Biography

Chris Bateman

MD
International Hobo

Chris Bateman is Managing Director of International Hobo, a specialist company in the field of market-oriented game design and narrative. He has worked in game design and writing for over a decade, originally with tabletop role playing games, and later in computer entertainment after completing a Masters degree in Artificial Intelligence/Cognitive Science.
He has two published novels, and his games include Discworld Noir, Ghost Master, Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition, Play with Fire. He is a highly active member of the IGDA, and founded the IGDA Game Writers Special Interest Group, as well as sitting on its executive panel for five years. He edited and contributed to the book Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Video Games, written by members of the SIG, for Charles River Media.
In 2004, International Hobo published its groundbreaking DGD1 player satisfaction model, which has garnered considerable acclaim and has been cited in numerous academic and government reports. A book about this research, 21^st Century Game Design is also available from Charles River Media. A new player satisfaction model entitled BrainHex went live in August 2009 and within two months had attracted more than 25,000 responses.
Chris' blog, Only a Game, is one of the top videogames industry blogs, and is consistently featured on Slashdot, Kotaku and other aggregator lists, pulling in more than 24,000 people per month when major articles on game design or /biology of play are posted. He is considered to be one of the major commentators on the videogame industry, and an expert on player modelling.
In 2009, a new book, Beyond Game Design: Nine Steps Towards Better Videogames was published by Charles River Media. The book is edited by Chris, and includes chapters by some of the major voices in videogames including Nicole Lazzaro, Richard Bartle and Noah Falstein.

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