Writer's Guild Nominates Game Writing

Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog notes that the Writer's Guild of America stepped back from the picket line long enough to nominate a few 2007 games for great writing. Unfortunately, their nominees suck. The list of nominees consists of: "Crash of the Titans, Written by Christopher Mitchell, Sierra Entertainment. Dead Head Fred, Written by Dave Ellis and Adam Cogan, D3 Publisher. The Simpsons Game, Lead Writer Matt Selman, Written by Tim Long and Matt Warburton, Dialogue by Jeff Poliquin, Electronic Arts. The Witcher, Lead Story Designer Artur Ganszyniec, Dialogue Sebastian Stepien, Additional Dialogue Marcin Blacha, Writers Sande Chen and Anne Toole, Atari. World in Conflict, Story Design Christofer Emgard, Story Consultant Larry Bond, Script Consultant Ed Zuckerman, Sierra Entertainment." No Mass Effect? Nothing at all from the Orange Box? No BioShock? For shame, WGA.

Comments

Game writers members of WGA?

[ThePulverizer]

Just speculation on my part: perhaps the writers contributing to Mass Effect/Orange Box/Bioshock are not members of the WGA and hence weren't considered for nomination?

Re:Game writers members of WGA?

[EtoilePB]

This is my first thought, too. If the WGA is only nominating union-written games -- which would make sense -- then it stands to reason from the list that union membership isn't (yet?) as pervasive in the gaming world as in the film and television worlds.

Re:Game writers members of WGA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which might also explain why the writing on those games is sharper and better than practically everything on the TV from the WGA in the last several years...

Re:Game writers members of WGA?

[MBCook]

I'll say that the writing on the Simpsons game was fantastic. From some of the simpler jokes, to the whole plot (and how it ends) they did a fantastic job. It's too bad the rest of the game is so mediocre that it can be trying to play though.

Re:Game writers members of WGA?

[ControversialMatt]

I agree, but its storyline doesn't hold a candle to Mass Effect, to say nothing of Bioshock and Portal.

Re:Game writers members of WGA?

[Firethorn]

While Bioshock's got a indepth storyline, I'd tend to say that Portal would generally be considered fairly simple.

Considering the titles - I'd tend to agree that the only ones eligible for this award were union written ones.

Re:Game writers members of WGA?

[Anonymous Coward]

I fully agree. While Portal was a very fun and engaging game, I would say that the story was fairly simple. There was a fair amount of thought that went into it, but that doesn't instantly make it a great story. People around here tend to get confused between depth and quality. If a story has a ton of backstory that goes into it, many here will instantly call it a good story, regardless of whether or not the basic premise is any good.

Re:Game writers members of WGA?

[Anonymous Coward]

While that's a possibility, IMDB'ing some of the names suggest they're probably not WGA members. Artur Ganszyniec for example, is an Eastern European with zero television/film credits. Christopher Mitchell doesn't show up at all. I don't believe you even can join the WGA unless you work an industry (film or TV) job first (and I know a bit about it, having once been an associate member.)

Just a guess but I would bet nominations such as this come from within the WGA, instead of polling the game industry (or reviewers, or fans.) It's quite possible these games simply managed to attract the attention of the guild members for whatever reason, and I would further wonder if there was extremely low turnout for the vote since the choices seem to favor some pretty random personal tastes. Obviously this is all pretty lackluster, but they may be just putting the mechanisms in place for a "real" award in the future.

Re:Game writers members of WGA?

[Anonymous Coward]

having once been an associate member

Are you even allowed to be writing this?

Re:Game writers members of WGA?

[7Prime]

This is WRITING not story concept. Those are two entirely different things. Just because something has a cool story doesn't neccessarilly mean it was well written. On the contrary, I find that many games escape good writing by titilating their audiences with "neato" story concepts. Mass Effect's writing wasn't bad, but it wasn't all that spectacular either, it was mostly pretty utilitarian, with the dialog being mostly about the subjects immediately at hand, with just enough personality for the characters to not sound wooden... which was fine, but could have been done with a little more panash. For instance, "The West Wing"s dialog is very utilitarian, yet they throw in even more individuality by the characters that the writing itself really draws you in.

Bioshock, however, had some absolutely wonderful writing, and drew on a lot of different dramatic influences: Film Noire monologues, Irish-American slang, 1950s kitch. Bioshock gets my vote for best writing of the year, hands down. Portal had some quirky things, but 95% of it came from one character. I'll admit that there were a few wonderful passages, and the overall style of the game was perfect, but I can understand why it might not win any writers awards.

Re:Game writers members of WGA?

[elrous0]

You mean you don't think the brilliant writers of "According to Jim" and "CSI: Duluth" could do better? Blasphemy!

Re:Game writers members of WGA?

[grahamd0]

Portal has some of the best writing in the history of gaming. The settings are generally visually bland, and the way the writing compliments, contrasts and enhances the environment is amazing.

As the gameplay alone would make that game playable, it shows Valve's commitment to their craft that they took the time and the money to work in dialog that actually made me laugh out loud. In a puzzle game with one talking character!

