Hollywood Reporter on Game Writing

Via GameSetWatch, a story at the Hollywood reporter site on the process of writing a videogame. From the article: "'For me, writing is like gold,' says David Perry, president of Atari's Shiny Entertainment studio. 'It saddens me a lot that many video game companies don't hire triple-A writers and that they use their game designers instead. That's why, when real writers look at video game stories, they kind of roll their eyes. But that's something that I see changing, I really do.'" This guy probably has more than a little bit to do with that.

Comments

Writing a good game is unbelievably hard.

[thatguywhoiam]

I sympathize with the writers a bit on this one. We're not just talking about 'adapting' a story from book or play to the big screen, which is fraught with its own perils. Writing for the interactive screen is really an entirely new discipline, and one that we are still struggling to understand and create a common language for. If you think about something like the film Memento, and what would be required to write that properly - then imagine that you could experience that linear flow of events from multiple vantage points, multiple timelines... it gets pretty hairy, pretty fast. Then throw in the fact that characters - including the protagonist - can have multiple responses and conversational threads... eccchh. (Anyone remember Ultima 3? What keyword can I bounce off this NPC that will make them regurgitate the clue I need... I resorted to pseudo-dictionary-attacks on some of those).

Also, the expectations for 'game time' are way beyond what a film offers. The amount of dialog in some games is comparable to a novel (those epic RPGs with 20, 30, 40+ hours in them). No wonder the quality suffers.

Re:Writing a good game is unbelievably hard.

[MilenCent]

However more open-ended games like Knights of the Old Republic, Fable, or Morrowind have a lot of the problems that the grandparent mentioned. I find those games do suffer a lot in the storyline angle. (Not that it's always bad, but it's much harder to succeed)

One way to overcome this is to leave some of the "story" in the mind of the reader. It's not easy to do itself, but when it works it can be potent. This is one of the things that make Nethack interesting, in that the game is so complex that it begs the player to compose a narrative about his character. Many of the more interesting posts over at rec.games.roguelike.nethack are those in which these stories are related.

The Sims is also a game in which the player's mind supplies the story. Indeed, if you don't look at it that way, there's not really a whole lot of game there.

In the future, algorithmic storytelling will be a potential source of aid in making open-ended stories possible, although it is a field in which surprisingly little work has been done. (Here's hoping Chris Crawford is hurrying as fast he can....)

adventure games

[chaotropic agent]

I guess these guys have never heard of them.

This is the right thing to pick...

[jclast]

If you're developing a game, and you've only got so much money to go around, story is the right thing to cut some corners on.

How many of us play Super Mario for the story? Or Sly Cooper? Or Ikaruga? I'd much rather see fun games with crappy or non-existant stories than great stories with a crappy game wrapped around it.

I've shelved quite a few games due to control problems or difficulty frustrations, but I've never put down a game that was fun to play because the story was sub-par.

Re:This is the right thing to pick...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I've shelved quite a few games due to control problems or difficulty frustrations, but I've never put down a game that was fun to play because the story was sub-par.

I have a different perspective. I enjoy FPS games, for the most part. I enjoy both the multiplayer and single player modes. Of all the FPS games out there, I think I've played all the way through two of them in my entire life. The reason for that is that game play inevitably becomes repetitive. Run and shoot and shoot and run. Gee, after about 48 hours I'm done. The two FPS games I can remember playing all the way through are the old Marathon 2 and newer Wolfenstein. Marathon 2, if you've never played it, had the single best, most developed and engaging story ever in an FPS. It was possible to beat the game without reading some of the mission information, but I don't know anyone who did that. The plot was just too interesting and the characters too fun. Whether an egotistical AI was blackmailing you into a suicide mission, or an insane AI was spewing poetry at you, it was fascinating.

Another important thing I think should be kept in mind is that game players have different tastes. Maybe you don't like plots. Maybe most current gamers don't like plots. But, maybe, just maybe, a significant portion of the population, many of whole can't stand current game offerings, really do like plots. I'll play all sorts of games, but I don't devote significant time to any game that does not have a lot of variety and story to hold my interest. Consequently, I won't pay much money for games without a good story.

hahaha

[Ender Ryan]

Yeeeeaaaahh... 'cause Hollywood writers are so fantastic eh?

