Chris Bateman
Encyclopedia
Chris Mark Bateman is a game designer, outsider philosopher and author, best known for the games Discworld Noir
Discworld Noir
Discworld Noir is a computer game based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld comic fantasy novels, and unlike the previous Discworld games is both an example and parody of the noir genre. The game was developed by Perfect Entertainment and published by GT Interactive. It was originally released in 1999...

and Ghost Master
Ghost Master
Ghost Master is a puzzle/strategy game for the PC. It is among a small selection of games, for more see below, that put the player in the role of the enemy. In this case, the player assumes the role of a Ghost Master, a bureaucratic spirit tasked to perform certain duties...

, the books Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames, 21st Century Game Design
21st Century Game Design
21st Century Game Design is a book by Chris Bateman and Richard Boon. This book is part of the Game Development Series. It was first published by Charles River Media on August 29, 2005....

and Beyond Game Design: Nine Steps Toward Creating Creating Better Videogames, and his eclectic philosophy blog Only a Game. Bateman runs International Hobo Ltd, a consultancy specialising in market-oriented game design and narrative and has worked on more than thirty digital game projects over the last fifteen years, the most recent of which is MotorStorm: Apocalypse
MotorStorm: Apocalypse
MotorStorm: Apocalypse is a 2011 racing 3D video game by Evolution Studios and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 3. It is the fourth game in the series and the third for the PlayStation 3...

.

Biography

Bateman was born in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 in the historic market town of Bishop's Stortford
Bishop's Stortford
Bishop's Stortford is a historic market town and civil parish in the district of East Hertfordshire in the county of Hertfordshire in England. It is situated just west of the M11 motorway, on the county boundary with Essex and is the closest large town to London Stansted Airport and part of the...

, but moved to Ventnor
Ventnor
Ventnor is a seaside resort and civil parish established in the Victorian era on the south coast of the Isle of Wight, England. It lies underneath St Boniface Down , and is built on steep slopes and cliffs leading down to the sea...

, Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...

 before he was one year old. He spent much of his time growing up in Steephill
Steephill
Steephill is a hamlet near Ventnor, Isle of Wight, previously the location of a Victorian country estate with a castle-style mansion, Steephill Castle, which was demolished to build bungalows in the 1960s...

 Cove, a secluded bay on the south coast of the island, where he studied marine wildlife, snorkelled, and surfed during the winter. During one such winter, he was almost killed in a surfing accident having chosen to go out into stormy waves despite a warning flag cautioning against entering the water. He was rescued by a local crab fisherman.

In 1990 he moved to Manchester to study as an undergraduate and postgraduate at Manchester University, originally in Physics with Astrophysics but later switching to Computing and Information Systems. During these years, he was a contributing writer to the magazines GamesMaster International
GamesMaster International
GamesMaster International, or GMI, was a roleplaying game magazine in the UK published by Newsfield Publications starting in July 1990. The magazine featured the same editorial team of G.M. The Independent Fantasy Roleplaying Magazine...

and Cryptych. Practising his game design skills by producing tabletop role-playing games with Discordia Incorporated, he also won a game design competition run by Task Force Games
Task Force Games
Task Force Games was a game company started in 1979 by Allen Eldridge and Stephen Cole. Mr. Cole left the company in the early 1980's, but continued to design the company's best selling Star Fleet Battles game. Mr. Eldridge sold the company to New World Computing in 1988...

 with his card game Star Fleet Officers.

Graduating with a Masters degree in Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...

/Cognitive Science
Cognitive science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...

 in 1995, he earned a job at Perfect Entertainment
Perfect Entertainment
Perfect Entertainment was a British computer game producer, which ceased production in 1999. It was created in 1994 as a result of a name change from Perfect 10 Productions, a company previously known as Beam Software ....

 in Norbury
Norbury
Norbury is a town in the London Borough of Croydon, also crossing the London Borough of Merton. It shares the postcode London SW16 with nearby Streatham. Norbury is south of Charing Cross.-History:...

