Game On
Right now, SAG and AFTRA have asked their combined memberships to authorize a strike against video game producers.
Interestingly, it’s much harder for them to get an authorization than it is for the WGA. SAG and AFTRA require a 75% and 66.7% majority to authorize a strike, while the WGA only requires a simple majority.
I think I like their system better.
Anyway, what’s important is that SAG and AFTRA have fired the first shots in what is going to be an inevitable and essential war for Hollywood labor unions to fight.
In gaming terms, we’ve just spawned. We’ve got good health, one or two simple weapons. Let’s go kill some bad guys.
The actors are making the reasonable case that, among other things, they deserve residuals for the voice-over work they do for the video game producers. The video game industry is enormous, on par with the television and motion picture industry, and if the actors don’t get a foothold now, they may never.
The problem they’re running up against is rhetoric like this from an industry flack:
“People buy games for gameplay, not to hear voices,” counters Finlayson. “And technology creates gameplay, not actors. People who play these games understand that, and in fact, some gamers turn the volume down because (they) find those voices distracting. In film or television, the actor’s performance makes the experience. In video games, it does not.”
Here’s the problem for SAG and AFTRA: this guy has a legitimate point. He’s not 100% right, of course. Splinter Cell’s hero, Sam Fisher, is voiced by Michael Ironside, and his acting is a crucial part of the gaming experience. It’s one of the things that makes the franchise so incredibly satisfying to play.
On the other hand, technology and that interactive phenomenon known as “gameplay” really is the bedrock selling point of games.
I maintain that the actors need to fight this fight, but it’s going to be uphill for the above stated reason. The DGA ought to be organizing the directors of this stuff (because so much in it is directed, especially cut-scenes and cinematics), but it will be uphill for them as well.
Finally, it will be uphill because the video game producers aren’t as organized themselves. There’s no single management unit with which to fight, like Hollywood has with the AMPTP.
The fundamental question to ask about any strike is: how sudden and painful will the impact of the strike be?
I maintain that we, the writers, have the cleanest shot at the heart of these guys. As technology evolves and the graphics and motion approach realism, the continuing driving force behind hit games and the continuing discriminating factor between derivative eye-candy and compelling gameplay will be character, plot, narrative flow and dialogue.
Writing.
To be precise…screen writing.
While Splinter Cell would be diminished by the loss of Michael Ironside, it would be impossible without a story teller. The entire point of the game is that you’re playing your way as a character through a narrative.
Right now, the WGA has set its sights on organizing reality television writers. This is a smart choice. Reality TV has the most immediate and severe impact on our bread-and-butter…primetime TV…and you have to protect your borders before you go seize other lands.
Once our campaign to organize reality writers is complete (and I believe it will be successful), I feel very strongly that our next battle MUST be to organize video game writers.
The people writing Halo, the people writing Splinter Cell, the people creating the mythos and lore of the MMORPG’s, the people writing dialogue for the announcers in the sports games, the people who painstakingly write entire talk shows for your car radio in GTA, the people who do every bit of character-making, plot-developing, dialogue-writing and scene-creating are absolutely positively essential screen writers who could cripple an industry that in many cases has worked them like dogs, denied them basic quality of life measures, doled out credit per their whim, and given them zero profit participation or residuals for their work.
I’ve seen what we’ve done so far with reality writers. So EA, Ubisoft, Activision, Vivendi Universal, Rockstar Games, LucasArts and all the rest…
…we’re gonna grab our BFG and come for ya.
Game on.
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Craig Mazin made a very interesting post over at The Artful Writer about the potential upcoming actor's strike against dev houses. He's just delivered a slap of the glove to the cheek of dev houses everywhere with the threat of the WGA unionizing writ... Read More
Craig Mazin made a very interesting post over at The Artful Writer about the potential upcoming actor’s strike against dev houses. He’s just delivered a slap of the glove to the cheek of dev houses everywhere with the threat of the WGA un... Read More
Over at The Artful Writer, there are articles on format quirks, how spec sellers can be considered employees, organizing video game writers and a bunch of other interesting stuff.... Read More
You missed one other aspect of this fight that makes it an uphill battle: very very very few of the game developers (engineers, graphic artists, sound and level designers, etc) get any sorts of residuals from the games they make.
