ABSTRACT

Games have been employed to affect people’s thinking and cognitive processes for years. It triggers a special mental state, the play state. The play state is an exceptional mental space that allows players to focus, to be creative, and to engage differently than the everyday state. Historically, the play state has been described in many different ways. Game designers largely work to get and keep people in the mental state of play. This is why understanding players, their needs, their wants, their desires, and their motivations can make game designers more effective. Demographics describe basic characteristics like the player's age, gender, and background. Demographics provide a broad lens that can be used to form an archetypal view of players. Technographics can be used to describe and understand groups of people by their access and history with specific technologies. Psychographics are typically used to describe the interests, activities, and opinions of individuals.