, where he worked on numerous videogames including Discworld II and Discworld Noir
Discworld Noir
Discworld Noir is a computer game based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld comic fantasy novels, and unlike the previous Discworld games is both an example and parody of the noir genre. The game was developed by Perfect Entertainment and published by GT Interactive. It was originally released in 1999...

, for which Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...

 worked as the editor. His work on the dialogue for Discworld Noir
Discworld Noir
Discworld Noir is a computer game based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld comic fantasy novels, and unlike the previous Discworld games is both an example and parody of the noir genre. The game was developed by Perfect Entertainment and published by GT Interactive. It was originally released in 1999...

was praised by The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

newspaper as one of the best games ever scripted and by Terry Pratchett as "good enough to be a novel in its own right."

Bateman left Perfect Entertainment in 1999 to set up his own company, International Hobo Ltd. In 2000 he lived and worked in Knoxville, Tennessee
Knoxville, Tennessee
Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...

, but in 2001 moved back to Manchester having married Adria Smiley, who graduated from the University of Tennessee
University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee is a public land-grant university headquartered at Knoxville, Tennessee, United States...

 that year. He also lived in Knoxville for 15 months while working on Turner Interactive's FusionFall
Cartoon Network Universe: FusionFall
Cartoon Network Universe: FusionFall is a massively multiplayer online game developed by Cartoon Network and Grigon Entertainment. FusionFall uses the Unity engine as its client technology basis....

game.

Ernest W. Adams, founder of the IGDA, joined International Hobo in 2001, and he and Bateman have been working together along with other game designers and narrative experts ever since. In 2007, he received the IGDA's prestigious Most Valuable Player award for his contributions to the game development community, including establishing both the IGDA North West UK chapter and the Game Writers Special Interest Group.

Bateman has also pursued highly-acclaimed independent research into how and why people play games. In 2009, he was invited to sit on the IEEE's Player Satisfaction Modelling task force, in recognition for his role in establishing this research domain. His most recent player model, BrainHex, is based upon neurobiological principles published in his paper The Neurobiology of Play (with Doctor Lennart Nacke), and the BrainHex test has been taken by more than 60,000 people.

Bateman also has an abiding interest in religious belief and practice. He has travelled the world studying religious practices and beliefs, and has taken part in everything from Native American sweat lodges to Pagan solstice celebrations, as well as visiting Buddhist and Shinto shrines in Japan, and witnessing traditional tribal religions in Africa whilst living in the Sahel Reserve near the Sahara desert.

His blog Only a Game deals with both philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 and digital game theory, and contains a prolific array of articles, many of which have been featured elsewhere. Since beginning the blog, his interest in philosophy has intensified, and he recently began to achieve recognition for his work in this field. In 2009, MIT Press invited him to endorse one of their books, Joanna Zylinska's Bioethics in the Age of New Media. He has interviewed Joanna Zylinska, Kendall Walton
Kendall Walton
Kendall Lewis Walton is an American philosopher, the Charles Stevenson Collegiate Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Art and Design at the University of Michigan. His work mainly deals with theoretical questions about the arts and issues of philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and philosophy of...

, Mary Midgley
Mary Midgley
Mary Midgley, née Scrutton , is an English moral philosopher. She was a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Newcastle University and is known for her work on science, ethics and animal rights. She wrote her first book, Beast And Man: The Roots of Human Nature , when she was in her fifties...

, and Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....

 in connection with their philosophy and writing.

In 2011, Zero Books published his latest book, Imaginary Games, which explores the philosophy of games and addresses the question of whether videogames can be art. February 2011 also saw the birth of his son, Soren Albert Bateman.

Game design and narrative

In 21st Century Game Design
21st Century Game Design
21st Century Game Design is a book by Chris Bateman and Richard Boon. This book is part of the Game Development Series. It was first published by Charles River Media on August 29, 2005....