So why should an actor who works for 16 hours get residuals when the artists who work 100 hour weeks for 10 months get none?
The counter argument actors might make to the claim that they are not teh driving force in the video game world (which I’ll agree they are not) is that there must be SOME reason the video game manufacturers are hiring them instead of “nobody” actors. Whether they are the primary draw or not, if they did not contribute significant element to these games, the manufacturers would not be shelling out the comparatively bigger bucks to hire them!
Not really sure how I feel about this one, but to throw in my two cents…
I know plenty of actors who would do video games for free, just because they love the games so much. Kinda like being asked on Sesame Street!
I realize business wise and union wise that’s a problem… But it’s also kinda refreshing.
This is probably a stupid question, but how do people get jobs writing video games? I guess I always assumed video games were written by the team programming the game, kind of like how Tex Avery wrote his own cartoons. It’d be really fun to write video games, and I’d jump at the chance, but considering what happened when Writers started writing cartoons—“Captain Planet”? Huh?—maybe we should stay away before we ruin everything.
There must be an upsurge for some of the leading companies to hire professional screenwriters to assist in the “writing” of the games. My partner and I have been offered three jobs this past year… including one creating interstitials on a football game for one of the big companies (though I can’t remember if it was Activision or Electronic Arts… one of those guys). So far, we haven’t been interested because a: the pay is not comparable to writing a screenplay… not even close, and b: there are no residuals. Plus, the companies want you to set up shop at their office working with the development team as you create the game… which just isn’t worth it. If there were a back-end involved, then that might be more of an incentive, but it would have to be a considerable back-end. Michael: when you ask how do people get jobs writing video games… these calls came in from our agency, where some of these VG companies are also represented.
One of the important things we need to keep doing (as we’ve done in our efforts to organize reality TV editors into the WGA) is to continually recognize that screen story tellers should be part of the WGA.
As such, determining who we ought to organize is a big next step for us. I tend to be more aggressive in this area; I don’t care what your title is or whether your actually put words on paper. I mostly care if you’re a story teller.
As a former video game designer, I can tell you that the vast majority of writing for games comes from designers who have little writing skill. (Like most people, they say to themselves, “Hey, I’ve put sentences together my whole life… of course I can write!”) There are a few notable exceptions to this (see Marc Laidlaw and Half Life 1 and 2), and I’m hopeful that this will change in the future… but it’s gonna be a while.
Here’s the problem, then: the people who are creating the cut-scenes, dialog trees, and other in-game text are not, by occupational definition, writers. They are designers who do whatever writing is necessary to create a game. (Before I became a designer, I specifically told the Assistant Creative Director of the game studio where I worked that my goal was to be a sort of “on staff writer” for whatever projects might need material; I was told, “Yeah, sure, that’d be nice, but you better learn 3-d modeling and design theory, ‘cause the only job we have like that is as a designer.”)
Should studios have specific individuals on-staff to handle all their writing needs? I think so; others in the industry may argue that it would hamper the creative freedom of a game’s designers. (Yeah… like screenwriters routinely hamper the director by telling them exactly what the story should be. Those bastards!)
But the whole issue of what constitutes a “story teller” does get kind of gray. Obviously, everyone on the game is working to create a compelling storytelling experience. (Imagineers are some of the most sophisticated storytellers around, but the vast majority of their work is done through sculpting, architecture, and engineering. Their Show Writing department is a tiny fraction of their staff.) The best games combine gameplay and story in a way that makes each an essential part of the whole; in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see cut-scenes disappear from games in the future, with developers relying instead on scripted in-game “moments” that are completely incorporated into the gameplay.
That said, I think having one person (or more) who’s specifically titled as a game’s “writer” would solve some issues. (Other people might contribute small bits here and there, just as an actor or director might dick around with a shooting script, but the writer is still the only one credited with the writing.) At the very least, you have one person who’s accountable for all the “story-related” stuff. (Other than the Producer, who, again, ain’t no writer.)
Resolving the residuals issue is mighty tricky, though. As it is, there is no “above the line” talent in games (though some hotshot producers try like hell to brand themselves). Even though some mighty big names do voice-over work (we had Brian Cox do a couple characters for one of our games), you almost never see them credited on the package (and rightly so, at least until some sort of “above the line” standard is set).
