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Different people want different things out of their games.
For instance, one kind of player may have absolutely no use for Awesome But Impractical abilities; they avoid even getting them, they write to the company asking them not to put them in future games, and they deride players who do use them as ignorant newbies. On the other hand, other players go straight for them, and use them as often as possible, just because they like the impressive visual effects and the feel of doing the maximum possible amount of damage. And yet another player will acquire them, but not use them except as a Finishing Move, because it's more dramatic that way.
Now, if you're making a game, it's very important that you know who, exactly, you're trying to sell the game to. Thus, a fair amount of work has been done into codifying the relevant psychographic profiles. All of them, to a greater or lesser degree, are about what the player thinks is fun.
Several different categorizations have been proposed. Most of them were made for the purposes of one specific game or genre, but can be applied more widely with a bit of tweaking. Of course, a lot of people designing archetypes believe that Most Gamers Are Male...
- Timmy/Johnny/Spike. This one comes from the minds behind Magic The Gathering.
- Timmy plays to experience something. He doesn't care if it's inefficient, as long as it's interesting, because for Timmy, "fun" is more about the journey than the destination. Timmy puts the most emphasis on the game as a social experience. Timmy lives for So Cool Its Awesome, for the Magic cards that make your eyes bug out.
- Johnny plays as a form of self-expression. The more customization there is in the game, the more room there is for Johnny, because Johnny thrives on taking the pieces the game gives them and making something uniquely their own. Johnny lives for the deck that makes your eyes bug out; Johnny probably spends more time designing his deck (army) (whatever) than playing it, and probably enjoys it more.
- Spike plays to win. They're most likely to be a Tournament Player, because they're the one willing to analyze and scrutinize the available strategies, looking for the one which gives them the best odds. Spike is the most likely type to be a "Mr. Suitcase," a player who spends unusually large amounts of money on the hobby, and will copy other people's designs and strategies (as opposed to inventing his own) if he thinks that holds the key to victory. It's the Spikes that determine the market value for almost all collectible components, since they're the ones first in line to grab them.
- See this article
 and this article for a further explanation of the archetypes.
- Magic also has another set of archetypes, Vorthos/Melvin. This is a separate axis; one's Vorthos-ity is unrelated to one's Timmy-ness. Essentially, it's a matter of appreciation for form vs. appreciation for function: Vorthos likes things based upon how they make him feel, and Melvin likes them based on how they make him think. Article here.
- Sports games mainly feature two types of players— "Simheads" and "Cheesers."
- Simheads are all about emulating the sport as it's played in real life. They almost always punt/kick a field goal on 4th down, don't run the same play repeatedly, don't abuse unrealistic exploits (i.e., averaging 18 blocks per game with Yao Ming simply because he's the tallest player in the NBA), etc. They don't (or try not to) do anything that they haven't seen in real life. What many people find funny is that if, before his amazing outburst against the Raptors in January of 2007, if you had scored 81 points with Kobe Bryant (and just for kicks, in the EXACT SAME WAY he did it in real life) against a simhead, he'd berate you for it and possibly hold a grudge for God knows how long, probably refusing to ever play you again. Simheads often claim to be perfectly content with losing if it happens in a realistic manner.
- Cheesers are the bane of the simhead. They represent everything wrong with the casual sports gamer. They have no respect for the sport itself, are ignorant and suck at the game so much that they can't play "the right way." The cheeser's main (only) objective is victory at all costs. They will use any exploit, score all their points with one player, pick only one team, run only one play— if it's effective, they'll do it, no questions asked. If a simhead claims that a tactic they use "isn't fair" or is "cheating," the cheeser will defend himself by asserting that if it's in the game, it's fair, and that the simhead could choose to do it as well. As well, if a cheeser is playing online and is convinced that it's impossible for him to win (i.e., is faced with a large deficit with little time remaining), he'll sometimes perform the sports-game equivalent of hara-kiri and end the game by either turning off his console completely, going to the dashboard or equivalent depending the console or cutting off his router/modem. This will not give the cheeser the win, but it won't give the opponent win either, and that is almost as good as victory for the cheeser.
- Richard Bartle wrote an article back in 1996, "Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs", describing four different player archetypes. It's had quite a bit of influence on subsequent development on massively multiplayer games, and Kingdom Of Loathing references it directly.
- Diamonds, AKA Achievers: These players go for the goals of the game themselves. Gaining Character Levels, getting a High Score, slaying the Bonus Boss, and so on. Also called power gamers or raiders. A subset of these are the kind who like collecting rare items.