Bateman established a new way of thinking about game design, one which focusses on the concept that professional (rather than personal or artistic) game design should be focussed towards satisfying the needs of players, thus satisfying the audience for games and ensuring the commercial stability of game developers, calling this approach demographic game design. The book also includes the first typology of gamers, DGD1. This model was based on Myers-Briggs typology, but later work in the same field drew from Temperament Theory.

Bateman's conceptualisation of the way that digital games can, should, and do guide their players deploys the concepts of breadcrumbing, which lays out a path for the player to follow, and funnelling, which guides the player back to this path if they lose track of it. These ideas have been influential, and were brought to a wider audience by game writer Susan O'Connor.

In later books, Bateman has connected game design with philosophy, and particularly with Roger Caillois
Roger Caillois
Roger Caillois was a French intellectual whose idiosyncratic work brought together literary criticism, sociology, and philosophy by focusing on subjects as diverse as games, play and the sacred...

, whose pioneering work in play and games has been connected by Bateman to modern neurobiological research related to play, and the philosopher of art Kendall Walton
Kendall Walton
Kendall Lewis Walton is an American philosopher, the Charles Stevenson Collegiate Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Art and Design at the University of Michigan. His work mainly deals with theoretical questions about the arts and issues of philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and philosophy of...

.

Philosophy

Much of Bateman's philosophical writing has been concerned with "an attempt to popularise philosophy," and he has written many articles intended to bring the philosophy of Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Charles Taylor
Charles Taylor (philosopher)
Charles Margrave Taylor, is a Canadian philosopher from Montreal, Quebec best known for his contributions in political philosophy, the philosophy of social science, and in the history of philosophy. His contributions to these fields have earned him both the prestigious Kyoto Prize and the...

, Kant
KANT
KANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...

, and Kendall Walton
Kendall Walton
Kendall Lewis Walton is an American philosopher, the Charles Stevenson Collegiate Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Art and Design at the University of Michigan. His work mainly deals with theoretical questions about the arts and issues of philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and philosophy of...

 to a wider audience. He has also discussed the metaphysics of author Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....

 in a serial that the British author has praised as "one of the most coherent précis of my work."

Bateman's moral philosophy is in a formative state, but is being purposefully developed towards specific goals. He describes his relative ethics as "an early attempt" to find a modern approach to Kant's 'Realm of Ends', which he dubs communal autonomy. He has summarised his current position on ethics in a novella-length blog serial entitled Enemy: A Morality Tale, written to celebrate five years of his blog and dedicated to Mary Midgley
Mary Midgley
Mary Midgley, née Scrutton , is an English moral philosopher. She was a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Newcastle University and is known for her work on science, ethics and animal rights. She wrote her first book, Beast And Man: The Roots of Human Nature , when she was in her fifties...

. He has connected Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative
Categorical imperative
The Categorical Imperative is the central philosophical concept in the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant, as well as modern deontological ethics...

 to the alterity
Alterity
Alterity is a philosophical term meaning "otherness", strictly being in the sense of the other of two . In the phenomenological tradition it is usually understood as the entity in contrast to which an identity is constructed, and it implies the ability to distinguish between self and not-self, and...

 ethics of Emmanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Lévinas
Emmanuel Levinas was a Lithuanian-born French Jewish philosopher and Talmudic commentator.-Life:Emanuelis Levinas received a traditional Jewish education in Lithuania...


in a piece that was featured in the 121st Philosopher's Carnival.

His most robust work is in philosophy of games, which springboards from Professor Kendall Walton
Kendall Walton
Kendall Lewis Walton is an American philosopher, the Charles Stevenson Collegiate Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Art and Design at the University of Michigan. His work mainly deals with theoretical questions about the arts and issues of philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and philosophy of...

