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The thing is, what works in a book doesn't necessarily work in a game. lord-of-shadow Send a noteboard - 18/01/2011 06:15:10 PM
In the same fashion that a good screenwriter is not necessarily going to be a good novelist, a good novelist is not necessarily going to be a good game writer - and vice versa. Ignoring the medium differences for a second, the environment is utterly different and requires different skillsets.

An author works mostly alone. They have ownership over their story, intellectually if not necessarily legally. They work with some editors, but those editors are people who are there to make the author's story better and more polished: it's still the author's story.

Games are an entirely different beast. You've got huge teams, for one. The writing is a small piece of a larger product, as opposed to THE whole product. You very rarely have a game that is driven by a single individual's creative vision, and when that does happen (Kojima, Jaffe), it's usually by a game designer or generaly creative director of some sort, never a writer. There's a huge amount of collaboration, compromise, organization, and prioritization skills that a game writer needs that a book author never needs to deal with, at least not as often or on such a scale.

Second, the medium is vastly different. How would you go about writing a game script? Think about it for a second. The knee-jerk reaction most people have to this question is that they'd write it like a film script. But unless the game is incredibly linear, that model breaks down. And the right answer? There is none, because depending on the game, the genre, how linear it is, whether the dialog branches, how many side quests it has, what sort of character interactions the game supports, and a host of other factors, the format of your script is going to be different. I've known games where the script can be broken down into a ton of modular pieces, which are organized into some sort of folder hierarchy. Those pieces themselves might be written like film scripts, but they might be written in excel spreadsheets with a bunch of meta info attached to small pieces of script, like what character says the line under what conditions, what might trigger it, what file it is stored in. In other cases, referring to "a game script" is erroneous: there isn't always a single collection of writing that can be pointed at and labeled a script, and depending on what the purpose of the writing is it could end up in a million different places and organized in a number of different ways. And, of coruse, written by 20 different people. I could go on, since the nature of the game industry calls for almost as many solutions as there are games, but you get the point.

And then there is the writing itself. There are fundamental differences between what sort of writing works in a game vs the writing that works in a book. I'm realizing that I've spent too much time writing this so I've gotta be brief, but game writing is going to be different in areas like brevity, how compact the writing is, how much exposition is acceptable, what sort of situations you can expect a player to read th text vs ignoring it, and how you're going to impart important feedback and direction into the writing. And finally, any game with good writing needs to make that writing an important part of the game itself: it needs to be woven into every aspect of world building, character animations, and music, and it needs to support the flow of the gameplay itself, which is where it so often breaks down.

