Video Game Writers

[ZJJ 74]

I found this article to be interesting and thought I would share. It's not about any particular game, but it is about writing for consoles, so I stuck it here.

Cutting-edge video games are primarily about cutting-edge programming, but the value that talented writers can bring to immersive experiences is gaining more recognition.

Not so long ago, games weren't written so much as they were constructed -- by programmers and artists.

Now, however, when all next-generation games tend to look and sound terrific, savvy publishers are saying that great writing is a neat way to differentiate your title from the others.

"It used to be that you'd write the dialogue in the three days prior to going into the recording studio mainly because everything else was considered to be more important," he says. "Now, in a game like the forthcoming "Splinter Cell 4" [officially known as "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent"], we had multiple, multiple iterations of the script, and we've been able to test dialogue, hear how it sounds, see how it plays, determine where it needs to be improved, and go back and polish and polish."

"As next-gen consoles allow the reactions of characters to become more and more sophisticated, you need to have more and more lines of script to cover all the possibilities," explains Ubisoft's Dansky. "The average movie script runs about 30,000 words, the average novel about 100,000. Our scripts have grown from 2,000 words to over 100,000 in some cases. Our 'Splinter Cell Chaos Theory' was over 100,000 words and Microsoft's 'Jade Empire' -- another game that is very writing-heavy -- was 340,000 words. I believe the record is 'Planescape: Torment' with something like 860,000 words of dialogue."

"In each game, we here at Ubisoft are trying to build in two or three major emotions that we would like to explore," he explains. "For instance, in 'Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter,' the entire game is focused on the swing between being in control and scrambling to react when things get out of control. How does one feel when you're powerless in a situation where you need to be in charge?"

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[FA sear 0]

That was a good read. Atmosphere is definitely a big part of the gaming experience. Chaos did have some good dialogue.

[the.ronin 5]

I think atmosphere is practically all of the gaming experience.

One of the things that immediately blew me off about GR2 for xBox was the shift from serious mission briefings to a laughable flashback interview.

In contrast, I couldn't get enough of the Desert Strike series of games for the Sega Genesis ... almost entirely because of a very very well thought out plot line and more appropriate, intelligent dialogue than you can shake a stick at.