Greg mentions “above the line” talent, and I think this is an important point. There is no “line” in game development, but I see one coming. Just like programmers used to do all of the art and design (and writing) when games were made in their garage, designers are now doing all of the “storytelling.” I just finished up a game as a lead designer, and we had two writers on the project. However, they were mostly bringing up the rear in terms of creative direction. Gameplay comes first, then we try to fit the story into it. For the most part, the writing was reactionary. But I think this will change.
I think in the next few years we’ll have a cadre of developers who are “above the line,” and will include a producer, a writer, an artist and a designer. The creative control will be ripped from the hands of the individual developer (at least on the big games), and the creative direction will become more focused. This is good and bad, but it’s a natural progression, I think. I hope the WGA recognizes how big the role of a writer will become in games. From Craig’s response, it looks like it’ll happen soon. Can’t wait to be a member of the guild. :-)
Out of curiosity, how do the above markets compare (with regards to the number of employed writers) to writing for animation? I’d think that animation is much larger, but (and correct me if I’m wrong) still not within the WGA fold.
I’m really enjoying this discussion, since it’s a topic I know next to nothing about.
Greg: I certainly wouldn’t mourn the end—or at least the toning down—of cut-scenes. Maybe they’re so prominent because video games are in a strange situation.
The graphics are good enough to look like a movie, so there’s an inclination to show that off as much as possible. But people don’t want to watch when they could play. I think the only cut-scenes I enjoy are the ones at the beginning of the game (e.g., “Resident Evil”), but are those technically cut-scenes? I’m not sure.
I don’t want to sound like one of those sound-killed-the-motion-picture people, but I think the ability to look like a movie hasn’t done a huge amount of good for video games. Limitations are good for art, and the absence of limitations sure hurt the quality of the “Final Fantasy” series—for me, at least. But I think the latest generation of gamers probably disagrees.
Then again, the “Clock Tower 3” cut-scenes, directed by Kinji Fukasaku (!), are probably the only reason I would want to play that game. So, I don’t know.
I’ll stop rambling now.
Well, I guess I’ll chime in as an adamant, hardcore, to the max, extreme, etc. video game fan (qualifications: first console was Atari at 4 years old, first PC gaming was ascii games off 5in floppy disks).
The fact is, good writing and voicing are not important to most gamers, and most games. For instance, Halo and Splinter Cell have quality voice acting and quality writing, but that’s not why they sell. They sell for gameplay, and those two especially for online gameplay. The worst written game will still sell millions if the gameplay is solid, and the best written game will sell nothing if the gameplay sucks.
A major gaming forum was discussing this voice actor issue over about 10 pages, and the general consensus was, “If better voice acting means an increase in game price, we’ll take bad voice acting. We’re used to it anyway.” A good game can overrule a bad story, but not vice versa.
When listing positives of a game, players almost always rank voice and writing near the bottom. In fact, sound effects and graphical quality of ambient foliage often get more recognition. Not only that, but there is a subsection of gamers that buy and play games specifically because of how comically poor their writing and voicing are. I can’t think of a single game that someone said they bought because of the great dialogue or writing.
I, personally, don’t like the trend of games moving toward the cinematic. Most of my favorite games are very simple, with little actual story or character development, and the games with developed stories are more interesting because of unique gameplay options. However, if games do evolve into “playable movies”, I really hope developers, and especially publishers, enforce a higher standard of writing and voicing. But if that drives prices up, game consumers will likely refuse to foot the bill, so we’re back at square one with in-house devs and artists doing the voicing and writing.
I’ve been writing in the video game industry for over 5 years now, most of the time as a titled Writer, not as a Designer (though I have done that too). I’ve written most kinds of creative content for games, including dialogue, fiction, story, characters, settings, and story bibles with hundreds of pages and multiple volumes.
I’d love to see the WGA come into the video game industry, because for the most part the people doing the writing for games are not (as mentioned in another comment) writers. Lending legitimacy to the creation of a Writer position on game teams would be a big step. Most teams do need a writer, but they don’t want to pay for one.
