Video Game Writers Sound Off
February 2nd, 2009 by Alec McNayrPosted in Media, Writing | No Comments »
Video Game Writers Sound Off
The billion-dollar industry is providing new opportunities for writers, but don’t expect your traditional writing skills to translate: video gaming is a brand new medium.
By Robert Gustafson and Alec McNayr
As teenagers of the 1980’s, we spent hours every day poised in front of our televisions, but we weren’t watching cartoons or catching the latest after-school special. We were playing Nintendo. Our cultural experience featured Super Mario Bros., Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, and The Legend of Zelda.
Twenty years later, the average age of video game consumers is creeping into the mid-thirties, and the “just for kids” world of video games has matured into a strong entertainment industry segment that, on any given week, can out-gross the movie box office.
With increased technological capacity and more sophisticated tastes, video game consumers are demanding better gameplay experiences, and are committing hundreds of hours to complete an individual game. Game producers are taking notice, and employing better and better resources to keep and maintain the gamers’ engagement: including storytelling.
Today’s pioneering video game writers are navigating a nebulous and ever-changing job market. Unlike traditional media, there are no standard titles or roles for video game writers. A writing credit can represent a spectrum of duties: the writer as the driving story force for the game, brought in at the beginning of a project, or the writer filling a last-minute need for scripting cinematics (film-like scenes that appear in-between levels) or barks (automated in-game dialogue between characters) just before the game goes to press.
The lack of standards caught the attention of the Writer’s Guild Foundation, the non-profit arm of the professional writers union. Though video games are not officially governed by the Writer’s Guild, the WGF provides resources for the emerging game writing community, including an advisory panel, a script library, and networking events. In fact, we met most of the video game writers we interviewed for this article through a one-day seminar last October called “Getting into the Game” at the WGA Library in Los Angeles.
DEFINING THE SCRIPT
One major difference between writing video games and traditional formats is the script itself. Unlike linear stories developed for film or television, video games scripts often contain the over-arching story, descriptions and dialogue for individual game levels, cinematics (also called cut-scenes), in-game dialogue, and even multiple paths for the player to take (called branching). Because of the many facets to a game’s experience, scripts can run a daunting 300-500 pages.
Script format can vary dramatically as well. “There’s no real standards, many developers like the dialogue to be written into Microsoft Excel, but I try to stay within Final Draft,” admits Marianne Krawczyk, writer of the epic video game God of War. Excel is the software of choice because it allows for quick reordering of script elements and sorting based on character name, event triggers, emotional cues, etc. The industry’s use of Excel reveals the importance of logic and structure when creating a non-linear experience.
Anne Toole, writer of games like Wizard 101 and Stargate SG-1, explains her writing process further, “I used to think in terms of act breaks and scenes, but in games, the level structure may not support those things. You may work in quests or missions; it’s not necessary linear.”
But there’s a creativity and craft that writers bring to the structure. Micah Wright, writer of games like Looney Toons: Back in Action, The Dukes of Hazzard, and Destroy All Humans 4, explains, “Games are a series of interesting choices. The job of the game writer is to create a world where a gamer is incentivized to make interesting choices.”
This inherent “player agency” acknowledges that the video game player takes control of the main character, and controls them according to their own set of self-aware characteristics. In a movie, the writer determines the character’s steps, but video games require less subtle orchestration. “The player wants to play; the player wants to tear it up and beat the game, not forward the story,” explains Susan O’Connor, best known for her work on Bioshock and Gears of War, “so it’s a struggle to not be overt about throwing the character into the game, and letting their actions determine what role they are playing.”
MOVING FROM TV TO VG
While video games represent a new medium, a background in writing linear stories for television can help.
Krawczyk began her career writing for the Sweet Valley High television series and developing animation projects. While in between gigs, she heard of an opportunity to write for a game called God of War, an epic already two years into development. Her transition to the game world was a strange one: she had to audition for it. “I actually sat in with other writers and we had to compete against each other for the job,” she said, “We listened to the story pitch from the game director, and I went home and write out my thoughts.”
Her background in animation prepared her well: the director liked her notes on the characters, motivations, and storyline for the game. Even though she got the job, she felt like her work on the story was being bolted on at the end of the process. “Writers are often brought in to either fix the story or write some dialogue,” she explains, “You can’t really start a TV show or a movie without a script, but you can start a video game, and that often happens. But that’s changing.”
Similarly, Wright and writing partner Jay Lender spent years writing for Nickelodeon shows including SpongeBob SquarePants, but were attracted to video games in 2001 by the opportunity of defining new rules for a new medium. Their first project, Shadow Ops: Red Mercury, was a bittersweet experience. They landed the job, wrote the story and script, and after a successful preview at the E3 video game conference, were replaced by “Hollywood writers” with film-writing credits. Wright recalls, “We were gamers trying to write a story without all the played-out conventions. We thought the female Russian scientist should be a brunette with A-cup breasts, but then they put all those tired conventions back in the game. The scientist turned out to be—drum roll—a buxom blonde.”
SHAPING THE STORY
Regardless of where the writer is brought into the game creation process, they play a unique role as a collaborator across development teams. If television is a writer-driven medium, and films are director-driven, video games are equal parts technology development, art direction, and story. Writers must work with executives, digital artists, computer coders, and 3-D modelers to ensure that their story matches the original vision for the game.
Bioshock writer O’Connor has the lucky position of being choosy about her work. After years writing simple stories for children’s video games, she now prefers to take writing gigs where she is a contributor from the ground floor. “The first thing I do is figure out what kind of experience the studio is looking to create,” she explains, “Game developers think in architectural terms, but as a writer, I think in terms of motivation and emotion, and the place to meet in the middle is player experience.”
Anne Toole agrees that collaboration is the key to successful video game writing, “Hollywood writers coming into games are surprised at how it really is a team effort, and of course the down side is that, unlike Hollywood, the corporate office culture is very integrated with the creative side.” O’Connor follows, “TV and film people are comfortable talking about feelings, motivations, and characters, but game development is a programming-heavy industry. It’s just a different language, so the writer needs to be able to translate their work into that.”
While story and dialogue were once secondary to design, the tide is turning. “More and more, I’m seeing story driving the design, instead of the other way around, “ Krawczyk says, “Design alone can make the game fun—and fun trumps any type of storyline—but it has to come from a place of meaning.”
GETTING TO THE NEXT LEVEL
So, the opportunities are great, and the standards are being changed daily. How can an aspiring video game writer break into the industry? The differences between video games and Hollywood end here: it’s all about who you know. Most of the many writers we interviewed knew each other and have long careers based on those relationships.
Writers Guild Foundation Video Games PanelSo aspiring writers should be building their relationships too. Writers should attend conferences and seminars like the annual Austin Game Developers’ Conference or events hosted by the WGF. Industry conferences like Comic-Con and E3 are also great ways to network. They might also look into jobs as game testers, which have proven to be a good way to make inroads into game development studios.
There are, of course, books and learning materials available as well. Consider reading Digital Storytelling by Carolyn Handler Miller or The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design by Flint Dille and John Zuur Platten.
But perhaps nothing is as effective as being familiar with games themselves. “You have to play games. I can’t count how many people want to write for games, but don’t play them,” says Wright, “If I was looking for a plumber, I wouldn’t hire someone who doesn’t like pipes.” Toole follows, “Figure out what is fun about a game. You should pair that information with research about game theory.”
Video games offer players a multi-path, free-form experience, and it seems the gaming industry is offering its writers the same thing. Don’t miss your chance to be a part of this exciting new medium.
