Writing Oblivion

Oblivion rocks.

Have you tried DOA4? My gamertag is: Humblefly Send me a friend request if you want a challenge. : )

If you think the writers are hard done by, you should see what the programmers go through.

http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html

A little taste of what the computer game industry is like across the board.

Its an indutry that needs some sort of Union or representation, but with increasingly amount of IT jobs heading overseas, its just going to make the process harder.

This issue isn’t well developed probably because most games are barely written. Many have their plots strung together haphazardly by the programming-focused development team (which is why so many videogames are notorious for awful plots and dialogue).

In some ways things have actually gone backwards. Old adventure games often had brilliant, hilarious scripts. The Secret of Monkey Island games were made long ago but contain better characters and funnier dialogue than almost any game since. A few of these people moved on to make other more modern games and here you can see story maturity in videogames. Grim Fandango and Psychonauts by Tim Schafer are probably the best examples.

For Grim Fandango he wrote 4000 lines of dialogue. Almost all of it fantastic and funny. It’s the sort of achievement almost no one knows about and I’m sure it was just as or more difficult than writing a full-length feature film (the characters and plot were better than most films I see). Luckily he was also the lead designer so he got his royalties through that.

A good reason no one gets paid well to write in the games industry is that not enough developers actually care about plot. If they did, they’d spend the money to hire professionals from other fields to really write good stories, but more often than not they just find someone who sort of understands it and they pay them cheap and expect very little quality in return.

A long list of guys who textured trees…

It’s natural that a writer would worry about the rights of other writers, but if appreciation of cinema is sometimes heavy on the visuals and technology, it’s even more so with games, and for many good reasons.

The story is there to be noticed, the technology is not - if everything works out as it ought to. But this is no reason why the writer, of e.g. some dialogue that just sits there in some hamlet that might or mightn’t get explored, ought to get out of the production with more rights to the end result than e.g. the texture artist who textured the environs of said dialogue.

Take out either of those, and there wouldn’t be a hamlet. Hm. Or more accurately: take out the writer, and there’d be a boring hamlet - take out the tech guy, and there’d be no hamlet whatsoever.

Writing this is silly as it’s just worrying about the non-existent rights of the writers compared the equally non-existent rights of the tech guys (who do such complicated and boring tasks that I have no idea what else to call them). As I work with CG my bias is naturally for the tech guy. So I had to say something.

HA!

So, full disclosure: In addition to film and television, I also freelance write for video games. Namely, (please don’t sue me), Ubisoft.

In some ways writing an original idea for a video game is a lot like television. Except the process is truly fuckin ponderous because the people you’re pitching to don’t exactly get story (hmmm, that sounds familiar).

First, you have to submit a logline. Once that is accepted and approved along with some really innocuous notes, you must submit an extended logline.

Accepted? Great. Next comes the character sheets which can run anywhere between 10-20 pages. Followed by the Story Walkthrough (20 pages or so) and then the Existential Issues treatment. Yeah, that’s right, the Existential Issues. At the end of the day you have this monster document that somehow must translate to a game. That is, if Game Design wants to make the game you just invented. That really cool Quarantine game you just created? Well, now it’s a puzzle game like Tetris. The best part? A lot of times, Game Design gets writing credit. Over the Writers.

Unfortunately, for a lot of companies, the writers are kids just out of school. They don’t know any better and they’re just happy to be getting a paycheck for actually writing and not working for UPS or their uncles restaurants. It’d be great if the Video Game Writers were treated like Writers rather than Idea Come Uppers. For my latest game, I’ve been writing these extensive backgrounds for characters that will never make it or even translate to the game. It makes for a better game but I don’t think the guy who’s animating the character sprite really gives two shits.

So why even write for video games?

Because every once in awhile you can make a game like Prince of Persia, Grand Theft Auto, or Elder Scrolls IV.

Thanks for looking out!

Video games are still an upstart medium, much like film when it started to replace theater. They are making strides but are still a long way from critical acceptance. Until they completely break free from the mold of being juvenile by nature and wander into the areas of accepted art forms, getting writers recognized might be an uphill battle.

