Game Design and the Challenge-Avoiding Impression Manager Player Type

In this manuscript we propose that Challenge-avoiders, also referred to as Impression Managers, are a heretofore ignored but commonly occurring player type. We consider whether and how eight very different modern games accommodate Explorers, Challenge-seekers, and Challenge-avoiders and discuss implications for entertainment and learning game design. Achievers and Explorers are player types found in MMOs and educational games (Bartle, 2006; Heeter and Winn, 2008). Achievers are motivated by extrinsic rewards such as leveling up and earning high scores. Explorers are motivated by intrinsic factors such as curiosity, role play, and learning. Mindset research and motivation research on learning both point to two distinctly different forms of extrinsic motivation (Lepper and Henderlong, 2000; Dweck, 2006). Dweck (2006) discovered that some learners have a Fixed mindset and others have a Mastery mindset. Fixed mindset learners avoid situations that they cannot easily do well at. Failure undermines their confidence and if they fail, they become depressed and ineffective. Having a Fixed mindset can undo a natural love of learning. In contrast, effort and learning make mastery-motivated students feel good about their intelligence; easy tasks waste their time rather than raising their self-esteem. Gee points out that failing is part of playing a video game. Failure in video games “allow[s] players to take risks and try out hypotheses...” (p. 153). In fact, failing is a key mechanism in complex games by which players learn and improve. Players with a Fixed mindset (we will call them “Impression Managers”) dislike failing and for that reason probably do not enjoy these kinds of games. Even if such players avoid complex games, there is nothing inherently wrong with enjoying easy successes and avoiding hard challenges in games for entertainment. However, in a learning game avoiding failure can interfere with learning. Perhaps because Impression Managers tend to opt out of playing complex games, player type research which has mostly been conducted on complex MUDs and MMOs has not identified them as a player type. With the 8 games we analyzed, games tend to primarily serve either the Explorer or Achiever player type. Focusing on one of these player types (e.g. Explorers) often means that a game serves the opposite player type (e.g. Achievers) less well. Impression Managers are often but not always supported to some extent within the games, through user-selectable difficulty settings and other challenge-monitoring adaptive features.