The Unified Model of Player Motivation

• All the reasons players play games
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The Unified Model of Player Motivations

Through my research about player behavior and personas, I came across multiple models about why players play games. Although there has been quite some research and ideas about this topic for decades, such as Bartle’s 1996 taxonomy of player types and from 1958 Caillois’ four categories of games, it is only in the last few years that more models are surfacing, which seems to indicate a newfound industry interest in the motivations of players.

Our (gaming) industry is continuously growing and with no sign of stagnation in sight, with ever more people that turn to gaming for their pastime activities and ever increasing their spending on games. And with this growth also comes a maturing process where more people try to understand and get a grip on the magic that is needed to create great games, so as to capitalize on this growing trend.

From game centric solution companies like Game Refinery and Quantic Foundry to tech giants Google and Facebook, they all researched and shared their findings about player motivations. 

By going through the research and findings it became apparent that they were overlapping on some occasions and covering each other’s blind spots on the other hand. I felt the need to unify all the research into a single source of player motivation that would capture all possible reasons players seek out this particular form of entertainment. 

Another realization I had while going through the existing research is that in order to provide succinct information, the proposed motivation descriptions made available by these companies are quite generalizing and therefore less accurate and less useful as I’d like them to be. They provide a right direction but will still require significant follow-up and deep diving to become of practical use.

Nonetheless, this research is significant and has laid down the foundation of my own model of player motivations that not only tries to unify all reasons players play, but adds an additional layer of depth by introducing the scale of dedication; a breakdown of each motivation in terms of player dedication and effort. This breakdown of motivations creates a model applicable to casual audiences all the way to the hard core fanatics and everyone in between.

For my Unified Model of Player Motivations I relied on my own experience as a game designer, my own research about our the gaming audience and I’ve researched the following models and frameworks:

• Google – Who Plays Mobile Games
  Kind of an outlier in the research, but added the important distinction in addressing the level of dedication a player can have and how it affects it’s motivation
  
  
• Facebook Gaming – The Big Catch
  Although geared to the ad creative side, it clearly researched the motivation of players to help advertiser gain traction
  
  
• Quantic Foundry – Gamer Motivation Model
  Specializing in player motivations and drivers, the research they provided is comprehensive and thorough. 
  
  
• Game Refinery – 12 Motivational Drivers
  Specializing in providing actionable insight from researching successful games, they expanded and included player motivations to their insights.
  

• HICSS – Five Factor Inventory of Intrinsic Motivations
  This model has been put to use in different scenarios and I’ve come to have known them through Liquid & Grit’s reports and research on personas.
  

Introducing the Unified Model of Player Motivation

My model identifies 10 high level motivators:

1. Social Connection – Play to engage with others
   
   
2. Mastery & Expertise – Play to learn
   
   
3. Discovery – Play to uncover the unknown
   
   
4. Escapism – Play to disconnect
   
   
5. Power & Control – Play to win
   
   
6. Relaxation – Play to unwind
   
   
7. Thrill & Excitement – Play for sensation
   
   
8. Strategy & Management – Play to plan
   
   
9. Expression – Play to create
   
   
10. Completion & Ownership – Play to accumulate
    
    

Each of these high level motivators is supported by the research made available by the companies listed above. Some motivators are grouped together as the overlap in motivation is high and the difference too low to be practical. 

Each individual player will play for different reasons and individual reasons, but most likely they will fall in one or more of these 10 categories. Although possible, it is highly unlikely that a player will play for all listed motivators, but it is entirely possible that motivational preferences change over time and are influenced by personal mood and general being. People go through different moods and certain games fit particular moods better than others. Playing games as a form of mood control has been researched too and could very well be worth exploring in another time, but is out of scope for this article. 

The Scale of Dedication

The amount of dedication the player is willing and/or expecting to put in the experience have a large impact on the identified motivation to play a game. Although many of the researched frameworks and models seem to describe some elements of the amount of dedication in their descriptions, none of them explicitly addresses dedication as having an influence on the drive to play. This missed opportunity has serious consequences in the applicability of their models and one that I hope to address with my model. It could be due to my career that crosses many different dedication levels in players, ranging from hard core games to casual mobile games that this gap in research grabbed my attention quickly. 