- Spades, AKA Explorers: These players like to explore the game world itself. They're the ones hunting for the Easter Egg, Sequence Breaking just because they can, and being the first one to write a complete Walkthrough.
- Hearts, AKA Socializers: These players play to hang out with other players. They play because their friends play, and if their friends all packed up and moved to another game, they would too.
- Clubs, AKA Killers: These people play to have an effect on other players. Sometimes, this can mean healing, buffing, and generally being helpful, but most often, it means kicking their asses. These are the ones most likely to engage in Player Versus Player content.
- Modern varieties of the Bartle test generally subscribe to the opinion that nearly everyone has parts of all four inside them and give their ratings accordingly. For example, E/S/A/K gives the proportions of each from highest (explorer, or spade, in this case) to the lowest (killer, or club). The newest Kol Bartle test will give the top two percentages if they both are close enough together. (For example, a 'Roving Hugglebunny' is mostly heart and spade, in that order).
- "The Munchkin File" (AKA "Real Men, Real Roleplayers, Loonies and Munchkins") is a list that has been passed around the Internet in various forms for years which describes four types of Tabletop Games players:
- Real Men: "The tough macho type who walks up to the dragon and orders it to leave before someone gets hurt", who's into RPGs for the two-fisted action.
- This troper recalls a variant list with a counterpart archetype, the Real Women: female gamers who avert the Dungeonmasters Girlfriend trope. Mostly a put-upon Staff Chick, although with a nasty streak where Munchkins are concerned.
- Real Roleplayers: "The intelligent cunning guy who tricks the constable into letting you out of prison", who's into RPGs for roleplaying and problem-solving.
- The Five Gamers divides this archetype into "Brains" ("the mad genius who actually disarms the Six Skull Trap") and "Thespians" ("the melodramatic type who writes novel-length character histories and talks to every monster in the dungeon").
- Loonies: "The guy who will do anything for a laugh, including casting a fireball at point-blank range", who's into RPGs for fun.
- Munchkins: "Need we say more?", who's into RPGs to "win", even if the game isn't supposed to work that way. See the Munchkin page for more detail.
- Robin Laws has identified a few other flavors of role-players:
- Specialists: They play one type of character, and only one type of character. The most common Specialist loves ninjas, but there's a flavor of Specialist for every race, class, and personality type. The Specialist gets terribly, terribly upset if you tell him he can't play a ninja in your caveman campaign, regardless of how silly it would be.
- Storytellers: Like the Real Roleplayer above, but interested in the quality of the story as a whole, not just his acting within it.
- Casual Gamers: They're into gaming because that's what their friends are doing. They aren't there for the grand plot, the fantastic magic, or even for sticking things with sharp objects. They're just there to socialize, and gaming is the social activity their friends are doing. Similar to Hearts, above.
- Warhammer40000 has its own set of Game Archetypes- The Touchy Timmy, The Power Gamer, The Beardy, the Painting Snob, and the Untouchable
- Touchy Timmy likes models. A lot. Your models. Their models. Anybody's models. He doesn't play so much as he wanders around the gaming tables, seeking out awesome models and getting his grubby little hands all over them. Expect smeared paint, broken models, and lawsuits in the wake of a Touchy Timmy.
- Universally, the
Touchy Timmy is a reference to the new (typically 12-15 year old) player who swoops in, buys (read, has his mom buy) up the "army of the week", slathers them together with little regard for modeling or painting quality, fails utterly to read any of the rule books, disrupts things for a couple of months and then disappears forever. Timmies are commonly blamed (by veteran players) for the unfavorably looked upon marketing practices of GW corporate, notably in the "over-representation" of models released for whatever army the vet doesn't much care for.
- Imagine a sea of gray backed up by the world's most ardent Rules Nazi. This is the Power Gamer. Paint is for morons and fluffy armies are for losers. Expect the rulebook to be pulled out every ten seconds (in your turn, of course) for a rules check. Expect 3 Wraithlords, an all-Warrior Necron army, or any other cheap tactics. Also have earplugs handy for whenever a Power Gamer loses.
- The Beardy is probably the most positive archetype. He's either the gamestore owner or knows him. He's a middle-age guy with a wife and a bunch of kids, but he still finds time for his favorite hobby. Oftentimes he'll have a decently-painted, fluff-infused army with a quirky mix of units that tend to work out despite some of the units not being The Best. He is a fount of knowledge about strategies, past editions, and rules of etiquette. Befriend the Beardy as fast as you can.
