Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

What Writing For Games Is Really Like

Posted by Zonk on from the plenty-of-corny-jokes dept.

Gamasutra is running a transcript of a recent podcast, in which host Tom Kim interviewed the well-respected games scriptwriter Susan O'Connor. She talks about what it was like to write for games as diverse as Star Wars Galaxies, Gears of War, and Bioshock. She and Kim go into what the process of writing for games entails, the increasingly interesting Writer's Game Conference at the Austin Games Conference, the interplay between designer and writer, and what it is like to write for and as a woman in a male-dominated industry. O'Connor comments: "You can look at someone like Ang Lee, who makes these incredibly powerful movies in English set definitely in America, and yet he's not from here and English is not his first language. So I think there's something to be said as a female writer writing male characters. It does take a little bit more work to get inside of their heads, but you do have that luxury of being and outsider and being able to see it with fresh eyes."

7 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. What it writing for games is really like? by Loadmaster · · Score: 4, Funny

    Kind of like editing for Slashdot, except sometimes you have to make sense. Unless you're writing for an FPS.

    Swi

  2. OOG LIKE ARTICLE by User+956 · · Score: 4, Funny

    What It Writing for Games is Really Like

    OOF LIKE ARTICLE! It good accurate. Oog graduate summa cum laude from cave in hills. Oog make Oog parents very proud! Oog father disappointed at first, because he want Oog be rock repairman too. But Oog have special calling. Oog study mainly rocks and mixing thing together at cave, with minor in English lit. Oog get job as game developing with Grond and Thunk Incorporated!

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
  3. How about tips on by Travoltus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    getting into the industry of writing for games?

    Writers are looked at as the non skilled segment (they're not coders, ergo they aren't important), but all the best games have kick butt writers.

    We need more of the better writers, and when we get them, Gears of War, Oblivion, etc. will be the stone age of gaming, instead of contenders for examples of the golden age.

    --
    --- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
    1. Re:How about tips on by Sj0 · · Score: 4, Funny

      If we could get the gameplay of Oblivion with the storytelling and acting of the Legacy of Kain series, we'll have a game experience so powerful, nobody would be able to play a video game ever again.

      Do you REALLY want that?

      --
      It's been a long time.
  4. Podcast by pete-classic · · Score: 4, Informative

    Seems like it would have been worthwhile to link the actual poscast in the summary.

    -Peter

  5. Game Writing Is Easy by mollymoo · · Score: 5, Funny

    1. Turn on main screen.
    2. Decide who all base are belong to.
    3. ????
    4. Profit!

    --
    Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
  6. Justification by MrWa · · Score: 5, Funny

    So I think there's something to be said as a female writer writing male characters ... you do have that luxury of being and outsider and being able to see it with fresh eyes.

    As a guy, that is my justification for playing female characters and dressing them up all nice and pretty, or running around in nothing but underwear...

    Posted anonymously for obvious reasons...