Games, right now, are seen as the product of the game programmer. Is it too early to argue about the Game By credit?

Karppi:

It’s not that I don’t respect tree-texturing. I do.

I just don’t have time to care about everyone in the world. Somewhere out there, a texture-mapper has a blog where he discusses issues related to the advancement of texture-mapping employees. He’ll have to worry about the tree folks.

Me?

I’m all about the writers. And in my mind, the writing is more important to the experience of Oblivion than the trees, just as I believe the writing is more important to the experience of, say, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest than the work done by the greensmen on that movie.

Craig:

So what’s the deal with Interactive Arts division for the WGA? Is that real or am I thinking about something that doesn’t exist?

And somewhere in that texture mapper’s blog you can read a comment from a disgruntled screenwriter. Or not. (But it would balance things out quite nicely, would it not.)

“My goal to bring wage minimums, pension and health care, credits protections and profit participation to the video game industry pretty much starts with one single game.”

Word.

Anything I can do to help, let me know. It’s a meaningful and important effort.

Karppi is forgetting the days of old where gameplay and story meant more than graphics. Today, we see more eye candy and less substance. Hence why Oblivion is so good. Not only does it impress you graphically, but has a deep rich story that carries througout the game.

The question is really simple, would Oblivion be as good if the graphics capped at 32bit?

Craig…shouldn’t your opinion of Oblivion be:

BEST

GAME

EV’R?

You cannot divorce story from visuals in video games any more than you can in movies. You need both. Only about five years ago I played Half-Life which, for my money was one of the first truly engrossing video game experiences story-wise (and I’ve been playing games since Pac-Man). It also sported top-of-the-line graphics. The medium of video games is still in its infancy.

The aesthetics over content argument will rage across all artistic mediums. To me most of the time it boils down to “They don’t make ‘em like they used to.” which seems to be spouted by every generation.

Crymes, I’ve been playing games since Pac-Man as well. And yes popular games tend to lean more on graphic impressions rather than content. Now take a look at World of Warcraft for example. Blizzard could have easily made the graphics more appealing compared to other modern MMORPGS. Yet, they focused on content and making sure almost everyone could “run” the game on their computer.

And still I prefer the old original Pac-Man over the new updated ones with better graphics.

Content/Gameplay > Graphics. If you can aquire both, awesome. Sadly, most don’t.

Can I plug a UK Guild event? Cheers.

Following last year’s highly successful inaugural event the Writers Guild of GB, in conjunction with BAFTA, will hold another computer games industry forum on 11 September at 6.30 pm. The venue is the David Lean Room at BAFTA in Piccadilly. The Guild would like to invite developers, publishers, writers and those working across the games and multimedia industry to attend this event to look at the future of games narrative.

In theory, organising computer game writers should be easier to do than organising the tree textures. Trees are culturally non-specific; anyone on the planet and compare a tree to is computer screen and see how good a job he has done. Ditto with the data structures and rendering engines that make teh tree appear.

In contrast, the games need to be written in English, if they are designed for the US market. Not only that, but they need to me written in easy-to-read American english. A babblefished Urdu translation would keep the attention of your average American gamer for about 3 minutes. So the number of other countries to which the writing could be outsourced is actually fairly limited.

But World of Warcraft looks damn good, and people expect that. World of Warcraft with flat shaded polygons = game that is not played. Of course emphasizing graphics over story is a recipe for disaster, but I think that’s been the case ever since graphics started getting better over the previous generation. For every bad video game out now there was one equally as bad back in the good ol’ days.

This whole visuals vs. writing thing is a total red herring.

Visuals are important to gaming, just as visuals are important to movies. Of course.

That’s why film writers unionized and cinematographers unionized.

My point, however, is that I’m concerned with writers, because I’m a writer.

I always show up late to the party.

As I was reading Craig’s post, I got two ideas for comments. One was to bring up Secret of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango, which somebody already did, and the other was to make a BEST GAME EV’R joke, which somebody already did.