's make-believe theory of representation. His serial Game Design as Make-Believe was featured on Kotaku
Kotaku
Kotaku is a video games-focused blog. It is part of Gawker Media's "Gawker" network of sites, which also includes Gizmodo, Deadspin, Lifehacker, io9 and Jezebel. Named to CNET News' Blog 100, Kotaku is consistently listed in the top 40 of Technorati's Top 100...

in May 2010. He has expanded the application of Walton's theory to games in the context of quasi-emotions in Shadow of the Colossus
Shadow of the Colossus
Shadow of the Colossus, released in Japan as , is an action-adventure game published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2. The game was released in North America and Japan in October 2005 and PAL territories in February 2006...

and also teased out distinctions between the avatar and that which prescribes the appearance of the avatar, termed the avatar doll. These ideas are fully expanded in his first book of philosophy, Imaginary Games, due for publication by Zero Books in late 2011/early 2012.

His adaptation of Walton's make-believe theory of representation puts him into the philosophical school of fictionalism
Fictionalism
Fictionalism is a methodological theory in philosophy that suggests that statements of a certain sort should not be taken to be literally true, but merely as a useful fiction...

, which in 2011 he is exploring in an ongoing 'Fiction Campaign' on his blog. He has explored the relationship between astrology and fiction, and suggested that science can be treated as a megatext, leading to a concept of orthodox science fiction which he has used to critique the immortality beliefs of both religious and non-religious individuals. His fictionalist dialogue Pluto and Eris: a dialogue was featured in the 120th Philosopher's Carnival.

Books

  • Downtime (2001, Jacobyte Books; ISBN 978-1-74053-067-5)
  • Dreamtime (2003, Jacobyte Books; ISBN 978-1-74100-172-3)
  • 21st Century Game Design (2005, Charles River Media; ISBN 978-1-58450-429-0)
  • Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames (2006, Charles River Media; ISBN 978-1-58450-490-0)
  • Beyond Game Design: Nine Steps Towards Better Videogames (2009, Cengage
    Cengage Learning
    Cengage Learning is a publisher of print and digital information services for the academic, professional and library markets, and delivers customized learning solutions for colleges, universities, professors, students, libraries, government agencies, corporations and professionals around the...

    ; ISBN 978-1-58450-671-3)
  • Imaginary Games (2011, Zero Books; ISBN 978-1-84694-941-8)
  • The Mythology of Evolution (2012, Zero Books) - Forthcoming

Games

  • Avatar (1992), Discordia Inc.
  • Outlands (1994), Discordia Inc.
  • Shifter (1995), Discordia Inc.
  • Discworld II: Missing Presumed...!? (1996), Perfect Entertainment
    Perfect Entertainment
    Perfect Entertainment was a British computer game producer, which ceased production in 1999. It was created in 1994 as a result of a name change from Perfect 10 Productions, a company previously known as Beam Software ....

  • Manx TT Superbike
    Manx TT Superbike
    Manx TT Superbike is a 1995 arcade racing game developed jointly by Sega-AM3 and Sega-AM4. It was later brought to the Sega Saturn by Psygnosis and Tantalus Interactive and then ported to Windows by Perfect Entertainment. It was the first motorcycle racing game built for the Sega Model 2 arcade...

    (1997)
  • Krazy Ivan
    Krazy Ivan
    Krazy Ivan is a mech first-person shooter released for PC, Sega Saturn and PlayStation in 1996 by Psygnosis.The player took the role of Ivan Popovich, a Russian soldier controlling a giant mechanical suit, defending the Earth from robotic aliens....

    (1997)
  • Contract (1998), Discordia Inc./Infamy Games
  • Discworld Noir
    Discworld Noir
    Discworld Noir is a computer game based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld comic fantasy novels, and unlike the previous Discworld games is both an example and parody of the noir genre. The game was developed by Perfect Entertainment and published by GT Interactive. It was originally released in 1999...

    (1999), Perfect Entertainment
  • Micronauts (2000), Discordia Inc.
  • Cubix: Race N Robots (2001)
  • Cubix: Showdown (2001)
  • Taz: Wanted (2002)
  • Barbie Horse Adventures: Wild Horse Rescue
    Barbie Horse Adventures: Wild Horse Rescue
    Barbie Horse Adventures: Wild Horse Rescue is a video game available for PlayStation 2, Game Boy Advance and Xbox, based on the Barbie line of dolls by Mattel.-Gameplay:...

