The subcomponents generated by the factor analysis are NOT player types. It is NOT the case that we have come up with 10 boxes that we can put players in, but rather, we have revealed 10 subcomponents that co-exist and together reveal the motivations of a player. Bartle assumed that your underlying motivations "suppressed" each other. In other words, the more of an Achiever you were, the less of a Socializer, Explorer and Killer you could be, but just because you like ice-cream doesn't mean you will hate pasta. The assumption of polarized motivations is also not supported by the correlations of the current data set. The Achievement component is not negatively correlated with the Socializing component as Bartle's model would predict. In fact, it is mildly positively correlated (r = .10, p < .001). A more detailed comparison between the Types vs. Components approach is presented in a separate article.

The factor analysis also revealed several important ways where the data differed from Bartle's theoretical model:

1) Socializing and Role-Playing: Bartle proposed that people who like to chat and make friends are also the people who like to role-play. These are in fact two independent motivations.

2) Achieving and Competing: While Bartle proposed that Achievers and Griefers were separate Types, they are in fact fairly correlated with each other. The Advancement and Competition subcomponents are correlated at r = .41, p < .001.

3) The Explorer Type: Bartle construed Explorer's as people who enjoyed both exploring the world, gathering information as well as enjoying tinkering with the underlying system and mechanics. These are also in fact two different kinds of people. My earlier attempts to find the Bartle Explorer failed until I tried to look for those two constructs separately. In other words, there is a Discovery subcomponent that revolves around finding and accumulating knowledge that is separate from the Mechanics subcomponent that is interested at unraveling and tinkering with the game mechanics.

4) Immersion: There is also a separate set of motivations that didn't exist in Bartle's Types. The Immersion subcomponents revolve around story-line, role-playing, fantasy, customization and escapism and are independent of the Socializing motivations.

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