The folk over at NakedPlay and Playnomics have just released this infographic describing 8 gamer archetypes and their motivations to play.

The 8 they define are:

1. Scientists – who try new things and apply learnings
2. Politicians – who getting ahead by adapting to people
3. Socialites – who connect to others at all costs
4. Habitualists – who seek repetitive pleasure feedback
5. Strategists – who control the environment to suit their skills
6. Competitors – who focus on gaining respect by beating everyone else
7. Collectivists – who follow social norms with badges
8. Soloists – who seek security and controlled environments

While I’m not entirely sure how the authors have arrived at these definitions but they claim 32% of the UK population are Strategists, 22% are Politicians with Soloists and Habitualists have the lowest sizes at 5% each.

The work follows in the footsteps of previous research including Chris Bateman‘s excellent article on The Nine Basic Players (maybe).

You can read more about NakedPlay and Playnomics study on the iQU site.