Having a simple story doesn't mean you don't have good writing.

Re:Game writers members of WGA?

[SharpFang]

It was simple, but masterfully done. A story of a hundred plotlines may be just 'inedible', boring. A short, concise, to the point story may be great. Portal had a very standard plot, but the mood was amazing - it was a comedy-horror mix, with the horror part dominating the comedy part, each complimenting the other and the mood being ultimately confusing, a feeling of conflict. You feel from the beginning that the voice is your enemy, so the praises for your achievments don't feel rewarding at all.

Re:Game writers members of WGA?

[Firethorn]

I enjoyed portal. The plot fit well and it was fun.

Still, what I mean by simple is that the amount of writing, acting, is minimal compared to many games. More than some like bedazzled, but like I said, less than bioshock.

We never got a huge amount of back story, nor met anybody but the computer other than some writings in hidden spots.

Having a simple story doesn't mean you don't have good writing.

Yes, but it might cost you some consideration in an award like this.

Re:Game writers members of WGA?

[twistedsymphony]

The thing most people neglect about the writing in Bioshock and something that is IMO the reason it's such a well written game and should be nominated is the twist near the end... It's something that wouldn't have had the same kind of impact had you been watching a movie because in a game you're an active participant. The writing along provided replay value through it's sheer craftsmanship by encouraging you to play the game again and see it in a different light knowing what you learn in the end.

Add to that the tremendous quality of the scrip in general and there is no doubt in my mind that it's the best game script I've ever played.

Portal was great too because it did so much with so little, it melded perfectly with the environment and gameplay and it was incredibly entertaining the whole time. Giving someone 30 hours worth of gameplay to flesh out their characters and create depth is one thing. Asking someone to write an award worthy script in 10 sentences or less is an entire challenge in and of itself.

Re:Game writers members of WGA?

[Anonymous Coward]

It would appear so, kind of:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6184775.html

Yeah stepped back from the picket lines alright...

[the_skywise]

A> WGA awards probably only nominate WGA members...
B> Why on earth would the WGA want to promote *game* writing... hmmmm... more union members mebbe?

Translation:

[ivan256]

"Hey gaming industry! If you want to be on our awards list, you better hire yourself some union writers. You're a bunch of chumps for paying writers a salary. Let us hold you hostage for continuing payments like we're doing with the TV studios."

Re:Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

Your statement would make sense if game companies were only paying writers for copies sold in brick & mortar stores, but not for copies sold through electronic distribution systems like Steam. This is the crux of the writers strike.

Re:Translation:

[ivan256]

The crux of the writers strike is that they would rather work on a continuing revenue basis that with a living wage paid up front. Game companies pay their writers a salary, not a fraction of each sale.

Re:Translation:

[hal2814]

That's what the WGA claims is the crux of the strike but when studio execs agreed to deal provided about a half-dozen unrelated items were considered off the table for discussion, the WGA refused. The studio execs are willing to negotiate electronic distribution royalties.

Re:Translation:

[Telvin_3d]

The crux of the writers strike is that they are not paid a living wage up front. They don't really expect one as the majority of writing positions in the entertainment industry don't lend themselves well to that kind of setup. However, while they are not getting salaries the studios are being dicks about the residuals that are supposed to make up the difference. This makes things hard on the writers. Hence the strike.

Now, I don't think this model would work very well in the game environment. But in their own industry it makes a lot of sense.

Re:Translation:

[kidcharles]

I have been giving the residuals vs. salary issue some thought recently and here are my initial conclusions. There are two categories of product, finite and infinite. "Finite" products are those that require labor to reproduce, including both goods (cars, computers, etc.) and services (customer support, waiting tables at a restaurant, etc.). Then there are products that are "infinite" (essentially intellectual property), such as scripts, movies, computer games, and recorded music. All of these things can now be reproduced infinitely with trivial effort.

Corporations that sell finite goods can only sell them once; if they want more of them to sell, they must rely on new labor efforts, for which the laborers must be compensated. Corporations that sell infinite goods can sell extremely cheap-to-produce reproductions of their products with no practical limits, and do not require more labor to make them (except for DVD pressings or servers hosting the material for example, which typically represent a tiny fraction of production costs).

Now we address fairness in each of these types of product. Finite products produce a predictable revenue, that can be examined to see if the compensation to the laborers who produced it is considered "fair." Infinite products produce a very unpredictable revenue, that can vary substantially. A movie that performs poorly can make a tenth of what a box office success can make. In this case, the "fairness" of compensation, measured by the ratio of the salary paid to the laborer to the revenue from sales, can vary wildly.

It seems to me that laborers in "infinite" production industries have a very good argument for residuals, from the perspective of fairness.

Re:Translation:

[spectecjr]

It seems to me that laborers in "infinite" production industries have a very good argument for residuals, from the perspective of fairness.

Although frankly, if they want residuals in the games industry, they can get the fuck in line. Behind the programmers, artists, animators, fx guys, et al. (Same goes for the actors - fuck you! You want royalties on a performance that took you at most a week? We slaved over that game for over three years, working evenings, weekends, you name it).

