Two weeks ago I posted a piece on GamaSutra about the four types of creators. I was pleased to see so many positive comments. Most people instantly recognize one or more of the creator types in themselves (or recall their own nostalgic tales of playing with Lego). Some of the comments also added upon the theory or offered additional insights, and I wanted to take a moment to highlight them.
First off, Bart Stewart draws a connection between the four creator types and the four personality types of psychologist David Keirsey’s “temperament” model. I hadn’t heard of this model before, but it wouldn’t be surprising if different approaches to creativity mapped onto different personality attitudes. Here’s what Bart has to say:
In Keirsey’s model, there are four large clusters of innate motivation, which he calls Guardians, Idealists, Rationals, and Artisans.
To paraphrase Keirsey: Guardians are structure-oriented; they believe things should fit together in a realistic and conventional way according to a defined process. Idealists are interested in what is possible; they are less concerned with utility than with investing things with their own meanings. Rationals want to know “why”; they construct and test models of the universe to see how it works. And Artisans are the great tool-users; they create for the pleasure of the sensation of making a thing, and they can just as easily enjoy the sensation of destroying a thing. (These are my own words; I refer anyone interested in reading the real thing to Keirsey’s own web site.)
It seems to me that Keirsey’s four temperaments align remarkably well with Bronstring’s four Player-Creator types:
BRONSTRING -> KEIRSEY
Builder -> Guardian (structure)
Imaginer -> Idealist (possibilities)
Experimenter -> Rational (understanding)
Destructor -> Artisan (sensation)
I thought this was an interesting connection, and thinking of the creator types in terms of structure, possibilites, understanding and sensation may help clarify their distinctions.
I’ll write more thoughts on the four player creators in another post.
Hey, my name is Marek Bronstring and I'm Head of Content at Sega. You're looking at my rarely-updated game design blog. I think this sidebar needs some more text so let me tell you what my top favorite animals are: 1) meerkats 2) 
Funny enough I just recorded and article tonight on Strategic Play by Chris Bateman with heavy references to Rational Temperament. http://onlyagame.typepad.com/ - a bunch of stuff on Chris’ site that delves into this kind of stuff
Ryan Wiancko
April 24th, 2009