In this regard, a casual player is someone who expects to dedicate less of their time and energy in the experience. Note that it is important that we’re talking about the expected dedication and not per se the actual dedication these players put in their games. There are large groups of casual players that still spend significant time on their hobby and their favorite game, but still their motivations to play differ dramatically over the player that expects to dedicate a lot of time and energy and even money on their favorite pastime.

Because the expected dedication has such a large influence, I broke down each of the 10 player motivation categories into 3 levels of dedication:

• Low Dedication
  Players with a low dedication to this motivational category will still play a game for this motivation. These are casual players that do not expect high amounts of concentration, time or effort required. This group of players will in most cases not identify themselves as a gamer.
  
• Medium Dedication
  Players with medium expected dedication will actually dedicate and set apart time to engage with their game. They expect the experience to cost time, money and effort and will identify themselves as gamers. They’ll consider buying dedicated gaming hardware such as game consoles or take their hobby into account when buying a new phone or computer. These players expect to pay for their game as well.  
  
• High Dedication
  These players are the absolute fanatics, the hard core devotees. They will make significant investments in time, effort and money to experience their games. Some will take their gaming dedication and elevate it outside the original gaming contexts such as real life role play, cosplay and esports.  

Fun = Progression

A last note before diving into the ten motivations. All players play games because they are fun. My definition of fun is that it provides progression. Back in 2005 I dedicated my master research and paper to exploring what fun actually is to people and my research pointed towards progression. Any activity that we feel is fun will afford some form of progression and the more progression stacks upon earlier progression, the more fun we’ll have. Underlying all player motivation is the affordance of the game and expectation of the player to progress. Progression can take many forms. Lower dedicated players will probably benefit from more apparent progression mechanics, such as stories, collections, linear level maps and so forth while highly dedicated players will automatically be more attuned to skill development.  

The 10 Player Motivation Categories

Social Connection

All researched sources mention Social Connection as a key motivation with players. Both Quantic Foundry and Game Refinery offer a distinction between competitive and collaborative play. 

Players that are motivated by Social Connection want to share their experience with like minded people, play with friends or family. 

Players motivated by Social Connection with a low dedication will seek out occasional online battles and skirmishes with a low commitment on time and appointments. With online, asynchronous gameplay is preferred. Offline the Social Connection motivator drives players to engage with each other through on-the-couch game sessions and party games. Winning is of lesser importance than the activity itself.

Medium dedicated players motivated by Social Connection love being part of a team or guild. They like contributing to the effort of the team and they’ll engage with chat systems and voice-chat. They’ll pursue leaderboard positions especially if they feel these are attainable. Winning is an important factor in their motivation and they see competing with others as a way to test their skills.

Being the absolute best and proving that to others is what highly dedicated players motivates. Top position on a leaderboard and winning tournaments are alluring to this player. These players will be interested in E-Sports, become guild leaders or game masters. Real time synchronous multiplayer games that require appointment and time dedication are what this player is about. 

Low Dedication	Medium Dedication	High Dedication
Occasional matches, online asynchronous multiplayer, offline on the couch shared screen. Party games	Likes being part of a team or guild. Plays in teams, loves to chat. Leaderboard are engaging if attainable	E-sports, Community or Guild Leaders. Prefers online real time multiplayer.

Mastery and Expertise

All researched resources also mention mastering and expertise as a core motivation for many players. These players love the feeling of accomplishments and expect games to increase the challenge with progression.

Skills arise from learning the game workings, controls and rules, or skills are tested through challenges and puzzles. 

On a low dedication level of being motivated by Mastery and Expertise, players desire intuitive navigation, clear goals and responsives feedback. They love the feeling of being in control and are looking to be challenged once “they get it”. These players love to learn new things or see things from new perspectives but have a low tolerance of failure. 

Medium dedicated players that are motivated by Mastery and Expertise and expect failure to be part of the routine. But failure can still be discouraging if there is no clear indication of progression. Overcoming challenges and “beating the game” are core drivers and this player expects each challenge to be more difficult than the previous one.