Re:Translation:

[naoursla]

You are looking for the terms "rival" and "nonrival".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivalrous

A related concept is "excludability".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excludability

One can make a matrix of these two categories and place most products into one of the quadrants.

Music recordings used to be rival/excludable. You could only get them on CD (or tape). If you were using that CD then someone else could not (rival). CDs cost money at the store and such are excludable. It is pretty easy to make money on goods that are rival/excludable as long as people want those goods.

Digital technology has turned music recordings into nonrival/nonexcludable. I can rip your CD and we can now both listen to the music (nonrival). One could put that recording on the internet making it available to everyone (nonexcludable). It is extremely difficult to make money on goods that are nonrival/nonexcludable. DRM technology is an attempt to move goods like this back towards rival/excludable.

Some argue that once your product becomes nonrival/nonexcludable then you shouldn't try to change your product to be profitable but should instead change your business model to fit the new marketplace. Treat the nonrival/nonexcludable product as advertising to sell something else that is rival or excludable -- like concerts or t-shirts.

Re:Translation:

[kidcharles]

IANAE: I Am Not An Economist

I knew I wasn't the first person to think of these things, thanks for pointing out the proper terminology. I guess my contribution, which is probably not some new concept, is to relate the concept of "rivalrous" to labor compensation as opposed to just product consumption. If I was an economics grad student instead of a EE, I might have had myself a juicy little thesis topic.

Re:Translation:

[servognome]

Corporations that sell infinite goods can sell extremely cheap-to-produce reproductions of their products with no practical limits, and do not require more labor to make them (except for DVD pressings or servers hosting the material for example, which typically represent a tiny fraction of production costs).

The key thing you are forgetting is that the corporation must sell the "infinite good." Yes the cost to reproduce is cheap, but the cost to find another customer increases.
If you want to sell more of an item you don't just cheaply reproduce it, you also must have increased labor cost in terms of marketing spends.

It seems to me that laborers in "infinite" production industries have a very good argument for residuals, from the perspective of fairness.

So does the lighting guy, carpenter, or caterer, who are laborers in an "infinite" industry, deserve residuals?
Ideally every movie makes money, but in reality many fail. Do you think laborers on a movie set would accept not getting paid because a movie bombed?

The reality is that any industry is a combination of "finite" and "infinite" resources given your definition.

Re:Translation:

[eyenot]

This can also be expressed in terms of 'tangible' versus 'intangible' goods and services.

Tangible: car; back massage
Intangible: entertainment; pleasantry

The (official) search for the proper way to quantise intangibles has been on for almost a decade, but the last time I read anything about it was in the Wall Street Journal about seven years ago.

Re:Translation:

[servognome]

Treat the nonrival/nonexcludable product as advertising to sell something else that is rival or excludable -- like concerts or t-shirts.

Problem is that t-shirts can be cheaply reproduced (buy the concert t-shirt for $25 or download the images and make one myself for $18 online), and concerts are an extremely limited revenue generator that using CD's & downloads as advertising doesn't make sense.
What we will more likely see is streaming subscription services. Lock the user in, stream the information so that instead of taking 3 minutes to rip and burn a CD, the user has to spend 45 minutes recording off the stream. Maybe even encrypting the stream so that it is trivial for dedicated hardware to decode, but is slow for non-dedicated chip to tie the service into hardware.

Re:Translation:

[dq5 studios]

The studio execs agreed to nothing. They offered up their own formula for residuals on internet use that the WGA rejected. The AMPTP (studio execs) then left saying that will be their only offer until the other demands are removed.
The AMPTP isn't willing to negotiate anything, they just want to make demands.

Re:Translation:

[SatanicPuppy]

Shrug. The difference between a well written game and a poorly written game is so obvious as to not even need pointing out. A poorly written game with beautiful graphics, is still likely to be a flop, while a graphically mediocre game with excellent writing can be a huge success.

You can't just write it off based on how much time it took. Time is a poor measure of value. If you sic two programmers independently on the same task, the final product matters more than the time it took to produce (within reason). If the results were identical except for time, no one would argue that the one that took longer to produce was worth more (unless you're Marx).

So it comes down to measuring the contribution to the final product. If the writing doubled the value of the project, the writer should get a larger share than if the writing was merely adequate.

If you're dealing with a writer who has a ton of successes under his belt, and he comes in, does a month of work and leaves with a fat check, that's just the market rewarding his skill, same as it would be with a code consultant, or a designer.

Of course, this is pretty much the opposite of the way unions work. C'est la vie.

Re:Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

If this interests you then you may want to continue to follow the parent posts wikipedia links to the discussion of "public goods" and "public goods problems".

Goods that are both nonrival and non-excludable are called public goods. I'm sure it will not come as a shock to you that attempting to market something which can be classified as a "public good" is generally considered a poor idea. Not that you should expect our favorite media corporations to appreciate well established economic common sense.

Re:Translation:

[complete loony]

Just because programming a game takes a large amount of perspiration and effort over a long period of time doesn't mean you can demote programmers to the lowly status of labourer. A great programmer is as much of an artist as a great writer. Writing well structured, reusable code is hard.