Just the thought of a Hollywood writer rolling their eyes at *anything* seems so laughable to me. I mean... COME ON, Hollywood is where the stupidest stories in the world are thought up!

A couple of issues

[the Brightside]

There are a couple of issues at play here. The first to sprout here in the comments is a debate between whether stories are important or are trivial. (Generally taking the shape of "Who plays these things for the story?" vs. "Who doesn't?") I'm not sure this is really a debate that's going to come to a finite end, much like the graphics vs. gameplay debate that has been bitterly fought since, well, the beginning of games.

The second issue, I guess, regards the purpose of the game itself. Should the game have a narrative driving it, or should it merely be a vector through which an experience is delivered to you, devoid of context or interpretation? I think the gamers that favor the latter opinion are those who enjoy feeling in control of their experiences, much like the shaky narrative framework of the Grand Theft Auto games is really only a suggestion to an otherwise decision-empowered player. Perhaps this is an offshoot of the reality of life against the conditions of the gamespace--we are rarely in command of our own destinies in the real world, with bosses, parents, the government telling us what to do; why should a game designer tempt us with an escape to a different world when we wind up with yet another telling us what to do?

As I mentioned in a prior comment, everything we engage in has a narrative, regardless of whether we're conscious of it or not. The sandbox style of gameplay might be interesting to some, but give me the heavily narrative Planescape: Torment over GTA any day. It isn't simply a matter of playing style, either--over the weekend I ran through F.E.A.R. because of its strong narrative hooks, much like I've played and replayed Monolith's prior games, No One Lives Forever 1 and 2. (With stronger narratives than F.E.A.R., I might add.)

Maybe we should consider this antinarrative backlash as a direct consequence of the popularity of multiplayer FPSes. How many people are still playing Halo 2 for its Halo 1.5 storyline, and how many people still play it for its commanding multiplayer? For that matter, consider Quake 3 Arena--there was the barest of storylines there, as with most any ID game these days, and yet its multiplayer capabilities made it popular. There are people who enjoy a strong singleplayer campaign, myself included, and then there are those who don't give a rat's ass about singleplayer because they just want to frag their buddies as much as possible. Any distraction from either viewpoint might be considered a detriment to either constituency (of course the dichotomy is not absolute; there are plenty of people who enjoy both equally well).

For another factor, consider the game review sites. It's been a regular occurrence that I'll check Gamespot's ratings to see how they've examined a new game, and in the "pros" section they mention a great story, wonderful aesthetic presentation, and strong voice acting. But they decide to graft an 8.0 to an otherwise 9-worthy game with the "con" of a lack of multiplayer. That's a slightly different topic, but I wonder if the prevalence of multiplayer capability is affecting what we consider to be the purpose of games.

Apples and oranges

[joystickgenie]

Comparing video game to movies and books isn't a good test honestly. They have completely different types of content.

Video games are closer to television then they are to books or movies in term of content. Movies and books have long interwoven stories that are built on character development and plot twists for entertainment. Because video games give the player choices plot twists are more difficult to pull of without making the player feel like they have no control. Television and video game have much different paths to follow for entertainment.

Sports broadcasts: Sports games
Cartoons: Platformers
Documentaries: historical games
Reality TV: the Sims
Dramas and thrillers: adventure games and action games
Sci fi and fantasy shows: RPGs

So to me the better comparison for games writing would be the writers for television shows.

You don't watch The Kids Next Door, Ed Edd and Eddie, or Totally Spies for the plot, just like you don't play Mario, Ratchet and Clank, or Jak and Daxter for the plot either. If you're watching TV for a plot you watch shows like 24 or lost, if you are playing games for the plot you play games like the longest journey or killer 7. Just like television not all the writers are that great, but there are some good ones, and they are getting better.

Although television is closer it is still not a perfect comparison. In television the viewer has no control and this gives e writers a lot les to worry about. A script writer never has to worry about "what if the protagonist decides not to peruse the antagonist." They know that the protagonist will do it because they say he will. In games to more choices you take away from the player the less they feel they are playing the game and more they feel they are watching the game. It's a hard balance to maintain and it is a challenge that is pretty unique to writing for games.