Highly dedicated players motivated by Mastery and Expertise will embrace failure and are motivated by the pursuit of accomplishment. Being persistent is a skill they’ll love to train and they want to play games with a lot of depth that only becomes apparent through their dedication.

Low Dedication	Medium Dedication	High Dedication
Ease of use, intuitive actions, responsiveness and game feel are important. These players get excited by feeling they master a game quickly.	This player has some tolerance of failure but needs to see progression fast or will feel it’s a waste of time. Expects a game to increase difficulty over progress	High tolerance of failure. These players understand persistence is necessary to be the best. Enjoy games with lots of depth

Discovery

Motivated by a sense of wonder and amazement, these players are motivated by discovery. They’ll seek out games that surprise them and give them a sense of exploration and adventure. 

Games with large maps, lots of variation, hidden treasures and sneaky shortcuts are attractive to these players. 

Players motivated by Discover with a low dedication love to be surprised by the things that happen to be on their path. A game that changes its pace and varies its gameplay without actively having to seek it out. 

Medium dedicated players motivated by Discovery however will seek out discovery themselves. By actively searching and striving to make that discovery, they’ll turn the discovery into their own discovery, which is an important distinction from the low dedicated players. These players will seek out answers to “What if..” scenarios and experiment with the intentions and rules of the game.

Highly dedicated players motivated by Discovery will not stop at the rules and intentions of the game but will seek ways to circumvent, manipulate and break the rules to see what they are capable of. These players will not just dedicate themselves to uncovering everything in the game, but they’ll get a kick out of finding unintentional glitches and unintentional game behavior.

Low Dedication	Medium Dedication	High Dedication
Love being surprised and learn new things and see what will be on their path. They will not push and strive for it, but rather surprises need to happen to them.	These players will seek out and explore. They’ll use their game abilities to answer “what if” scenarios and love to experiment within the intention of the game.	These players are fascinated by pushing the game beyond its limits and are able to endlessly pursue its possibilities. They’ll manipulate the game in unintended ways.

Escapism

Bored by daily routine, waiting in line, overwhelmed with busy schedules or simply fantasizing about being somewhere else, many players long to escape. Players want to disconnect from their real lifes and connect with a virtual one.

Players with a low dedication in Escapism seek to be distracted and take their mind off. Quick in between sessions, puzzles and brain teasers that require small doses of deliberate attention is what they seek. Some of these players will seek further dedication without dedicating more time, but rather more sessions. Relatable characters, stories and settings will fit their wants as they will be able to instantly connect and reconnect with these in the small time frame they feel they have.

More dedicated players will seek out further immersion into the game world, stories and characters and use the time they have available to read back stories and find out more about the lore of the world. They will either step into the role of the character (mostly male players) or play together with the character (mostly female players) and experience the world and stories together. They play to feel immersed and experience emotions.

The highest dedicated players that seek out escapism will immerse themselves deeper and will deliberately step into the role of fictional characters, even outside the context of the game. Role playing games, both digital and in real life allows them to take on a personality. They will act like another, just like an actor would in a play or movie. These players have a high tolerance of the fantastical, the extraordinary and non-human characters with human traits. 

Low Dedication	Medium Dedication	High Dedication
Quick distractions, ease of use and quick moments of deliberate focus. Will seek relatable characters and familiar settings. If they have a need for further dedication will increase sessions rather than extended playtrime.	Immersion, story, characters. They’ll fantasize along with a character or step into the shoes of the protagonist in the context of the game.	These players will adopt the personalities and go through extra lengths to really embody the character they play. Some will cross over into Real Life Role Play and cosplaying.

Power & Control

Seeking a sense of control over situations and autonomy over decisions, these players are motivated to feel that they influence the game. Defeating and winning are important and add to these player’s self esteem. The feeling of power arises from reactive situations where on-the-fly responses are necessary. The biggest difference in the feeling of power with regards to the Management & Strategy category is in the reactive rather than the anticipatory nature of the experience.

A low dedicated player seeking power and control searches for games that elevate their abilities beyond their real world capabilities. Larger than life capabilities and means for destruction spark an interest. Ultimately they seek a  feeling of autonomy through actions. Racing at breakneck speeds, fighting huge monsters, destroying cities and shooting in high action settings. 

