International Hobo Ltd is proud to announce the publication of 21st Century Game Design by Charles River Media, the leading publisher of game development books. The book expands upon the research that International Hobo has conducted into gaming audiences over the last two years, providing a detailed analysis and discussion of the DGD1 audience model, as well as advice on applying the model to game design problems such as interface design, game structure and game world abstraction.

This book is the first game design guide to focus on the motivations behind game design, recognising that the purpose of a game is to meet the play needs of its audience, and that in order to complete this goal it is necessary for designers to understand those play needs. It is therefore complementary to other game design books on the market which focus on the pragmatic elements of how to design games.

Chris Bateman, Managing Director of International Hobo, believes the book represents a significant step forward in the field of game design. "There are many talented game designers in the world, but there is still a tendency for people to have too narrow a focus as to what is meant by 'gameplay', and much of what has been written makes broad assumptions as to the way a game should be. This book challenges assumptions of what a game can be, by looking at the needs of the audience first.

"As well as summarising our research, we also examine and reference other psychological models, including Nicole Lazarro's Four Keys, Csikszentmihalyi's Flow and Roger Caillois' patterns of play. We have also included one of the most detailed critical analyses of game genre available, in which we consider the probable play styles associated with all the major patterns in gameplay from the birth of the industry to the present day. I believe this book has something in it for everyone with an interest in game design."

Ernest Adams, who runs the Designers' Notebook subsidiary of International Hobo added: "21st Century Game Design approaches some of interactive entertainment's most compelling problems in an entirely new way. It is, so far as I know, the first time a book on design has attempted to understand the player's desires and motivations in an orderly fashion; to move beyond rules of thumb, hidebound convention, and what 'everybody knows' about gamers. 21st Century Game Design takes the extraordinary step of examining the personalities of the players themselves, and then extrapolates from those personality types to arrive at a coherent theory of design."

The book is available from Amazon, Charles River Media, and all good book stores.