The Four Types of Fantasy players

The Fantasy Consumer is an Escapist.
Wheter you are reading a book, watching a movie or playing a game, chances are that you are doing this merely to enjoy yourself. In this brief moment of distraction, you can emerge yourself in another worlds, away from the daily worries. No need to feel guilty. This behaviour can be translated as well into 'caveman tells stories around the campfire'. It is in our nature to entertain and be entertained. Life is complicated enough not to. Sharing this general feeling of escaping the daily life, we seek different aspects in our escape. Not all like to watch violent or horror movies. Some like to raise a happy little family as well. In this article I'll focus on the ones that play fantasy games since those have the greatest potential of escaping into a completely different world. Nonetheless, we are still human, and human traits are therefore incorporated in the gameplay, resulting into 4 different types of players.

The Explorer, Seeker of new Stimuli.
This type of player loves to emerge himself in the newly created world. His empathy with his avatar or the protagonist is intens. He likes to explore the world and establish an profound feeling of knowledge about it. But once familiar with the new grounds, he moves onwards to new horizons. This constantly changing of enviroment keeps the interest and this type of player will enjoy every expansion or sequal. The joy comes from new stimuli, new stories, new local lore.

The Gatherer, Collector of Gear and Achievements.
This player loves to gather resources, trade, commerce and gains satisfaction when he finds a bargain on the ingame economy. Always striving for new, better, upgraded gear, the gatherer is the type of player that will never settle for suboptimal gear. Quests, set by the game will be completed, and if all ingame content is completed, he will set out goals for himself. All possible achievements will be hunted. Although the character progression is not hampered, the goal is set by himself. These type of players usually analyse the game itself to break the mathematics behind the scene. They are willing to break out the fantasy and create spreadsheet with numbers, only to find the optimal strategy or gear. These players often abandon the game wealthy, but unsatisfied when some challanges are too big to overcome to obtain that last, rare item they do not possess yet or an achievement that seems impossible to obtain.

The Socialiser, Finder of Friends
The Socialiser is the least escapist of the four, since they use the game as a tool to get social relations. Helping out new players, pointing beginners to the right direction and always participating in ingame societies (call them guilds, or clans, or...). That does not exclude them from enjoying the game, as their roll as nestor can only be fullfilled if they possess the necessary knowledge themselves. They will sacrifies their own benefit for the greater good, and have a strong feeling of accomplishment if the group can pass certain goals. They will sacrifies their personal time to help other and be often dissapointed when help is not appreciated or taken advantage of.

The PVPer, Fighter of other Players.
The PVPer (or player versus player) will measure it's performance not by the achievement, their social status or the story, but from his ranking among his peers. He will and enjoys engaging in combat against other human players and finds a great deal of satisfaction when he can beat them. The Gatherer has better gear, and will try to measure up against the PVPer, but will loose, fueling both in their goals. The fantasy world serves as a platform to deploy his skills, not to explore or quench his interest in lore. He will continue to improve his tactics and his character in order to achieve the number 1 in the ranking.

But I recognize myself in all 4 categories!
Don't be so cocky, ofcourse you are a mix of the four. I'm not preaching international truth here. The main point is that while we enjoy leaving our sorrows behind and dive into another world, we maintain our characteristics. You have the opportunity to play or identify yourself with a character that is completely opposite of you in real life, but the way we enjoy the game is always ties to our person. You could be shy and introvert, but play a social character which means that, in fact, you are more social than you'd expect. Deep down inside, you cannot hide yourself and maybe identifying your playing style tells more about yourself than the game.