And that’s it. I’m spent. CRAP.

Simultaneous idea development strikes again! Ack!

I think beyond those points you’ve made (well) already I would also mention the translators. As a big fan of the Final Fantasy series I’ve easily noticed the change in translators. They can give the characters extra depth or drown them in poor sentence construction. Basically they are dialogue writers and not translators. They also need to be ‘saved’ on your quest. For sooth!

Tim:

I don’t know…the translators (localizers) here have destroyed most of the games that we’ve put out. But maybe it’s just specific to this company.

But I am wondering about the Interactive Arts Division of the WGA. I don’t know if this exists or not and if it does, what does it cover?

“But World of Warcraft looks damn good, and people expect that.”

Crymes, not compared to FF’s mmorpg. Blizzard has enough resources to make WoW look 10000x better. Hell, their CGI rocks most movie CGI on today’s market.

WoW might be a bad example because even if it was 32bit graphics, people (mostly koreans) would still play it. Just because it’s Blizzard and set in the Warcraft universe. Heh. ; )

Sorry for the double post.

“Visuals are important to gaming, just as visuals are important to movies. Of course.”

Craig, if SM 3 or 4 were shot on a 1980s VHS-Camcorder it would still be hilarious.

“Unfortunately, for a lot of companies, the writers are kids just out of school. They don’t know any better and they’re just happy to be getting a paycheck for actually writing and not working for UPS or their uncles restaurants.”

Hey, that’s me! Landed a writing gig at a game company as my second job out of college (first was a proofreader for a real estate appraiser in Long Beach that lasted for 3 glorious months). Of course, I work for a company that localizes japanese games, so it’s a bit different. Which leads me to…

“I think beyond those points you’ve made (well) already I would also mention the translators. As a big fan of the Final Fantasy series I’ve easily noticed the change in translators. They can give the characters extra depth or drown them in poor sentence construction. Basically they are dialogue writers and not translators. They also need to be ‘saved’ on your quest. For sooth!”

I dunno how Squeenix works, but in my (very small) company, the translators are separate from the writers/editors/adapters/whatever you wanna call us. We have native japanese speakers translating whose grasp of English is often decent at best, and native english speakers like me who are tasked with making sure the story actually makes sense. So I’m not sure how much credit you can give to the actual translators for the cohesiveness and appeal of the finished translation.

You might want to have a look into the STAR WARS KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC games too - not only is the story extremely important to the games, but they’re better written than the last three Star Wars films.

Hey Craig if you love games check out the Video Game Players Assoc they are about to have “Burnout” x360 contests for money online. I think it maybe the coming thing.

While we’re geeking out, I have to add that my shopping list is better written than the last three STAR WARS movies…

Craig! Way to geek out!

I agree on the writing on Oblivion; I’m loving it. In the past, I think the one that stood out the most for me for writing and plotting and characterization was Planetscape:Torment, which many didn’t like because they thought it too wordy.

Of course, games also have other distinctly cinematic elements. Badly made games are completely flat an non-immersive, like a bad movie. Skillfully made games are completely immersive and often quite disturbing. I can’t imagine a suspense/horror movie being as creepy as the incomparable System Shock II, for example.

With the occasional exception such as Oblivion and some of the other titles mentioned above (I LOVED Grim Fandango, Simon. “Run, you pigeons! It’s Robert Frost!”) the game industry is still putting out its equivalent of ARRIVAL OF A TRAIN AT LA CIOTAT. We’ll have our CITIZEN KANE, but we have a lot more trains pulling into stations to get through first. Not every game needs a story, of course, but even makers of casual puzzle games are finding that something like an evocative fictional world and bits of narrative between levels help draw players through the experience and sets their project apart. The potential is massive.

Craig, your point about gaming’s international community is a good one; even within the US, standardization for game writers is difficult because different companies and even teams within companies have wildly varying notions of what it means to be a game writer. Some companies like Ubisoft and Bioware take writing very seriously and hire fulltime writers onto games, while others bury good work in vague credits.