In short: novelists don't know jack shit about writing for games, and just because they can write a good book doesn't mean they can write for a game. The skillsets are very different, the writing is very different, the goals of the writing is very different. And, although I know you weren't really making this argument, the attitude that "oh, games have bad writing, but it would get better if only they brought in 'real' authors" (which also implies that all game writers are impotent hacks!) is an ignorant one held by people who don't understand what they're talking about.
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I need a good RPG. - 13/01/2011 06:49:32 PM 2965 Views
The Witcher - 13/01/2011 07:13:50 PM 1816 Views
I have the Witcher waiting at home for me to install next week - 13/01/2011 08:59:45 PM 1604 Views
Hm. I have it as a project to improve my French, but I found the gameplay pretty boring. - 14/01/2011 05:38:15 AM 1730 Views
If you find The Witcher boring, you'll likely feel the same about Baldur's Gate 2, IWD, etc. - 14/01/2011 03:07:12 PM 1700 Views
All right. I'll give it a shot, then. Thanks. *NM* - 14/01/2011 08:17:17 PM 976 Views
Make sure you get the enhanced edition, or whatever it's called. - 14/01/2011 09:56:56 PM 1741 Views
It's funny, that, because it's based on a critically acclaimed book series. - 15/01/2011 01:13:39 PM 1725 Views
The thing is, what works in a book doesn't necessarily work in a game. - 18/01/2011 06:15:10 PM 1756 Views
Wow, I guess you touched a nerve, Legolas. New pet peeve discovered! *NM* - 18/01/2011 06:22:37 PM 976 Views
I don't have time to do this justice, but I'll make a brief comment. - 18/01/2011 09:30:20 PM 1719 Views
Did you read his post? - 18/01/2011 09:59:21 PM 1702 Views
Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn? - 13/01/2011 08:00:21 PM 1643 Views
Try Divinity 2: Dragonknight Saga. - 13/01/2011 10:38:45 PM 1887 Views
Do yourself a favor... - 13/01/2011 10:39:41 PM 1673 Views
Everything is the opposite of Morrowind, though. - 14/01/2011 05:37:42 AM 1813 Views
Just go ahead and shoot yourself now - 14/01/2011 07:51:06 PM 1675 Views
...you were so right. Fable is an MMORPG without the other people. - 15/01/2011 06:35:46 AM 1701 Views
...dislikes...Fallout...3....*dies* *NM* - 13/01/2011 11:34:10 PM 955 Views
It was boring. Really, really boring. - 14/01/2011 05:36:41 AM 1753 Views
I'm with you, brother! - 14/01/2011 05:51:41 AM 1724 Views
awwww...I loved Fallout 3 - 14/01/2011 03:37:51 PM 1627 Views
No... - 14/01/2011 03:47:22 PM 1864 Views
It's minecraft with guns. *NM* - 14/01/2011 08:16:23 PM 958 Views
And without a destructible environment. - 14/01/2011 08:16:52 PM 1643 Views
Yet... - 15/01/2011 01:27:28 AM 1646 Views
I enjoyed its gameplay more than Fallout. - 15/01/2011 01:40:06 AM 1725 Views
The best story I've ever seen... - 15/01/2011 05:01:47 AM 1703 Views
I never got to finish Xenogears... - 15/01/2011 09:37:36 AM 1739 Views
I never got to finish Xenogears... - 15/01/2011 09:37:36 AM 1556 Views
"It's minecraft with guns." Ouch. Come on. Fallout3 was better than that. *NM* - 19/01/2011 04:09:30 AM 943 Views
Coming from me, actually, that's higher praise than it deserves. - 19/01/2011 06:54:57 AM 1696 Views
I got it for like $25, I'd say that's about what Fallout 3 is worth - 19/01/2011 05:09:34 PM 1823 Views
You got Fallout 3 or New Vegas for $25 - 19/01/2011 06:12:26 PM 1641 Views
Fallout 3. Haven't played New Vegas. *NM* - 19/01/2011 07:41:24 PM 942 Views
- 19/01/2011 09:01:18 PM 1700 Views
Wait. You haven't played it yet? - 20/01/2011 03:46:17 AM 1718 Views
Well said - 20/01/2011 08:43:25 AM 1627 Views
Fallout 3 is more about the little stories than the big one... - 20/01/2011 01:55:24 PM 1751 Views
Precisely. *NM* - 20/01/2011 07:48:21 PM 938 Views
Both games are great. - 20/01/2011 01:56:14 PM 1667 Views
Played Fallout 3, but not NV. - 20/01/2011 06:22:33 PM 1614 Views
I'm sure I'll be trying that new - 21/01/2011 02:04:47 PM 1778 Views
Fallout 3 was a post apocalyptic Oblivion. - 14/01/2011 08:02:28 AM 1753 Views
If you want a GREAT story, I would go for... - 14/01/2011 08:04:15 AM 1766 Views
Played it. It was good. *NM* - 14/01/2011 08:15:38 PM 959 Views
the baldur's gate trilogy and the icewind dales *NM* - 14/01/2011 09:32:32 AM 894 Views
Icewind Dale has no story. - 14/01/2011 07:19:15 PM 1670 Views
I'm surprised you liked Oblivion. - 15/01/2011 12:47:24 AM 1763 Views
I liked Oblivion because it was the sequel to Morrowind. - 15/01/2011 01:31:51 AM 1578 Views
Do you know about "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim"? It will be released Nov 2011 *NM* - 15/01/2011 04:52:13 AM 908 Views
The trailer to that is so awesome - 15/01/2011 04:58:04 AM 1621 Views
It is a good teaser... - 18/01/2011 04:21:15 PM 1689 Views
I do. But after Oblivion, I refuse to buy into hype. - 15/01/2011 06:34:49 AM 1672 Views
Final Fantasy 8. - 18/01/2011 09:10:51 AM 1868 Views
Worth a shot. Thanks. *NM* - 18/01/2011 06:07:23 PM 926 Views
If you're going the Final Fantasy route, I'd recommend Final Fantasy Tactics. *NM* - 20/01/2011 06:36:02 PM 897 Views
- 21/01/2011 02:14:41 PM 1672 Views
The gameplay or the story? *NM* - 22/01/2011 06:24:06 AM 932 Views
Gameplay is preventing me from playing this game. - 23/01/2011 03:09:39 PM 1740 Views
Go SNES! FF6, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound... - 19/01/2011 07:42:23 PM 1601 Views
I can agree to that. - 19/01/2011 08:03:59 PM 1747 Views
A suggestion we can all agree on. - 19/01/2011 08:07:54 PM 1731 Views
Holy. - 21/01/2011 08:17:35 PM 1710 Views
What do you think of Strategy RPGs? *NM* - 20/01/2011 03:59:52 PM 896 Views
wat *NM* - 21/01/2011 04:13:07 AM 797 Views
Strat-RPG?? Are they doing a Jagged Alliance sequel?? - 21/01/2011 02:06:05 PM 1562 Views

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