So Brandon keeps grilling me on the Bartle’s Four. Is it still important? Is it relevant?

One viewpoint.

At AGDC this year, Erik Bethke talked about data mining the GoPets experience. GoPets was originally designed to be a purely social game. They ‘carpet bombed’ the social quarter of Bartle’s grid, in Erik’s words. They did okay.

GoPets is a ‘free to play, pay for stuff’ game. Last year, they decided to finally get around to datamining the game, to determine which items were most likely to be purchased by heavy game users. The thinking is, find what sells, and make more of it. Simple.

One eye-raising stat came from the fruit tree. The fruit tree simply produces a piece of fruit once per hour, providing what Erik describes as one of the few ‘Achiever’ elements in an otherwise purely Socializer game. What they found was that people who purchased the fruit tree were 11X more likely to be active players, and of active players, 4X more likely to be heavy users than your standard active player. Thus, fruit tree buyers (and theoretically, Achievers) are 44X more likely to be profitable customers than your average schmuck. At least in GoPets.

Another eye-raising stat came from the Content Creator, one of the few ‘Explorer’ elements in an otherwise purely Socializer game. What they found were that these people were 16X(!) more likely to be active players, and 4X more likely to be heavy users than standard active players. Thus, content creators (and theoretically, Explorers) are 64X(!) more likely to be profitable customers than your average schmuck. At least in GoPets.

So there’s that.

Unsurprisingly, the GoPets team is hard at work adding more classic MMO reward structures to the game. They mentioned adding questing, advancement, crafting and dance competitions, in order to spread the game’s focus over the other three Bartle’s quadrants. Erik’s summary: they wish they’d taken Bartle’s Four more seriously when they started. As for the changes they are adding: whether it will usher in a new era of GoPets, or whether it will remembered as their NGE, remains to be seen.

Original comments thread is here.