Striking Writers May Work on Games

The ongoing Writer's Guild strike may soon impact even the games industry. While most of the copy writers working on games are not a part of the guild, via Eurogamer comes a Variety article about a possible Hollywood writer's migration to other media. "While the WGA has made no secret that it would like to eventually cover vidgame writing, it hasn't pushed the issue yet and is allowing members to work on games during the strike. 'It has been an interesting shift," says one tenpercenter who focuses on vidgames. "The literary agents are now saying, 'Why don't we get our clients over there during the strike?' even though in the past they thought the money wasn't good enough or the work is too demanding.'"

Comments

Is this good or bad?

[644bd346996]

I'm not sure whether I should rejoice that more games will be getting competent writers, or weep that gaming is going to be degraded to sitcom quality.

Re:Is this good or bad?

[everphilski]

That's what she said.

Re:Is this good or bad?

[hudsonhawk]

Soap opera writers have been breaking away from the union and crossing the picket line.

The union's fight is not their fight - soap operas don't sell DVD's or get watched online.

At least they won't work on The Sims The Movie

[SmallFurryCreature]

I am not making this up, there really seems to a The Sims movie in the works... If hollywood can screw up game movies with single paragraph plots, what the hell will they do with a game that HAS NO PLOT?

consider some of the top selling games...

[wakim1618]

such as world of warcraft or the madden football sequels or civilization. How much value could a hollywood writer add to the storyline?

Or consider games such as halo 3, crysis or the grand theft auto series where the storyline is important. But it is the design of the game that is ultimately more important and provides a framework within which the writers work. In other words, the value-added of a hollywood writer in this case seems limited.

In each of the above examples, I see the involvement of sit-com and action-movie writers as a big negative. The story line in games can be silly at times ... but never as stupid or lame as in the vast majority of tv shows and movies out of hollywood.

Screenwriters vs. Authors

[JBMcB]

I'd rather have authors write the storylines to video games. Screenwriters specialize in storylines that are constrained by time, authors specialize in storylines that are, well, good.

[generic response]

[nuzak]

<elitist crap>

<broad general dismissal>

Sorry, my own writers are on strike, but I see everyone else is busy mad-libbing their own attitudes toward their hate of all things sitcoms and reality tv as if that's all there ever was out there. You think you're gaining some kind of "cred" with your oh-so-jaded attitudes?

Welcome Writers of "The Office"

[Bryansix]

I for one welcome the writers for "The Office" to come help write the storyline for a game. That show is great and that kind of humor could transfer well into a game with a little work.

Re:Hollywood writers are good?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's that the Hollywood writers are poor - you don't get a high-paying gig without having some skills. I think it's a matter of their producers instructing them to dumb down the content - apparently, simple slop sells. Blame the drooling masses that so obviously soak up the dribble that passes as 'prime time content', as reinforced by the high ratings of these shows.

Indeed - everyone should go to the bookstore. I totally agree. Or rather, let them stay home and gel on their sofas...I'll gladly climb over them.

Re:Guilds, Associations, Unions, etc.

[edremy]

Back in the day, before unions, houses were built by the thousands with bricks. Not because they were the best, or the cheapest, but because it was the style. The bricklayers, feeling that they were being grifted, unionized, as was the style of the time. Very quickly the cost of building with bricks became too prohibitive, and the bricklayers mostly lost their jobs. Overall society didn't hurt too much, but it had a large impact on the southern California economy.

Southern California? Having lived there, I can tell you unionization had very little to do with not having brick houses. California doesn't have brick houses because they fall down in earthquakes.

Re:Guilds, Associations, Unions, etc.

[damn_registrars]

and perfectly legal for individuals to fix wages?

Frankly, that statement just doesn't hold water. Neither the individual part, nor the fix wages part have much grounding in reality.

First of all, the union isn't about the individual. Its about the union, hence the name union. The union is concerned with seeing that all of its members get a fair shake. There is no individual action within a union, for better or for worse. The union instead goes by something like the strength in numbers principle, using the collective strength of its members together.

But equally wrong is your statement about fixing wages. The union isn't trying to fix wages - that would be communism. The union is just trying to ensure that the wage floor is adequate for full time work. In the example you were complaining about regarding the teachers union, the union wants to ensure that full time teachers make an adequate salary when they start. They don't restrict the maximum that their members can earn (how would they retain members if they did?) - they just want to ensure that their members all have livable wages.

It is also worth pointing out that countries who are doing better economically than the US (their numbers growing every day) tend to actually have higher rates of union membership than we do. For example, Canadian union membership is around 30% nationally, as opposed to around 12% in the US. But yet their dollar is worth more than ours, and their life expectancy exceeds ours. Oh, and their educational system is often more highly regarded than ours.

So you are free to hate the unions if you wish, but please, check your facts before you blame the world on them.