While I realise having a good writer, like having a good salesman, is indispensable. And can make a huge difference to your profitability. So is having a good programmer. Good talent should be rewarded in every discipline.

Re:Translation:

[edwdig]

The difference between a well written game and a poorly written game is so obvious as to not even need pointing out. A poorly written game with beautiful graphics, is still likely to be a flop, while a graphically mediocre game with excellent writing can be a huge success.

A game with great gameplay and crap writing will be a far bigger success than a game with crap gameplay and great writing. Sure, if you're making an RPG, you're mostly relying on the storyline to drive your game. But for the vast majority of games, the writing just needs to be passable.

So it comes down to measuring the contribution to the final product. If the writing doubled the value of the project, the writer should get a larger share than if the writing was merely adequate.

Without the writing, you still have a game. For most games, it won't suffer much.

Remove the sound, you've still got a game, but it'll suffer rather noticeably.

Remove the graphics, programming, or gameplay design and you have no game.

Re:Translation:

[TheSeer2]

I'm fairly sure you're referring to designers, which are quite distinct from writers.

Re:Translation:

[makomk]

Actually, I think the issue at the core of the writer's strike is that while they are paid a living wage while they're actually working, the vast, vast majority of the writers aren't working most of the time, so they depend somewhat on residuals to make up the gap. (Yes, this is basically the exact opposite of how free markets are supposed to work, because it isn't a free market - the WGA basically have a near-total monopoly over the industry by requiring companies to force all employees to join if they want any decent writers. )

Re:Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

The fun thing is, at least half of the terms the AMPTP are demanding are removed seem to be a violation of at least the spirit of US labor law, if not the actual word. (Of course, the AMPTP aren't exactly sticking to the spirit of the law either, but still...)

Re:Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me that laborers in "infinite" production industries have a very good argument for residuals, from the perspective of fairness.

Similarly, should van Gogh's heirs get a percentage of the profits made when one of his works is resold? If you feel the writers should be compensated if a game they contribute to becomes very profitable, why shouldn't artists be compensated if something they have created is generating massive profts? Discuss.

Re:Translation:

[naoursla]

Tshirts are not reproducable like mp3s are reproducable.

If your time to reproduce a tshirt is worth less than $7 then it makes sense for you to do that. Now try to sell your bootleg tshirt. You have to undercut the real band so your time is worth even less now. You have to be physically present to sell the shirts so the risk of legal trouble is greater than nearly anonymous file sharing over the internet. The more money you make the more visible you become.

Physical CDs are rival and excludable. You can make money off of them as long as people value the atoms enough to pay for them over the mp3s they can likely get for free. On the other hand, they can bootleg a CD from the mp3s for a few bucks (to use your counter point about the tshirts).

As far as concert profitability, I have no idea. No one said that making a living as a musician was easy.
Yes, DRM is an attempt to move digial music back to rival/excludable. Maybe that will be a successful business model. Then again, maybe it will be a miserable failure. Time will tell. Napster steaming service is a big fail. XM Radio streaming service seems to be a win.

I do not see any way to lock someone in with streaming subscriptions. The iTunes model where you purchase music that only plays on the iPod can lock a user in.
A user with a music subscription has nothing invested (except perhaps commodity hardware) and can switch easily. The ability of a customer to switch to a competior easily means you make very little money.

Re:Translation:

[naoursla]

Very good, sir!

Re:Translation:

[naoursla]

I'm a computer science major. After taking an ecommerce class in graduate school I became much more interested in the world of economics. There is a surprising amount of overlap.

Re:Translation:

[servognome]

If your time to reproduce a tshirt is worth less than $7 then it makes sense for you to do that. Now try to sell your bootleg tshirt.

Who says I have to sell the bootleg t-shirt? Just as sharing MP3's is trivial, sharing t-shirt graphics is trivial, and easy for anybody to make it online. You don't have to enter the market to subvert it.

A user with a music subscription has nothing invested (except perhaps commodity hardware) and can switch easily. The ability of a customer to switch to a competior easily means you make very little money.

You can make the person invest their time, and make it difficult to switch to a competitor (eg specialized hardware).

Re:Translation:

[DavidTC]

Okay, I don't know if everyone's enter some alternate universe or something, but residues on computer games are extremely stupid to talk about. At all.

Residues are what you get from later sales. With movies, it's TV and DVDs, with TV, it's syndication and DVDs (and not the internet, apparently).

TV and movie writers are either on a flat salary, or paid per episode/for the movie, which covers them for the original airing. (And with movie writers, often they get a cut of the net.) And then they have residues to cover additional uses, which are mainly just in case their show is popular so the TV networks can't make infinite money off it forever without handing some back.

With video games,'residues' would be...what, exactly? How do you rerun a game? An emulator?

What people here apparently think video game writers should get is a cut of the net profit, like many movie writers get, not 'residues'.

And I'm all for that, but I have no idea why we're specifically want game writers singled out. People producing computer software should be paid more if the software does well. (Microsoft, and don't think I'm a fan, pays workers in stock options for exactly this reason, although that obviously averages it across the company.)