But in general the trend in games is toward more story, executed better. It’s no accident that so many game companies are installing or beefing up presences here in LA. Every AAA title hits a similar high bar with graphics, so high-quality production values courtesy of skilled, experienced writing, acting, and even directing talent become a major differentiator.

Note that even when they have real writers, game companies don’t always know what to do with them. At a recent WGA event, I asked John Milius about his experience working with Electronic Arts. He said he had a great time, and worked with some lovely people— but that the story they developed ended up largely not being used.

The players, he was told, didn’t want a love story. They wanted bigger guns.

Personally, I don’t think that the two are mutually exclusive.

(Sorry for the lengthy post! This is right in my wheelhouse.)

No apologies necessary. Great comment.

I saw Mr. Milius speak at E-3 in 2005 and it was clear he knew nothing about the game he was working on. I’m a huge fan of his, but my guess is he wrote something that wasn’t exactly interactive. Of course, I don’t know how much guidance he was given by the designers. They usually consider the story after everything else has been created.

I think it’s helpful to be a gamer as if you’re writing for games. If don’t understand the game play, then your just putting the frosting on the cake…

I’m usually disappointed by the cringe-worthy stories and voice acting in most games. Though there are exceptions. I thought F.E.A.R. was very well done. Half Life 2 had excellent voice acting and dialogue but not much of a story. Gun had great voice acting and a fair story, but unfortunately the game play seemed a little lame. (To me at least.) Blizzard has a full time writer on staff and it’s pretty obvious. Their stories have a lot more depth. They also have their own CGI animation department and they do amazing work.

I was lured into game writing by a good friend who was a game producer at Blizzard. I’ve written for two games and those two experiences couldn’t be more different. The first game was a Dungeons and Dragons game I wrote for Liquid Entertainment. The publisher, Atari, was going broke the entire time the game was in development, so they kept moving up the deadline.

I worked closely with the designers to create detailed characters and a very involved plot. But most of it was completely ditched and rewritten and the end result was pretty disappointing. When the pressure came down and they had to deliver quickly, Atari wanted something familiar. The story the designers and I came up with made them nervous. It strayed too far from the usual Dungeons and Dragons men in tights scenario.

After that, I decided I would just play games and not write them, but then I saw this very cool western game at E-3. It was being developed by Techland, a Polish company. I’d played on of their previous games. “Chrome” It looked amazing but was a little dull and had amazingly hokey dialogue and absolutely awful voice acting.

I told the Polish guys if they were going to create a western, they needed someone who actually spoke English to write it for them. They asked me if I was interested and I took the job (I’m a huge fan of westerns.) It turned out to be a great experience. The lead artist on the game had written a story that was much more sophisticated then any game story I’d ever seen. I worked with him on the plot and the characters and wrote all the English dialogue. I also insisted on casting and directing the voice over actors. I had a blast. It looks very promising, though I have yet to see the final product. The game’s coming out in September.

Because Techland had their own money and weren’t beholding to any giant publishing entity, they were able to create something different and off-beat and more sophisticated. I’m curious to see if gamers will actually give a shit . We’ll see.

That last post was from me…

I haven’t written for games, but I have had some comic book writing experience and it wasn’t especially fun, nor did the writers I know then have any of the rights Craig mentioned he sought for game writers.

Kevin, you’ve done some comic book writing, haven’t you - were you treated any better?

Joshua:

Nope. It’s kind of awful.

I think it’s amazing how often writers don’t get credit if they’re not the main writers. Which is just a whole new level of SUCK.

My business partner used to work for Marvel he used to tell me stories about one of my favorite writers (C.C) who used to write for X-Men and he would kind of collaborate with other writers but then not give them credit, all the while promising to get them credit when the graphic novel would be put together. Which of course was rubbish. In the comic book world, writers are out to stick it to other writers. And because the field isn’t as expansive as movies, those writers really feel the bite.

If game writers and comic book writers had more rights governed under the WGA, it would be amazing. That way, movie studios would employ comic book writers to adapt these characters rather than somebody who doesn’t even read comic books.

