A list of 40 questions that related to player motivations
was generated based on Bartle’s Player
Types3 and qualitative information from earlier
surveys of MMORPG players. Players used a fivepoint
fully labeled construct-specific scale to respond.
For example, respondents were asked,
“How important is it you to level up as fast as possible?.”
After the inventory of items was prepared,
data was then collected from 3,000 MMORPG players
through online surveys publicized at online
portals that catered to MMORPG players from several
popular MMORPGs—EverQuest, Dark Age of
Camelot, Ultima Online, and Star Wars Galaxies. A
factor analysis was then performed on this data to
detect the relationships among the inventory items
in order to reveal its underlying structure.