OTOH, the reason that Hollywood writers and actors and directors forced a residue system is that, unlike most companies of the time, they were entirely contractual workers and had no job security or retirement. Originally, TV and movie studios just tended to discard people, even the really famous ones, people who had a million viewings of their reruns every day, and they were living out of dumpsters. (Of course, nowadays, no job security is the norm, but not back them.)

Video game writers really aren't in the same boat.

Re:Translation:

[mcvos]

From your link:

Talks broke down Dec. 7 after the union rejected an alliance demand that a half-dozen guild proposals be taken off the table, including jurisdiction over reality and animation writers.

I don't understand what they mean by jurisdiction here. Surely the WGA isn't a law enforcement organisation? It's just a union, right? Aren't writers, be they for TV series, animation or games, free to choose their own union to represent them? How can the alliance stop writers from choosing their own union? How can the WGA demand jurisdiction over them?

This sounds like a really weird way to deal with labour unions (but then, I've heard more weird stories about US unions).

Re:Translation:

[jacobw]

Although frankly, if they want residuals in the games industry, they can get the fuck in line. Behind the programmers, artists, animators, fx guys, et al. (Same goes for the actors - fuck you! You want royalties on a performance that took you at most a week? We slaved over that game for over three years, working evenings, weekends, you name it).

I agree with you completely, but to be fair, "programmers should get royalties" does not equate to "writers should not get royalties." In Hollywood, gains earned by one creative union end up getting shared by the others; once SAG gets something, odds are that the WGA and the DGA will get it too. If there were a Game Programmer's Union, it's plausible to imagine something similar happening.

Also: the reason WGA members get residuals isn't that they asked nicely, and the producers said, "Hey, that sounds fair." The WGA had to strike to get residuals many decades ago. Eventually, the studios decided (a) they were losing more money from the strike than they'd lose by giving residuals, and (b) they couldn't find enough good non-WGA writers to break the strike, so they made a hard-nosed business decision to pay residuals.

Wwould programmers be willing to strike in order to get residuals? And is game programming such a specialized skill that the game companies would be unable to get outside labor to break the strike? (These aren't rhetorical questions--I know nothing about the structure of the game business and I'm genuinely interested in the answers.)

Re:Translation:

[westlake]

actors - fuck you! You want royalties on a performance that took you at most a week? We slaved over that game for over three years, working evenings, weekends, you name it

You aren't paying for the actor's time.

You are paying for his talent and resources. You are paying because he was right for the part.

You are paying for the marquee value of his name.

In the animated film, the voices are recorded first. The vocal performance, the personality of the actor, shapes the design and animation of the character.

Re:Translation:

[spectecjr]

You aren't paying for the actor's time.

You are paying for his talent and resources. You are paying because he was right for the part.

You are paying for the marquee value of his name.

In the animated film, the voices are recorded first. The vocal performance, the personality of the actor, shapes the design and animation of the character.

Not the case in games, trust me. Not only that, but I seriously disagree with the practice of using A-list actors in games. I'd much rather use agency voice actors; the big names - as far as I can tell - don't bring anything to the game.

Portal FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

Stay unemployed then.... shows how much the WGA appreciates a higher art form...

Less than impressed.

[Aladrin]

I just looked through the list, and those games don't strike me as having good writing at all. The Simpsons might be the only exception, and it was based on the movie... wasn't it? Not a real big challenge.

And I looked at animation and simpsons gets -most- of the nominations there, too... Where is South Park? I'm assuming they aren't union because Season 11 is definitely my favorite season. (Season 8 is second favorite.)

Personally, if this is the kind of quality the WGA can offer, I'd rather they stay on strike and give real writers a chance.

Re:Less than impressed.

[faloi]

Just to clarify on The Simpsons game. It's not based on a movie, it's a game based on them getting trapped in game. A lot of humor is more like old school Simpsons humor, and it's likely (don't tell Congress this) that they get more leeway with the ESRB than they do for public airways.

Not all of the games up there suck... But it's certainly more like a list of games that had union writers than any list of good story lines in games.

Uh oh.

[ControversialMatt]

I wonder if the producers for Bioshock, Mass Effect, and The Orange Box will be able to dig themselves out from under their respective piles of awards to offer an apology to the Writers Guild for not employing their members.

Witcher

[Alexpkeaton1010]

The Witcher is an awesome nominee and I would put it easily up against Mass Effect or Orange Box. I haven't played the other games, but judging by that nomination it is obvious they know what they are talking about. Also, it is writing award, not a hype award.

Re:Witcher

[the computer guy nex]

I've played all of them, and leaving off Mass Effect is a crime. The Witcher has a decent story but it takes a back seat to the hack'n'slash gameplay. In Mass Effect, the story is excellent and truly immersive.

Re:Witcher

[Sid Nitzerglobin]

Most of the good aspects of writing in The Witcher (the setting, lore, and backgrounds of the main characters) were lifted from the books as I understand it.

The quests/story/plot of the game came off as typical, cliched, adult fantasy RPG fare to me. The dialog in the english version was actually pretty substandard IMO (but was probably due to doing the translation on the mega-cheap).