How about the WGA fires the first salvo by letting us into the guild? Heck, if I got WGA credit for even one of the Story Bibles I’ve written for games, I’d have all the credits I need for Guild membership. And I’d sure like to see residuals for my work on Halo. Heh. :-)
Responses as they fall from my tired head…
Animation is still a big problem for us. We do have a good foothold in primetime animation. Our track record in theatrical animation isn’t so good. The problem we face there is a jurisdictional one—we aren’t dealing with a non-union show in many of the cases, but a union show, specifically, IATSE. IA reps animation writers. We need to grab that jursidiction for ourselves, IMO. It belongs to the WGA.
Brannon:
It was great to read your post. Here’s the basic scoop: we can’t let you into the Guild per se. Non-union members must be organized into a union, and that involves Department of Labor supervised votes, etc. etc.
However, as a “New Media” writer (I hate that phrase…it manages to be old-fashioned sounding about something very current), I believe you are eligible to join the New Media Caucus. It’s not full membership, but it’s a foot in the door and a chip in the upcoming Big Game of organizing the vidgame biz.
All New Media writers interested in joining the Caucus are invited to contact John Koch at (323) 782-4511.
Some of the bigger houses are moving towards more of a Hollywood paradigm. I think the realization is that, all things being equal, a good story can give you an edge.
EA has used Paul DeMeo (screenplay credit on The Rocketeer, among others) on several recent projects, including Medal of Honor: Rising Sun. Perhaps the most high profile screenwriter tapped for games thus far is John Milius, whose work will appear in the forthcoming Medal of Honor: European Assault. (see http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20050526/cifaldi_01.shtml)
This guy in the UK named Steve Ince has managed to carve out a niche as a dedicated game writer. If you track down his personal website, he lists a menu of the services he offers, which may provide an interesting blueprint for how writers might interact with game developers in the future.
Phoenix, as a non-hardcore gamer (does that make me a softcore gamer?) I’m always interested in the insights of folks who have thrown themselves more passionately into this particular arena.
I think it’s important to note Craig’s careful choice of words. He said he thinks videogame “storytellers” should be part of the WGA.
In a film, the story isn’t just what the characters say, or what they do in the climactic moments—it’s everything they do. If Bruce Willis has to pick up a gun, leap on top of a crate, clamber onto a narrow ledge, and then open fire on the baddies, that’s part of the story, and the person who created that story should be in the WGA.
In games, the story isn’t just the scripted dialogue, or the cut scenes—it’s everything the player does. If the player has to pick up a gun, leap on top of a crate, clamber onto a narrow ledge, and then open fire on the baddies, that’s part of the story, too. And the guy who determines that the player has to do it should be in the WGA.
In other words, there is no distinction between story and gameplay. The reason most hardcore gamers think “story” isn’t the prime factor in their enjoyment is that they’re just thinking of it as cutscenes and such. That’s not surprising; in most games, the story expressed in the gameplay is pretty uninteresting: “This guy picks up a gun and then runs and shoots and picks up a bigger gun and then runs more and then shoots more and…”
But in the best games, the gameplay story is truly compelling. Even if you removed the cutscenes from Deus Ex, you’d have a pretty kick-ass story (SPOILERS): “This high tech secret agent is dropped on Liberty Island, which he has to infiltrate using his bionic powers, while making a moral choice about whether to kill the terrorists or just disable them. And then when he captures the terrorist leader, he discovers that…”
I’d pay substantially more for Deus Ex than for—say—“Sin.” I really enjoyed playing Sin, but in Deus Ex, I constantly wanted to know what happened next. And that’s a pretty good sign that I was sucked into the story.
It’s true, by the way, that the folks designing levels, writing cutscenes, and doing other story-creation jobs are often also doing programming and non-story-creation jobs. But the WGA is used to dealing with that kind of thing—there are plenty of writer/directors, writer/actors, writer/producers, etc. Just because somebody is doing multiple jobs doesn’t mean the WGA can’t represent them in one.
It’s heartening to see that writing for games is coming up in the world… the main reason I’m going to college next year to study fiction writing is because I’ve been dreaming of having that sort of career. I only hope that the narrative aspect of games stays strong (or hopefully, continues to grow!)