on their own version of the journey. Instead of only rewarding 100% completion, students, as other players, may be satisfied with a badge of lower status. However, 100% competition and the three gold star ratings motivate Achievers instead of getting nothing because they have not fully completed the course. Still, specific badges can represent the level to which a student has engaged in the content. This helps people to privilege progress over perfection.
Iterations are essential to this process and progress, reflecting the formative assessments for learning featured in Super Mario Bros.
The preservation and celebration of failure as a pathway to learning.
The adoption of applying scientific pragmatism to practical implementation through engineering practices innovates the future. Lawmaking inspires compassionate criticism through the critical analysis of Explorers and Achievers outside the threat of opportunistic Killers.
In public school, humanity can develop better solutions to existing problems. With public scholarship, humanity solves problems we didn’t know we had. Through equitable funding, humanity can prevent dystopian warnings and pursue the happy, healthy, and safe world we want for our children.
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