I'm not saying it sucks by any means, it was a good game, but it definitely wasn't significantly better than Mass Effect, Orange Box, or BioShock.

Just my .02

Re:Witcher

[KDR_11k]

I'd be careful with extrapolation. World in Conflict, for example, didn't seem to have a very interesting story from what I saw.

Re:Witcher

[rk]

I thought the World In Conflict storyline for the single-player game was pretty good. Maybe not great, but it was solid writing. I particularly like the non science fiction alternate history aspect of it.

Of course, nobody really played it, since almost everyone who plays that plays nothing but multiplayer, either at the total-n00b level on the public servers, or the "we're professional gamers who play to make a living" on the clan servers. There doesn't seem to be much of a middle ground, which is why I don't play it anymore.

Re:Witcher

[Dutch Gun]

In the demo, I heard one of the characters call a female companion "babe" - not exactly what I would expect in a medieval setting. I'm not saying the game wasn't good (the demo was pretty fun), but I heard some pretty bad dialogue just in the time I played.

Re:Witcher

[ElMiguel]

Did you get a different version of the game than I did? One where most of the dialogs actually make sense?

Re:Witcher

[DuranteAlighieri]

I liked the Witcher, but I wouldn't say it had great writing -- perhaps the original Polish version did, but certainly not the translation I played. The one game released in 07 that I'd credit with truly good writing is NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer.

Re:Witcher

[lidocaineus]

Mass Effect didn't have a good storyline, it just had lots of it. Quantity != quality. The fact that every time I had a conversation with anyone it was the opposite of subtle, and it felt like they were pouring out their heart to me despite not ever having spoken to them before is a sign of BAD writing. Sure, I got the backstory and knew how the world worked intimately, but that doesn't make it interesting, just thorough. A well written game would be able to incorporate all the aspects of the story but reveal it in interesting and natural ways. That's what makes it good.

Re:Witcher

[Anonymous Coward]

That's probably a translation issue - there are a few things that sound out of place in the game - although supposedly Sapkowski's books also use fairly modern language compared to most fantasy, so I'm not sure...

But part of what makes the game good is that it isn't your typical fantasy.

What the hell

[Alzheimers]

When I try to read this article without logging in, it's arranged in the most eye-gougingly, randomly erratic, and thoroughly god awful manner possible. What the hell?!

Re:What the hell

[Kalriath]

That's OK. When you log in, Slashdot inserts random 10 centimetre gaps between random comments. On the plus side, they've managed to make comments work as well in IE7 as in Firefox now - they achieved this by making them work crappier in Firefox.

Re:What the hell

[biovoid]

They're ads or, in your case, spaces for ads, as you probably have some sort of ad-blocker.

Re:What the hell

[Kalriath]

Slashdot puts 20 ads to a page now? Ew? (Should note that although I do block ads, I also give Slashdot money. After all, it IS hours of entertainment! Wait... it's a news site? Since when?!?)

Really

[Steauengeglase]

Am I only only one who is shocked to see that two of the nominees aren't movie cash-ins/tie-ins?

Eligibility for awards

[planetralph]

A lot of speculation on eligibility for awards. The TFA has a link to the awards site that includes eligibility. Here are two excerpts:

"Work that was not produced under WGA jurisdiction may be submitted...."

"At the time the script is submitted, the credited writer(s) of the game must be, or apply to become, a member of the WGA's New Media Caucus...."

The writers work must be nominated, it sounds like typically by a writer. Since these aren't yet high profile awards, the writers who bothered to submit their games and apply for membership are the short list of nominees.

Here is the link to eligibility and submission procedures:

http://www.wga.org/awards/awardssub.aspx?id=59

Re:Eligibility for awards

[mcvos]

"At the time the script is submitted, the credited writer(s) of the game must be, or apply to become, a member of the WGA's New Media Caucus...."

I read this as "WGA's New Media Circus".

World in Conflict

[Jellybob]

I havn't heard of most of them, but World in Conflict had the best plot I've ever seen in an RTS, and possibly one of the best I've seen in a game at all. It's certainly one of the few RTS games I've played where I actually cared about the characters, and felt that I was fighting for a reason beyond "because I am".

What's the "shame"?

[eyenot]

"At the time the script is submitted, the credited writer(s) of the game must be, or apply to become, a member of the WGA's New Media Caucus."

The writer's guild is a business that supports business, just doing the business of making sure that the guild itself will be supported in the future. From the wga article:

"to encourage storytelling excellence in videogames, to improve the status of writers, and to begin to encourage uniform standards"

This isn't the laws of robotics. No doubt the second "purpose" overrides the other two, and the first one takes a back seat to the third. Notice that creativity wasn't invited, as that would clash directly with uniformity.

"the Writers Guilds intend to raise the profile of these writers so that they can get WGA contracts and benefits for this work."

Which in turn benefits the WGA, in labor politics. And, as well, the WGA no doubt considers this new award category to be fanciful and more or less a bunch of nonsense, which means they probably aren't being very stringent about how obvious their picks are.

