The Bartle Taxonomy: Killers

 Killing it

When it comes to designing games with the type of player one has to mind, there's few resources more helpful than that handy 'Bartle Taxonomy'. A spread of four archetypal moods for potential players that are drawn to certain styles of gameplay systems and genre tropes, helping to elucidate the potential reaction to created systems before they've even been put down to paper. Bartle's 1996 paper was originally created to help define the player bases of the proto-MMOs, then known as MUDs, but in the current age it's breadth of insight seems to work just fine on single player games as well for the definition it provides touching on player psyche. Of course, these definitions are not exclusive. One player can be a mix of player types, some players can be hard affixed to just one, but everyone has a shade of these perceptions within them when the time comes to sit down and play a game.

Killers are perhaps the easiest to grasp archetype in the Taxonomy, for all you have to do is identify them as the 'PVP Lovers' of the gaming world and everyone who has ever touched those style of games will know what you're talking about. They'll probably also have their own preconceived biases to the culture around such types of players and how it is to play alongside them. (Personally, not a fan.) But the definition is not as constrained as that. In fact, some people might find that the full breadth of who Killers are actually shines a little on their own philosophies towards playing games. I know certain games certainly bring out the killer in me, and I'm not talking about Hitman. Well, actually I am talking about Hitman, but not in that way...   

In basic breakdown, Killers are the types of players who use the consequence free environment of the digital world to unwind their pent-up frustrations, typically through rampant bouts of causing carnage and chaos. A killer strives to dominate and defeat, which is why for this kind of player the typical biggest challenge they can face is a character controlled by another human, because overcoming the wits of someone else is the ultimate theoretical challenge. These are the types you'll find popping around the PVP only zones or arenas of MMOs looking for their next victim, soaring to the top of the scoreboards in death matches, and challenges players to duels outside of main city. It's basically the archetype for those that have something to prove.

But again, Killers have a point of purpose in single player games too. Notably, killer's are driven most to the extremes of 'Power gaming' in order to push themselves to the top of leaderboards. They are most likely to play the 'hunter', swerving down destructive and villainous paths in RPGs; whatever allows them to cause the most mayhem; and a Killer player is best satisfied by roleplaying paths that give them the chance to satisfyingly be as disruptive, and sometimes evil, as possible. Which is perhaps why Killers are more often associated with multiplayer games than single player ones; because not many RPG developers have the gall to provide solidly laid out 'burn the world up' paths in their games and narratives; so Killers aren't usually as well fed in these genre type games.

Subdivisions exist within the 'Killer' Taxonomy. One such being the 'Politician', being a player who acquires their gaming thrills by amassing a large reputation for themselves and their skills. These are the kind of gamers you'll find joining and leading big competition-focused guilds, and probably even the breed of person who'll turn up to E-Sports tournaments one day- if there is still such a thing as E-Sports a year from now with everything that's happening in that world. They are pillars of activity who you'll become familiar with for their deeds alone. The big names floating around League of Legends and other communities will have their Killer traits.

And then, of course, you have the 'Griefer'. Pretty much the moral filpside of the Politician, a Griefer amasses infamy for how they can troll other players around them in the most significant fashion. I'm talking career gankers, murder clan members, inconvenient pranksters. The kind of people who discover the most disruptive way to interact with other players and revel in pushing that to it's limits. From the simple days of dumping buckets of lava atop someone's Minecraft base to the complicated extremes of invading a roleplay server for the sole purposes of disrupting the fragile ecostructure built by people trying to enjoy their game, so you can force your own terror ontop of them. When you think of the concept of a toxic gamer in action, you're probably sizing up a Griefer Killer archetype.

What I find most striking about the concept of a Killer Archetype, is the way that they interact with the game itself. Whereas most other archetypes seek some level of immersion and becoming lost within either the fiction of the game or the interactions they create, Killers never like to give themselves over to the throes of total immersion. On some level killers always see the boxy confines of the digital world around them and use that to drive their supremacist desires. All they play are systems to be conquered for the prestige of being a name on a leaderboard, rather than for enjoying the fiction of the world they've settled within. For a narrative designer, these players are pretty much one's absolute worst nightmare to develop for.

Of course, never forget that no archetype can be considered a total summation of any one person, and certain people who are Killers at one game might be Explorers in others. From my own experience, the only game where I feel any real competitive urge to score great points is the Hitman games, wherein I will cut every split second out of a perfect assassination in order to get in that top percentile of level finishers. But in practically every other game on the planet Earth I just couldn't care less. Still, the clever developer knows that true potential lies in a title that can stroke the ego of the Killers in gaming with promise and challenge, or brutalist freedom. How many systems in your favourite games appeal to the killer archetype? Take a think and you might be surprised.