    (2003)
  • Fairly Oddparents (2003)
  • Ghost Master
    Ghost Master
    Ghost Master is a puzzle/strategy game for the PC. It is among a small selection of games, for more see below, that put the player in the role of the enemy. In this case, the player assumes the role of a Ghost Master, a bureaucratic spirit tasked to perform certain duties...

    (2003)
  • Mashed
    Mashed
    Mashed is a video game published by Empire Interactive for the Xbox and PlayStation 2 as well as PC. It was developed by Supersonic Software on the RenderWare engine. It is a top-down racing/vehicular combat game, similar in style to Micro Machines, Circuit Breakers and Super Sprint.Each race...

    (2004)
  • Fairly Oddparents 2 (2004)
  • Bad Boys: Miami Takedown (2004)
  • Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition
    Kult: Heretic Kingdoms
    Kult: Heretic Kingdoms is an isometric role-playing video game, combining 3D technologies with the intuitive environment of an isometric game. It was developed by Slovakian studio 3D People, with a storyline written by a script team that includes Chris Bateman and game mechanics designed by the...

    (2004)
  • Battalion Wars (2005)
  • Bratz: Rock Angelz (2005)
  • Pac-Man World 3
    Pac-Man World 3
    is a video game that was released on November 15, 2005 in North America for PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, and PC. It is the third game in the Pac-Man World series. It also marks the 25th anniversary of the Pac-Man arcade game. This game features more...

    (2005)
  • Air Conflicts (2006)
  • Reservoir Dogs (2006)
  • Spongebob Squarepants: The Creature from the Krusty Krab (2006)
  • Play with Fire (2006)
  • Bratz: Forever Diamondz (2006)
  • Archlord
    ArchLord
    ArchLord is a 3D fantasy MMORPG developed by NHN Games and Codemasters Online Gaming . The game was released in March 2005 in South Korea and October 2006 in North America and Europe, receiving poor reviews from the gaming press. In August 2007, ArchLord became free-to-play to coincide with the...

    (2006)
  • Attack on Pearl Harbor (2007)
  • Aquadelic (2007)
  • Emergency Mayhem
    Emergency Mayhem
    Emergency Mayhem is a video game available for the Wii developed and released by Codemasters.-History:Emergency Mayhem was first announced for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox at the 2004 Electronic Entertainment Expo, published and developed by Acclaim. However, the game was canceled when Acclaim filed...

    (2008), Codemasters
    Codemasters
    The Codemasters Software Company Limited, or Codemasters is a British video game developer founded by Richard and David Darling in 1986...

  • WWII Aces
    WWII Aces
    WWII Aces is a Flight Simulator video game set in World War II for the Wii.-Gameplay:WWII Aces allows players to choose to play as a pilot in the Royal Air Force, Luftwaffe, or the Red Army Air Force. It features 12 planes including: Spitfire, Stuka,and Mosquito bomber. The game will also put...

    (2008), Arcade Moon
  • North American Hunting Extravaganza (2008)
  • Diva Girls: Making the Music (2009)
  • Cartoon Network Universe: FusionFall
    Cartoon Network Universe: FusionFall
    Cartoon Network Universe: FusionFall is a massively multiplayer online game developed by Cartoon Network and Grigon Entertainment. FusionFall uses the Unity engine as its client technology basis....

    (2009)
  • Jakers! Let's Explore (2010)
  • Play with Birds (2010)
  • Air Conflicts: Secret Wars (2011)
  • Green My Place (2011), Winner – Best European Learning Game
  • MotorStorm: Apocalypse
    MotorStorm: Apocalypse
    MotorStorm: Apocalypse is a 2011 racing 3D video game by Evolution Studios and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 3. It is the fourth game in the series and the third for the PlayStation 3...

    (2011)

External links

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