"Following his work on the Futurama series, Verrone has written an episode of The Simpsons (Milhouse of Sand and Fog (2005)), developed the Cartoon Network series Class of 3000 (including writing the pilot episode Home (2006)), and worked on the Futurama movies scheduled to be released starting in late 2007."

Patric Verrone is the president of the WGA-west, and obviously also does a lot of work for Matt Groening productions...

"The Simpsons Game, Lead Writer Matt Selman, Written by Tim Long and Matt Warburton, Dialogue by Jeff Poliquin, Electronic Arts."

... so who would think twice about nominating "The Simpsons"? Not like anybody will notice, right? "Futurama" is owned by 20th Century Fox. The corporate page of Sierra Entertainment's website mentions (in the context of their game design arm, Vivendi Games):

"Vivendi Games maintains strategic relationships with industry leading content partners, including Universal Music Group, NBC Universal, Twentieth Century Fox, and Ludlum Entertainment."

There's that Fox, again. Jay Lender, another WGA-west caucus member cited in the relevant article, shares an animation-writing history (Sponge Bob Square Pants). With two prominent members as television animation writers for shows that are enormously popular with children, no doubt there is some kind of stringent standard as to which sort of games could be nominated. For instance, "Bioshock", though some may find it to be the art-deco'd social Darwinist hit of the century, features the player being attacked by drugged-up little children who may or may not be dispatched unpleasantly. That probably didn't make the cut.

"Since leaving Nickelodeon, Jay has written a number of scripts for video games with his writing partner Micah Wright"

The "taking care of your friends" aspect is what I'm trying to focus attention on. Micah Wright's major video-game titles include: "Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), Electronic Arts"; and "Shadow Ops: Red Mercury, (2004), Atari." Considering we have two major connections, one through Groening productions and one through the combinatrix of major animated series gone video game by way of Electronic Arts, it's no surprise that the Simpsons game made it up there, whether it totally sucks or not.

"Crash of the Titans, Written by Christopher Mitchell, Sierra Entertainment."

Sierra, again.

Dead Head Fred features the voice of John C. McGinley, who plays "Perry Cox" in NBC's "Scrubs".

"McGinley received critical acclaim for his performance as a serial killer in Dean Koontz's suspense drama, Intensity (1997). It became Fox's highest-rated miniseries. He worked with Koontz and Fox o

So, you're saying that Portal was great then?

[DingerX]

Since it didn't waste any time with depth and went straight for quality. It's all economy, no fat. In terms of writing, it was perfect: it's so slight that many folks can discount it as "just a game," but for those who look, it's at one time an implementation of "games as learning" theory and the playtest-intensive approach of Valve and a criticism of it. How much of the game is simply an exercise, and how much of it is being measured by some remote server and being scored as a victory? Portal has some of the most endearing writing because it takes the stereotypes of "test gone wrong" (which built Half Life, among others) and the "lying computer", and twists them ultimately into "test gone right" ("This was a triumph") and "truthful computer" ("The difference between us is that I can feel pain" - prima facie so wrong, but on further reflection, so right).

But it also poses the greatest threat to the WGA. Just look at how it was developed. Yes, they had professional writers in the various cabals, and those guys are venerated for their work. Yet their development structure gave everyone input.

Create an environment where extremely creative people who specialize in different disciplines inspire each other to great heights, and the result is greater than any could achieve in their own domain, were turf boundaries established. To do so, however, requires an egalitarian environment antithetical to the traditional management/labor divide. Enslaved masses, forward!

An ominous sign

[elrous0]

If this strike has taught us nothing it's that the LAST thing we want is for those self-righteous assholes to get their claws into the game industry too.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for people getting a fair shake. But trust me, dealing with the WGA, SAG, the DGA, etc. is a fucking nightmare of epic proportions. When they come, they bring a whole slew of major headaches.

Re:Yeah stepped back from the picket lines alright

[Cheeko]

Yeah I'd have to assume the Writers guild is the same as the directors guild or the actors guild.

If I recall correctly one of the reason Quinten Tarantino can't be nominated for a bunch of different awards is that he refused to join most of the guilds.

The Witcher

[Anonymous Coward]

While the exclusion of Bioshock disturbs me somewhat, the inclusion of The Witcher should not be a surprise for anyone who has played it seriously; it most certainly does not "suck" as the heading implies. While I understand that The Witcher lost a little when it was translated from the original Polish, what remains is still an excellent piece, probably the best single-player RPG since Planescape: Torment. While Bioshock and The Witcher were built to appeal to slightly different audiences, their stories both share foundations of strong characterization and moral ambiguity, and both have left me with deep questions about moral philosophy long after I've finished playing them.

What?

[culprt]

Drakes' Fortune? No Assassin's Creed? Who are these people anyway to take upon themselves to decide which game to nominate or not. [LOB].

They are only doing this

[geekoid]

as a step to get 'game writers' as part of their guild. This way they can prevent writers from writing on games while there is a strike going on.

Re:They are only doing this

[jacobw]

This way they can prevent writers from writing on games while there is a strike going on.

FYI, this is factually incorrect.

