Bartle received a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence from the University of Essex, where he created MUD1 with Roy Trubshaw, in 1978.

He lectured at Essex until 1987, when he left to work full time on MUD (known as MUD2 in its present version). Recently he has returned to the university as a part-time professor and principal teaching fellow in the Department of Computing and Electronic Systems, supervising courses on computer game design as part of the department's degree course on computer game development.

In 2003, he wrote Designing Virtual Worlds, a book about the history, ethics, structure, and technology of massively multiplayer games.

Bartle is also a contributing editor to Terra Nova, a collaborative blog that deals with virtual world issues.

Bartle did research on player personality types in massively-multiplayer online games. In Bartle's analysis, players of massively multiplayer online games can be divided into four types: achievers, explorers, socializers and killers. This idea has been adapted into a popular online test generally referred to as the Bartle Test. The test is very popular and scores are often exchanged on MMORPG forums and networking sites.

Circa 2003, Bartle was reported as living in a village near Colchester, England, with his wife Gail and their two children Jennifer and Madeleine.

Games

• Spellbinder, 1977, a pencil and paper game also known as Waving Hands, first described in Bartle's fanzine Sauce of the Nile
• MUD1, 1978, with Roy Trubshaw
• MUD2, 1980, based on MUD1. This was arguably the first "playable" multi-user dungeon.

Books

• Artificial Intelligence and Computer Games, Paperback, 256 pages, Century Communications, 25 July 1985, ISBN 978-0712606615
• Designing Virtual Worlds, Paperback, 768 pages, New Riders Pub., 25 July 2003 ISBN 978-0131018167
• INsightflames, 1999, Online publication. Also 2 Paperbacks, NotByUs, "IN Sight", 422 pages, July 2007, ISBN 978-0955649400 & "IN Flames", 416 pages, August 2007, ISBN 978-0955649417