The medium dedicated player likes to evolve and extend upon their larger than life prowess and will collect items, grind the same levels and seek out any tools necessary to maximize their stats and abilities, but only to experience the satisfaction of using their abilities in the game’s context. These players will collect “effective” items and do not care for cosmetics or completion by itself.

Highly dedicated players seeking power and control play to dominate and be the best in high octane action packed games. Outsmarting, outwitting, outmaneuvering and outlasting the best in online play. 

Low Dedication	Medium Dedication	High Dedication
Enlargement of possibilities, larger than live, Destruction, explosions and high octane feedback. Stealing, sabotaging and other forms of undermining play.	Ever increasing powers and abilities, evolving and upgrading weapons and strengths. These players aim to get their abilities maxed out and seek out any tools or items they need to achieve it. These players accept that grinding is necessary to increase their power.	Seek out extra challenging games and multiplayer matches that require dedicated training, repetition and aim for perfection. The fact that they exceed where others fail excites them. Dominating the play field in reaction based gameplay.

Relaxation

With games like Hidden Folks, Cloud Gardens, Animal Crossings and Alba A Wildlife Adventure there’s clearly a need amongst the game playing public being fulfilled. Facebook gaming was the only one to directly categorize relaxation as a motivation for players to play and so it clearly fills a gap in the other studies.

Players looking to wind down and destress, seeking out chill and low effort experiences. Well known mechanics and repetitive no-brainer games. Decoration and creative expression games can in some cases overlap and many share the fact that they cannot be failed. 

Low dedicated players looking for relaxation are drawn to games with well known and easy to understand mechanics. Repetitive gameplay is welcomed and their sense of progression comes from the meta rather than the evolving mechanics. The lack of fail conditions adds to the sense of relaxation and de-stressing.

Medium dedicated players motivated by relaxation love to progress through their games with slowly evolving narrative or creation and decoration mechanics. Progression is a result of time investment and not from increased skills. 

Highly dedicated players motivated by relaxation seek experiences that resemble meditation and immersive experiences that require very low interaction. 

Low Dedication	Medium Dedication	High Dedication
Repetitive, well known mechanics and intuitive gameplay without fail conditions or time limits.	Wandering, exploring, walking simulators. Progression is mindless but requires time commitment.	Meditative and carefree, free form and free flow.

Thrill and Excitement

These players are looking for high energy thrills, over the top feedback and responses, breakneck speeds and high action games. Surprises and other suspenseful situations that cause that feeling of being on a rush and experiencing those adrenaline spikes.

Low dedicated players that seek thrills and excitement care about chance, betting, luck and gambling mechanics. Relatively low effort and dedication for the chance to win big excites and get that adrenaline flowing. Other genres that are interesting for these players include quizzes and party games that do not solely rely on skills but include a high degree of luck.

Medium dedicated players will seek high octane action packed games that provide non-stop action from start to finish. Shooters, air combat, fighting and high speed arcade style racing games.

High dedicated players seeking thrill and excitement will seek games that provide constant life-death situations and require prolonged focus and high attention spans. These players like the intensity and pressure from thriller and horror games. 

Low Dedication	Medium Dedication	High Dedication
Gambling, betting, chance and randomness	Fast Paced, High Action, reaction time. Adrenaline	Constant attention and focus, suspense and thrillers

Management and Strategy

Players that are motivated by Management and Strategy like to plan ahead and make decisions that will have a longer term consequence. They are motivated by influencing or controlling chaos through adjustments and planning.

Management and Strategy players with a low level of dedication like to experiment and try-out tactics with short term effects and near real-time feedback. They’ll love to manage resources and time management is a genre they’ll like. These players have a low tolerance for feeling “out of control”.

Medium dedicated players like to plan further ahead and have a higher tolerance for feeling “out of control” and will deal and plan with the expectancy of getting a higher payback in case their plans work out. Tactics, strategy and turn based games where initial steps can trickle down to longer term effects.

High dedicated level players motivated by management and strategy will think through all of their options and come-up with long term plannings. They tend to have a high tolerance for chaos and a high tolerance for delayed feedback on their decisions. Collectable card games that require intimate knowledge of large amounts of rules and possibilities would be a genre these players would love. 