To understand why, you need to know a bit about what the WGA does. Among other things, the WGA negotiates something called the "Minimum Basic Agreement," or "MBA" for short. As the name suggests, the MBA offers a kind of minimum wage. Individual writers are free to negotiate better terms than the MBA provides, but the studios have agreed not to pay less than the MBA decrees.

Now, instead of saying "MBA," I should really say "MBAs." The WGA represents not just sitcom and drama writers but newswriters as well. Then there are the radio promo writers, the game writers, the documentary writers... As you can imagine, it would be somewhat futile to try to negotiate one big contract that would cover all those kinds of writing. So the WGA has negotiated different contracts for different kinds of writing.

Recently, one of those contracts expired--specifically, the contract that covers the writers of motion pictures, sitcoms, and TV dramas. Since the WGA and the studios weren't able to negotiate a replacement contract, those writers went on strike. But you'll notice that the newswriters, the radio promo writers, etc, are still working. In fact, under federal labor law, I believe it would be illegal for those writers to strike over somebody else's contract.

So... as a matter of practice and of federal law... game writers can't and wouldn't join the current strike.

Jurisdiction

[jacobw]

I don't understand what they mean by jurisdiction here. Surely the WGA isn't a law enforcement organisation? It's just a union, right? Aren't writers, be they for TV series, animation or games, free to choose their own union to represent them? How can the alliance stop writers from choosing their own union? How can the WGA demand jurisdiction over them?

As I understand it, the WGA has an exclusive deal with the members of the AMPTP (the producers' alliance) in certain areas. For example, NBC has agreed that that they will only broadcast sitcoms written by WGA members; United Artists has agreed that all their live-action movies will be written by WGA members; etc. This is what people mean when they say "the WGA has jurisdiction" over NBC sitcoms and UA movies.

In certain other areas, there is no exclusive deal, and it's up to the writing staff to choose whether to go WGA or not. For example, for a variety of historical reasons, animated TV series and Comedy Central shows are not automatically under WGA jurisdiction, so the writers of The Simpsons, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report weren't initially under WGA jurisdiction. (The writing staffs on all three of those shows ended up voting to go WGA.)

Right now, reality television is not automatically under WGA jurisdiction. (We all know that at least some "reality" shows are written, right?) Individual reality show staffs can vote to join the WGA, but the WGA wants the AMPTP to enter into an agreement that would cover all reality shows, just like the one covering all sitcoms. This is what people mean when they say the WGA wants jurisdiction over reality TV.

DISCLAIMER: I am a WGA member but I don't speak for the WGA.

Union monopolies

[mcvos]

Although I can understand that union leaders like deals like that, I can't help but feel that such deals are harmful to the workers themselves (the writers, in this case). If a union has a complete monopoly on a certain kind of labour, that means workers aren't free to choose which union to let them be represented by, they're not free not to join a union, and if they're not in a union, they're not allowed to do the work they want. If a minority of union members disagree with union policy, they're not free to start their own union.

IMO all of these are vital for keeping unions and labour circumstances healthy. In Netherland, we've got multiple competing unions that cooperate when necessary, but have the freedom to disagree. I'm convinced that a labour union monopoly, like any other kind of monopoly, is in the end harmful to everybody.

The name "guild" is very well chosen; this kind of construction seems to have more in common with medieval trade guilds than with modern labour unions. Note that I'm very much in favor of labour unions, but I'm also very much against monopolies.

Re:Union monopolies

[jacobw]

If a union has a complete monopoly on a certain kind of labour, that means workers aren't free to choose which union to let them be represented by, they're not free not to join a union, and if they're not in a union, they're not allowed to do the work they want.

Actually, looking at my previous post, I was unintentionally misleading. Let me clarify:

I mentioned that NBC (for example) has agreed to only employ WGA members for its sitcoms. But what happens if they want to hire you, and you're not a WGA member? It's simple: you join the WGA. After a certain number of weeks of sitcom staff, you're required to join the WGA--and the WGA is required to take you. Basically, the only requirement for membership in the WGA is, you have to have been hired for a job under WGA jurisdiction. (There are, of course, some unions that restrict membership, and therefore stop people from taking jobs--but the WGA isn't one of them. If NBC wants to hire you, the WGA isn't going to stand in your way.)

But you're right that you aren't free not to join the WGA under those circumstances. On the other hand, if you want to write for TV but don't want to join the union, you can work for a show that's not under WGA jurisdiction. There are plenty of them. Most basic cable TV shows, most animated show, etc. The analogy I would use is: if you want to run Mac OS X, you have to buy a Macintosh. But nobody's forcing you to buy one; the worst you can accuse Apple of is, they've made OS X desirable enough that you're annoyed you can't run it on other computers. You could say Apple has a monopoly over computers that run Apple software, but I'm not sure "monopoly" is really the best word.

Similarly, the worst you can accuse the WGA of is, it's membership is talented enough that many of the best-paying and most prestigious TV shows are willing to sign an exclusive guild contract. Nobody forced NBC to give the WGA jurisdiction over its sitcoms, and nobody forces a sitcom writer to work for NBC.