Monday, July 9, 2012

Are you a Spike, Timmy or Johnny?

Today in game design camp, I learned something really cool. Apparently, Wizards of The Coast, the company that makes D&D and Magic The Gathering has spent millions doing Psychographics on its fan base. (Psychographics is the study of the mentality of people who buy your product.) It turns out that there are four kinds (first three making up 90% of their demographic) of players.


  1. Timmy wants to have the cool stuff. Double-headed dragon? Hell yeah! In a game like Modern Warfare, Timmy spends more time making a cool-looking gun then finding the best weapon. In fact, if you can make his (many) deaths awesome, he won't mind as much.
  2. Spike, on the other hand, wants to win. He doesn't care if the gun is the ugliest thing, as long as Kill:Death ratio rises from 1:10 to 50000:0 he's happy. Oh, and if there is a build that will result in said stat change, he will find it. Or his buddies.
  3. Johnny wants to explore, to find new ways of doing things. He probably was sucked into Skyrim longer than all his friends. A week longer.
  4. Vorhese is that guy at the convention cosplaying as his favorite character. Or memorizing a fictional code of honor. Or learning a fictional language. He will get into character and sometimes has a hard time coming out.

So, which one are you?

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