The players - who are they and where do they come from?

Imagine that the next person that you will pass on the street is your future client. It is your job to create a gaming experience that will captivate them; to keep them engaged and curious for long enough to explore the world that you have spent a tireless number of hours perfecting. What do you know about them and what do you need to know about them in order to create such a game? A few questions that immediately strike a game designer are:

• Are they someone who responds well to challenges, or do they run from them?
• Do they like games with a good story, or do they prefer action?
• Or is it that they like a combination of the two?

Before we commence with the game designing process, we need to find out more about these things. We do this in order to provide an optimal game environment for not just this person, but for other people like them. For many years, attempts have been made to categorize gamers into what is known as player types. Player...