Oddly enough, I just posted something about comic book adaptations on:

www.tenspeedbrownshoe.blogspot.com

My experiences were only with Marvel, and they were bad in terms of how I was treated. Basically they wanted me to work for free, it seems, most of the time.

I had a lot of interesting experiences with them, I wrote a lot of story pitches that a few folks liked and we danced around different projects, but I found a lot of the editors I talked to didn’t understand writing at all. There were a lot of strange experiences, to say the least.

My last experience, they asked me for some stories for a particular character. I wrote some pitches. An editor said, “we like these two, write them!”

I said, “So we’re a go, you’re going to do these two?”

She said “you bet!” I checked with my (now ex) agent, who gave me the go ahead, and wrote the bastard (and btw Craig, thanks for the how to fire your agent post, it turned out to be very helpful for me).

I wrote it, submitted it. They liked it, gave some notes. I incorporated them. Repeated the process two more time.

Then it was done. At that moment, they decided they wanted to go into a different direction with the character and not use any of the current stories they’ve developed for him (seems sometimes they switch editors and said editors, like producers sometimes do, just dump whatever their predisessor was working on).

So I said, fine, but I still need to get paid for the work I did.

They said, “but we’re not going to use it now.”

“You approved the pitch, a beat outline and many drafts. You asked me to write it and I did. I need to get paid for the time I put in, whether you use the stories you asked for or not.”

They said “It doesn’t work that way in comic books.”

“That’s how it works with me,” was my reply and that’s the last thing I ever did for Marvel.

I didn’t even get a kill fee.

Other writers I’ve talked to had similiar experiences. Too bad, because I loved their comics, but what can ya do? My (now ex) agent shrugged and said, hey, there’s nothing to be done, it happens.

Definitely need a union there.

Yikes!

I don’t want this to be a Marvel bashing thread but I’m sure you know what they did to Stan Lee.

For the most part, agents are usually a good 10 years behind when it comes to alternative media. Look how long it took for some of the bigger agencies to devote agents specifically to the gaming world. It’s awful. Unions are no better. Between SAG and the WGA, it took them forever to ever try to regulate cable.

I don’t want to bash Marvel either, the original editor I worked with was lovely & smart, and while many of the others I worked with didn’t get or understand writing, that’s hardly uncommon in film or theatre, either.

The difficult thing was the attitude that “we’ll pay if we feel we want to” and that “you’re lucky we’re even looking at your work,” etc. “Everyone wants to write for Marvel comic books, so do it our way or the highway,” ect.

I didn’t even seek them out, in the beginning, they solicited samples from agents in nyc, they read some of my work and asked me for pitches and ideas.

It happens in theatre, too, because playwrights have no union.

Me very pro-union, if you haven’t guessed.

Joshua,

I’m surprised, you seem like a guy with his head on his shoulders… Was there no contract between you and that company we’re not here to bash? Compensation and the terms thereof should always be mutually agreed upon (in writing) BEFORE you start putting pen to paper. That’s true in any business. I mean, yeah… writers are artists and all that good stuff, but basic business savvy can go a long way.

Golden Rule #3: Don’t write the words until the numbers are in writing.

In general I get the feeling that writers need to smarten up (reading artfulwriter is a good start) instead of running about like sheep before the big bad wolf that is the entertainment industry.

You’re not wrong, Johnny, and in my defense, this was three years ago when my head was probably a little less centered than it is now - there was no written contract for the work I described above (though we did have an agreement on other things that also went hinky and I got kill fees for).

Back then, I trusted my agent to look out for me, which was one wrong move to begin with, and another reason why I’m no longer with her … and I took them at their word because, in the past, majority of folks I’d dealt with had kept their word.

That being said, in nyc it’s VERY common for everyone, even midlevel “legit” prodcos to try and get something for nothing - since there are a lot of non-union writers here, it’s more of an open field (though I’ve heard the same happens out west) and everyone wants to to write something for nothing. Even pitches, they want that written down (craig’s no leave behind’s post for me was a huge point to discover).

