Play-Persona: Modeling Player Behaviour in Computer Games

ARTICLE 10 - PSYCHOLOGY OF PERSONALITY AND PLAY
PERSONAS: DESIGNING FOR EXPERIENCE
Alessandro Canossa, Under the Mask conference, University of Bedfordshire, 2009
ABSTRACT
This article attempts to draft a method, inspired by trait-based theories of personality, to model and
profile players’ behaviour within the boundaries of computer games. These player’s models can
both provide developers with tools to evaluate, sharpen and improve the player’s experience and
provide game researchers with insights regarding the landscape of players’ behaviour.
1. INTRODUCTION
People leave trails. Books borrowed at the library, websites visited while browsing the net, owning
a house, working as a middle manager, vacationing in South-east Asia. In a virtual game world
every action undertaken by players becomes a syllable of a longer sentence that contributes in
composing the narrative of play; every action undertaken can be seen as the visible outcome of
somebody’s personality.
If game designers could easily read the stories spelled by players through their behaviours in game
worlds, then they would empower players and allow them to live out their fantasies in more
meaningful experiences.
It really is a challenge to find a design philosophy that can afford to craft experiences
accommodating dreams, goals and fantasies of a multitude of players; it is not just a matter of level
of expertise or skills, it actually involves the whole of a person’s history, the circuit between
memories and emotions, even the genetic background.
2. Experience
The main challenge in creating game experiences manifests itself in the double nature of the
meaning of the word itself: experience refers both to the knowledge arising from reflection (“he’s a
man of experience”) and the immediate sensory perception of an event (“he was experiencing
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