- The Painting Snob is what the Beardy used to be, twenty years ago. He sees any unpainted units inside an army as being persona non grata, and any player fielding those units to be lazy, uncouth, and a whole list of mean words. Oftentimes he'll employ the use of one-haired brushes and a magnifying lamp to paint the veins on their models' eyeballs. Probably has been working on the same out-of-date army for five years.
- The Untouchable is the guy who only seems to drag his pimpled ass out of his mother's basement to share his stench with the rest of the Warhammer world. Nurgle would be proud of the way this man has allowed himself to go to pot- neckbeard, Cheetle-encrusted hands, clothing you could use as the sail on a raft. Breathes hard when MOVING MODELS AROUND THE TABLE! Generally a good player, though, if you can stand the smell.
- Add the Dice Ninja, practitioner of not only "die fu" but "ruler fu" as well. These are the guys who, through slight of hand, artful dodging, mis-direction, and knuckle-nudging, will have a piece that moves six inches a turn two feet across the table in three turns. They'll also be able to pull any dice required roll out of their ass whenever they need it, and can somehow cover half again as many models with a given template as anybody else. And don't even get me started on scatter dice!
- Also Rules Liars. These are the players who'll spout rules as though they were rules lawyers, but will conveniently leave out pertinent bits like exceptions, parameters, or which edition the particular rule came from (hint, it ain't the one you're playing) When the errors are pointed out, always expect them to claim they forgot or "missed that part" regardless of how many times THAT VERY SESSION such errors had been pointed out.
- Usenet and specifically rec.games.frp.advocacy has come up with a classification called the Threefold which makes the division Dramatist/Simulationist/Gamist. It has caused some controversy; for instance, the original version was intended to apply to the motivation for individual decisions, but it ended up being generalized to players or games.
- The Dungeon Master's Guide II supplement for Dungeons And Dragons identifies such player types as dramatist, supercool, master planner and oddball.
- Likewise, the Dungeon Master's Guide for Dungeons And Dragons Fourth Edition identifies eight player types:
- The Actor, who has fun by developing and acting out a fictional character
- The Explorer, who has fun by immersing in a large and detailed fictional world
- The Instigator, who has fun by making something happen, regardless of if it would be logical or in-character
- The Power Gamer, who has fun by Min Maxing a powerful character
- The Slayer, who has fun by killing things in combat encounters
- The Storyteller, who has fun when the game sessions tell a continuous and engaging story
- The Thinker, who has fun by solving challenges through strategy and planning
- The Watcher, who doesn't care so much about the game itself but about having fun hanging out with his/her friends.
- An April Fool article in Dragon Magazine, "The Ecology of the Adventurer", parodies this trope, by imagining how Player Archetypes appear to the denizens of the gameworld. Kobolds have apparently classified three types of adventurer: Gamists, whose every thought is about killing, and who never speak (The Real Man, with a bit of Munchkin); Narrativists, who agonise over the right thing to do, and can be distracted by asking them about their life story (The Roleplayer); and Simulationists, who are Crazy Prepared, and talk in funny voices (The Storyteller). According to the kobolds "Every adventurer fits cleanly into one of these categories, without any overlap."
- Note this is riffing off of GNS Theory, which (non-comedically) applies archetypes to game design.
- In the world of Star Craft, the gamers are divided into several sections.
- Campaigner. Plays the single player mode only and never gets into multiplayer
- Use Map Settings. Use specially made maps that do not use the normal gametypes and instead have different objectives.
- Idiots. Plays on battle.net on specially built easy to play maps and claims to be awesome at the game. Sometimes overlaps with Use Map Settings.
- Casual. Plays on ladder for fun and is your standard player.
- Hardcore. Plays ladder and in tournaments for money and fame. Small percentage of players. Can overlap with Casual if the Casual player is just that good.
- The Koreans. Play in major tournaments with millions watching. The best earn a very high pay and eat, breath, and literally live Star Craft. (Disclaimer, most Koreans are not actually in the group 'The Koreans'. It's just that generally only Koreans fit in the group, since only Korea has the support structure for it)
- Griefer. Play the game to annoy other players as much as possible.
Note that, for most of these categorizations, blends are possible; for example, you can have someone who's part Timmy and part Spike, or someone who integrates beating up bad guys with socializing with their team. Indeed, most people will have at least a little of each category.
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