Most important lesson I learned as a writer, and I learned it not too long after my marvel experience, was the value of saying NO.

Johnny:

While you’re 100% correct that all deals should be hammered out before you start a job, that’s usually not the way it goes. There are writers who actually start jobs before the contract is even in place, William Goldman for one. With actors, MOST of the time they sign their contracts on set, well into filming.

Specifically, Joshua is right when he comes to the Wild West workings of New York. It’s a complete mess out here. When I work as a producer I would never imagine trying to employ someone without them getting properly compensated. And it’s amazing to me when I get approached by other producers, directors, or even actors that want me to work for free.

I’ve never worked in production out in Los Angeles so I don’t know what it’s like.

But again, you are 100% correct when you say that writers need to smarten up. One of the problems with the company that I write video games for is that the other writers are scared to say anything to the bosses and truly feel that they’re lucky to be doing what they’re doing and just shut up. One writer actually said to me, “Well, at least we’re not digging ditches.” Just hearing that made me shudder. Now just imagine what that would’ve done to Josh Olson.

LA is no different. It is common practice to start work before the papers are signed, BUT you don’t hand anything in while the papers are being drafted. That’s your leverage.

But of course there needs to be papers to be drafted and signed in the first place. Don’t just work and assume you’ll get paid!

Once negotians have started and everybody seems to be on the same page it is often neccesary to start working simply to meet a certain deadline, and you assume (hope) the paperwork will come together and a mutual agreement can be passed (the basics should have been agreed upon at this point, so the risk is less than it looks, but of course there can always be surprises). At that point it is in everybody’s best interest to come to a mutual agreement, so soemtimes you can even get better conditions than before…

If you enjoyed the storytelling aspects of Oblivion, my guess is that you’ll be blown away by Planescape: Torment. You should be able to find it in the bargain bin at your local software mega-store. After Oblivion’s amazing eye candy, you’ll probably be underwhelmed by the graphics in Torment, but the story is well worth it. To get the most out of the experience, try playing a character with high scores in Intelligence, Wisdom, and Personality/Charisma. That’s where the game really shines, IMO.

Another recommendation: Adam Miller’s modules for Neverwinter Nights.

Yeah, Oblivion and games like that are great -trouble is I often end up with way too many side quests that it gets a little out of hand. Games like Balder’s Gate 2 a few years back are also like that… I was amazed at how deep you could go. They’re great.

Craig:

Please, let go of your hatred of apostrophized names.

Craig:

Please, let go of your hatred of apostrophized names.

Louise,

“But Josh, your fatal flaw is in the word ‘steady’. Of course somebody who only watches pulp movies or reads pulp fiction will have their brain atrophy. But most intelligent people are quite capable of enjoying SM4 on the one hand and The Economist on the other.”

And as we all know, the vast majority of the filmgoing audience is wildly intelligent and reads The Economist regularly.

Still waiting for one person to address what I actually said….

Joshua,

“It seemed as though Craig were defending WC and LM on the basis that they were silly while I was attacking them because of their quality, or lack thereof.”

EXACTLY.

It speaks to the stereotypes Craig holds so dear - in his mind, anyone who yearns for quality in film is some kind of dour, overly serious poseur, in desperate need of a kick in the pants. In a weird way, it reveals a prejudice against silly comedy not on your part or mine, but on Craig’s.

I take it on faith when I read a rant such as yours that your list of th finer things in life includes a great deal of ludicrous, inane comedy. I have yet to meet a tasteful, intelligent person, for instance, who doesn’t love Bugs Bunny or Groucho Marx.

Kevin,

“I loved Wet Hot American Summer. Laughed all the way throught. I loved Capote. I loved Pirates of the Caribbean.”

As with the discussion about the public’s awareness of directors, you take your experience to be the universal. The overwhelming majority of Americans never heard of WHAM (Their loss); I’d wager a good number of them HAVE heard of Capote, but clearly never saw it. However, tons of them have heard of and seen Pirates, and I would suggest that that goes exactly to the heart of what I’m talking about.