Low Dedication	Medium Dedication	High Dedication
Experiment and try-out tactics with near real time feedback. Time Management and on the fly decision making.	Tactics and turn based strategy. Some tolerance to feeling “out of control” with the intent of getting it back in control.	Resource management, complex streams, long term planning. High tolerance of delayed feedback on their decisions.

Expression

Players motivated by Expression want to celebrate their autonomy through choices that impact the flow of the game. They want to show their creativity, leave a mark on the game and make the experience their own.

Players motivated by expression with low dedication are excited by the notion that their choice will have an impact on the flow of the game or story. They’ll enjoy low effort customization options to make their character or their environment their own. Not everyone is creative or has an eye for aesthetics and these players would rather have limited options that they can’t mess up.

Medium dedicated players seek out deeper customization and a higher level of control. These players will carefully spend many hours perfecting their character’s visual appearance in a role playing game or perfecting the paintjob of their cars. These players will be attracted by showcasing their efforts too, through multiplayer environments or by creating so-called “user generated content”; making their creations available to the game’s community.

High dedicated players are drawn to creator-like games such as Minecraft, Mario Maker, Dreams and deep builders like Planet Rollercoaster. These games are like a canvas or a musical instrument for an artist and a way to fully express their creativity. These players like to impress others with their ingenuity, creativity and dedication and love to show off their work. 

Low Dedication	Medium Dedication	High Dedication
Choices with impact, feeling of autonomy, low effort customization and custom victory dances.	Character creation, sim- and builder type games. User generated content.	Creator type games with maximum control over every aspect.

Completion & Ownership

It is my understanding that all player’s seek progression in their games in order to keep enjoying the experience. Player’s that are motivated by completion and ownership seek very clear feedback and extrinsic rewards that mark their progression.

Players with low dedication towards completion and ownership will value clear – and often linear – progression markers such as linear maps, lists, collections and achievements with rewards that mark every step of progression. There’s no ambiguity in the next step. These players expect their time and effort to be rewarded and not necessarily expect each reward to be more demanding than the other.

Medium dedicated players seeking completion and ownership are more comfortable with open ended maps, collectibles that are more scattered and require more effort to reach.  These players expect a build-up of increased skills and effort, they like the pursuit and the knowledge that not everyone is able to reach their goals. Games where collections and improvements drive the gameplay forward such as builder type games where the objective is to build a city, a farm, a zoo or theme park provide that sense of completion and ownership while clearly overlapping with the Expression motivation.

On the high dedication level of completion and ownership are the players that are often referred to as completionists. They’ll go to great lengths to 100% a game, completing every task, finding all hidden items, collecting every piece of gear for their character and maximizing their stats. The harder or more rare an item is, the bigger their pay-off. 

Low Dedication	Medium Dedication	High Dedication
Clear feedback on progression, finding new items and characters.	The pursuit of items that leads into a feeling of pride and ownership. Their proud collection is a reflection of their effort and skill.	Completionist. Complete every mission, every task, find every hidden item and collect every collectable. These player’s expect things to get hard but will only feel satisfied with a perfect 100% completion.

Bringing it into practice

The ability to better understand our players and with that the ability to create games that are more fun, for longer periods of time and ultimately create the best possible player experience is the reason I created the Unified Model of Player Motivations. 

I realize that this model and the descriptions of each high level motivator is only scratching the surface. There are many further steps to take to get an even better grasp. For instance, I’m toying with the idea of doing additional research amongst players to validate the completion of the model and to improve the descriptions. 

On the other hand, I also like to add these player motivations to the personas we’re using in our latest game (the ones I talked about in my previous article). Or what about using these player motivations and crossing them with the scale of authorship and see if there’s some interesting discoveries.

Whatever I try to understand and learn next, doing this research and improving my skills as game designer and director is what I absolutely love to do. Slowly peeling away at the mysteries of game design. 

I leave you with my own player motivations as captured in the Unified Model of Player Motivation. As you can see, I have a broad spectrum of motivations, with special interests in discovery and expression and almost no interest in management in a gaming context.