Inspired by a piece over at the Eurogamer site, but also by the comments on the piece, I thought I’d write my own take on this.
Firstly, let me say that I’ve never received $100k for any of my writing jobs. In fact, a couple of the games I worked on had complete budgets that were of that order.
It’s very easy to dismiss the story or dialogue in a game as a waste of bringing in a writer, particularly if it doesn’t come across very well, but the real heart of the problem can often be a failure of the developer and writer to establish the right working relationship. I’ve seen good dialogue writing undermined because of poor voice acting or inappropriate character expressions. I’ve seen a good story spoiled because it hasn’t been in sync with the gameplay pacing. Develop your relationship properly.
I spoke to a writer earlier this year who’d landed a job on a high profile game. There was already the bones of a story in place but he saw lots of ways to improve it. However, every time he did so the developer pulled it back to the original story. If a game’s story is weak it’s often because a developer thinks they know best. Sometimes they do, of course, but often not.
Developers – please learn that a good game writer doesn’t want to undermine a game but enhance it. They’ll work with you to create something special because it’s in their interest to do so. “Good game writer” being important here.
And writers – if you don’t understand that gameplay is the most important part, you’re not cut out to be a game writer. Also, if you don’t understand game design, learn the principles of it. How can you write for games if you don’t understand at least this part of game development?