You live in a world in which people are aware of all of these films. Most people aren’t Most people go to the multiplex, and that’s the extent of their cinematic life.

We’re not talking about people who read The Economist. We’re talking about the mass audience.

Kevin,

“One thing that always drives me nuts is when people talk about the Good ‘ole Days!! “

That’s lovely, sweetheart. But that’s a pretty mindlessly knee-jerk response to a valid, well thought-out critical opinion. If you seriously want to maintain that movies coming out of Hollywood today are as good as they were thirty years ago, you’re going to have to write one hell of a well-thought out book on the subject, because at this point in time, that opinion is about as radical and as unsubstantiated as you can get.

” We all seem to have this revisionist history of how great things were 30, 40, or 50 years ago. A time when filmmakers were engaging the audience in thought provoking…eh, it hurts too much to continue.”

Nothing revisionist about it. You cannot possibly make the argument that studios today are as adventurous and as willing to take risks today as they were thirty years ago. But if you’re going to state that that they ARE, you HAVE to make the case.

“But why do we tend to forget the glut of awful, awful, westerns, gladiator movies, and shitty comedies that came out in the 60’s?”

More importantly, why do you make assumptions like that? I guaran-fuckin’-tee you I’ve seen a hell of a lot more of those movies than you have. We can take it on faith that the crap from any previous era can compare to the crap of today. But there hasn’t been a single studio release this year that can compare to even the good B movie releases of the 70s, man, let alone The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Badlands, Mean Streets, The Conversation, The Exorcist, Patton, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Jaws, Chinatown…. Jesus, I could go on all day.

Short version, Kevin - make a case for your position. Just wailing about how much you hate hearing something isn’t a case. Just saying “No, it’s not” isn’t a case. You are taking a wild, radical, way the fuck out there position, and you’re somehow expecting that just because it’s dribbled from your keyboard it must be true. Well, no. I’m not your mother. I don’t have to think every word you say is precious and beautiful. If you really want to argue that the quality of studio output hasn’t dropped in the last, say, thirty years, you need to make a critical case. You haven’t even tried. All you’ve done is throw cow-flop at people who have offered thoughtful opinions.

First, let me confess that I have not read this entire thread. Sorry if these things have already been addressed.

I’m was hired to write an mmorpg (Massively Mutliplayer Online Role-Playing Game, for the uninitiated) by a major game publisher. I get a shared “written by” cred along with another writer. I also get a boatload of other contractual goodies that will probably amass me more scrilla than every feature I write for the rest of my life. I’m not at liberty to discuss the terms, but I will say this:

If not for the constant vigilance of my representation (legal and professional) I would have ended up with the decidedly fecal end of the stick.

There’s a shift going on in the gaming world that — lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise — will eventually bleed into the feature and TV world. Gamers give a shit about the quality of the storytelling and the writing in the games. Take a game like GUN, for instance. Not the best graphics in the world, not the best gameplay, but the story and dialogue were pretty outstanding. It made a mint. Not because it was boasting the sharpest tech around, but because it was like being in a western movie.

Of course the technical aspects of games are important. Of course there are games that require no story whatsoever (sports games, for instance), but the writer is getting more respect in the gaming world. That said, if you don’t have a good lawyer on your side, you’re liable to get hosed.

As I understand it, there is no protection from the WGA for video game writers. I could be incorrect, but I don’t believe so. I’d rate this as one hell of a pressing issue, considering the video game industry has made more than the film industry for the last three years running. Luckily for actors and directors, the DGA and SAG saw this coming a mile away. The’ve got standards and minimums etc. for video game work. I suspect it won’t be long until we see a “Video Game By” credit for the directors to go next to their “Film By” cred.

Why is the WGA so far behind the pitch on this?

Have you guys considered negotiating to give screenwriters right of first refusal for the VG, just like novels?

