BrainHex: A neurobiological gamer typology survey

• BrainHex describes seven player archetypes: Seeker, Survivor, Daredevil, Mastermind, Conqueror, Socialiser, Achiever.
• The study sample connects an interest in digital games with a preference for Introversion.
• A clustering of player types in Thinking and Feeling suggests visceral or aesthetic reward preferences.
• BrainHex provides a tool for designing gameplay and understanding motivations for play.

This paper briefly presents a player satisfaction model called BrainHex, which was based on insights from neurobiological findings as well as the results from earlier demographic game design models (DGD1 and DGD2). The model presents seven different archetypes of players: Seeker, Survivor, Daredevil, Mastermind, Conqueror, Socialiser, and Achiever. We explain how each of these player archetypes relates to older player typologies (such as Myers-Briggs), and how each archetype characterizes a specific playing style. We conducted a survey among more than 50,000 players using the BrainHex model as a personality type motivator to gather and compare demographic data to the different BrainHex archetypes. We discuss some results from this survey with a focus on psychometric orientation of respondents, to establish relationships between personality types and BrainHex archetypes.