If you liked the writing in Oblivion you should really go back and play the Game of the Year edition of ES 3: Morrowind. THAT was good writing. Alot of the books - and series of books - were pretty awesome too. “A Dance in Fire” volumes 1 through 7 I recall being particularly good, as well as “A Game at Dinner” or some such. And the “bad guy”, Dagoth Ur, was one of the best literary characters I’ve encountered since Moby Dick. You see him for like ten minutes at the end of the game but he’s a total presence throughout.

I’m only an occasional article freelancer so I’m not sure my opinion is solicited here. I write other genres but am not secure enough to flog that stuff publicly.

However, now that I’ve prefaced my limited opinion, I’m definitely a film and gaming buff. I’m old enough to be a teenager’s grandmother. Apparently, the largest growing audience of gamers is women over 30. I suppose that’s why storylines are improving.

I agree absolutely with the assessment that Morrowind Game Edition is brilliant. It’s as if one is lost in a stunning world of legend, hour after hour. I bought Oblivion but until I can afford to upgrade my video card and CPU, it remains in the box.

Some of the Bioware games are well done. I found Neverwinter Nights less than inspiring, however, the addition of Hordes of the Underdark [Deekin is one of the best dialogue characters of the ‘cute’ variety I’ve seen] was very strong.

Planescape Torment is absolutely brilliant writing in my book. The drawbacks are the graphics and annoying gameplay. The dialogue, use of language and invented slang create a realistic environment the overcomes the game’s technical handicaps. Morte and Anna are the two most believable NPG’s I’ve come across in any game. Past that, it is the most adult story I’ve seen in a game.

Unfortunately, between wooden acting and dead dialogue, far too many RPG’s are painful to play.

I’d like to see the good writers of the gaming genre get their due, as well. A brilliant script can make up for a great many technological faults.

I understand and respect your admiration for Oblivion, but I can only agree with what other people said here before. If you like this, play Morrowind, because many of the old fans of the series will tell you that story- and lorewise, Oblivion does not stand the comparison with Morrowind.

Also, the Elder Scrolls series is a world, not only a game. The games were written by the game makers, but the rest of that vast, exotic world was created in the heads of the great writers such as Ted Peterson, Michael Kirkbride and others, that have written countless books for the series and should get the praise they deserve. The games only constitute a minor part of Tamriel.

If you love oblivion’s immersive storyline and what not, you’d absolutely love the old Fallout series by Interplay.

Fallout and Fallout2 are both rpgs with awesome immersive text that really sets the atmosphere, well and the music as well. But if you have free time you’d absolutely love Fallout for its mini-stories I bet. Plus it’s in the future! ;P

If you think Oblivion’s writing was enough to turn you into an RPG fan, you’ve missed out on alot over the years. I like Oblivion’s dialogue too, but it would not measure up to “Planescape: Torment” or “Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadow of Amn” - Seriously, these games have dialogue that puts numerous large budget movies completely to shame.

“As union guys go, I’m an extreme pragmatist. I know that the video game industry will never be organized and under union jurisdiction the way Hollywood is, and that’s for one simple reason. A large majority of the work is done overseas or in Canada. Ubisoft, Square Enix, Nintendo, EA…good luck trying to convince the French, Japanese and Canadians that they should abide by U.S. labor law.” snerk*…overseas in Canada…… Yeah, man. Those Canadians have no respect for labour laws…too bloody busy providing all their workers with universal health care, I guess. (Oh, to be unionized in the U.S. and wonder how I’m going to pay my bills…oh, woe is me..) Damned Canadian sweat shops. LMAO Besides, if you think “unionized” Hollywood isn’t making hay up north, you’d better take another loo-oong look - and maybe spot a couple dozen of your union actors making films with their UNION (IATSE) crew.

Well, after reading your article.. you must play for sure Morrowind, read its in-game book, and see how Oblivion was a very simplied version of it, and why I hope the trend will change with its expansion.. and If you like TES literature then you must really go to til.gamingsource.net, is a database containing all the in-game book and also text who wasn’t showed in game (in the section obscured text)…

..then if you can win your antipathy for rpg’s game then there’s Planescape: Torment and the fallout saga that are mustfor the fan of this type of game … (and the mainstory of Planescape: Torment is amazing)