[News] Writer's Guild of America announces nominations for new "Best Video Game Story" award

Considering how unconventional story telling can be in video games, I really need to read into the criteria that the WGA have for judging a "game story." Because I'm certain that games that rely more on visuals and player imagination are obviously not going to meet the criteria. And really, if that's the case, it's just another way to sub-manage my interests and that's easy come, easy go.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Denicalis

At it's very best, video game writing is still hardly really writing, isn't it. There, I said it. Feel free to flame away, you hungry, hungry video game nerds. But it's the truth. This is something you will have to eventually come to terms with.

smh, and it was such a good point, too.

-----

Games are not art. That said, this really doesn't mean much in the scope of things, considering that the WGA really missed the boat on a lot of games with great writing. Planescape: Torment comes to mind.

Again, games are a versatile medium, so we get our "stories" in various ways. A lot of games choose to focus solely on the game and leave their stories in the background, usually with guides or manual excerpts. Tiamat's Street Fighter story FAQ is a good example of how a decent story with really good character relationships will remain untold over the course of several games... or more accurately, for the entirety of a series.

Slayer X: Why bother being irritated? I really wouldn't worry about having not heard of Crash or even the quality. Because, truth be told, does an accolade about writing really matter to you in a video game? Think of how many games fail to even match Tetris and then think about how much reading comprehension you need to have once you're actually playing it. In the scope of things, this isn't going to change games... especially considering America isn't the only country pushing out video games.

Unless you fag out over RPGs for the story and story alone. I think it is safe to say, if you really have an interest, it'd be worth it to know their criteria.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

The logic seems kind of twisted there to me, Nall. What games would make for great stories? Especially when we build setting and characters and what not around the games?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by RacinReaver

Well, I imagine a game like God of War or some other heavily character-based game could win. Alternatively, as someone mentioned above, a Phoenix Wright game would be equally good for the quality of it's dialog.

And I imagine the WGA is trying to unionize the video game writers so that they'll gain even more power in a steadily growing field of entertainment.

I should specify I meant "What kind of games/genres?" I guess I wanted it to be a rhetorical question but I messed up. I believe that anything can sound good on paper, especially when we just mention titles that have established stories. Pong is a game, would that make a good story? That's what I'm getting at. Not everything is an RPG, moreover RPGs don't necessarily need to have the content of a book in order to meet the genre criteria. I think people seem to be missing the point that story is still supplemental to a game being fun or even having a decent set of surrounding events. Even though it's been implicitly stated otherwise, story is supplementary, the posts I see elsewhere are quite the contrary.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Nall

Okay, I see what you're saying. I didn't mean that a game *should* exist without a story, I'm just saying that not all games require a plot to be enjoyable.

I think games should be whatever they need to be. With or without story, a game can still be fun. It's just that if you have a bad story in a game, that's unfortunate. If your game outright sucks and has a great story... you still have a shitty game.

Quote:

Music games for instances, or puzzlers. The ones that do have a story (as in, a fully written narrative complete with dialogue, direction, and plot structure) are all the better for it, since it gives the player a directive for what they're doing, and better involves them in the events going on on-screen.

"Why am I lining up these Tetris blocks again?"

"Because if you don't, the dark TetLord will use them to forge the great TetFortress, which will lead to the great Tet... Offensive that will surely destroy the whole of Blocktopia."

"Oh that guy is going down!"

Better for it? Well... I disagree. What does the story have to do with how the game is played, in the end? They are separate things. Story can add to the experience, but I just don't see how that correlates to the actual gameplay at hand. Unless it's an RPG that relies on dialogue trees and decisions based off that.

Just because a game has a story doesn't make it better. It all depends on how it's implemented, so why would we put so much weight on it? Seems like a conflict of interest.

Telling someone they're playing a game and lining out the rules of that game, the objectives, is just as clear as putting a story behind it. If anything, "story" can cloud objectives. The idea of giving story to a game where the objectives are transparent to the player, like it could make it clearer what to do, just doesn't make sense:

Line up geometric shapes in full lines to make them disappear and score points.

Eat the dots in the level, larger dots in the corners let you eat the ghosts that are trying to eliminate you and give you a higher score.

Shoot things and don't touch them in the process.

What more do you need to know? A story can turn all that into an escape, but why would one need a story to give you the basic rules of the game? I imagine we'd want our instructions to be as clear and concise as possible.

Again, I agree that it could make a game better in certain instances and genres, but not in every single instance or facet of a game and it certainly isn't a requirement.

Quote:

And no, not all games could necessarily make good stories, at least not without some embellishment. Some, though, with pre-established characters and setting could make for exciting or interesting fairy tales if nothing else. That's why we enjoy them as game stories, they accomplish the same goal of the games themselves by giving us feelings of excitement and get our adrenaline and emotions pumping as they both build toward a mutual climax. They could absolutely work as genuine stories, and be considered just as prolific of a medium of expression, RPGs or any text-based game especially, but I'm just saying that the standards have to be different given the way they're portrayed on-screen. Are the games listed here considered good stories game-wise or universally? Or even both? I can't really say because I haven't played them, but they have to at least be entertaining to have been considered, and that's the heart of storytelling anyway.

Just because they have the same goal, doesn't make them the same thing. The objective in a game is still different from the objective of a story. They're two different things. Yes, games can have a story crafted around and tailored to them, but have you only been around players who play for story? Some of us just want to play a video game.

Exposition can be long forgotten in certain titles. I can't tell you how many times I would like to skip the cinema scenes in Gradius V. There are times where a game outshines its story. Yes, I like Street Fighter's story... but it certainly gets in the way when I just want to hammer someone in Alpha 3.

Story is a shoe that just isn't always going to fit. You can say you could tailor it to a game... but it isn't always required and it isn't always needed and it doesn't always help the game.

Quote:

Maybe, but could this turn out to be a good thing later on? Would more public recognition for games and especially game writers hurt or help gaming as a whole? I'm just asking because I'm not sure myself.

I'm curious, how do you feel this kind of recognition would help "games?" What exactly do games need help with in this regard?

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Nall

Beating on someone is just what Street Fighter is all about, and the series certainly didn't get popular because of its lore or writing, but the story is there for people who want it. If you want to skip cutscenes, that's fine, I do to after I've played through it about fifty times, and I think we can both totally agree that un-skipabe cutscenes and movies are just a bad feature all around. In Street Fighter's case, the story is never forced on you, so good or bad it's still very negligable either way. It's a prime example of a game that doesn't need any story whatsoever. I doubt many people could tell you Cammy's connection to Bison or Rose off the top of their head anyway. Come tournament time, it's just not a factor.

There are games where it is forced on you, just wanted to present that. Assassin's Creed, 2 choice moments in Gradius V. The fighting game community does know about these story connections you brought up. They just also happen to make a distinction between the game and their fandom.

Quote:

I was just wondering whether the increased public awareness of game writing as a celebrated medium would affect game design in the future. The game industry isn't in any sort of danger at all, I just wanted to know how, if in any way, these sort of accolades would improve it. Would more writers be attracted to work with games instead of, say, movies or books? Would this equate to larger funds for game developers with larger writing divisions? Stuff like that.

A really good comparison came up when I watched Bioshock and Halo 3's respective making of features. A lot of writing is done via contribution, I don't think I've seen anyone solely contribute writing to the creation of a game. Because, again, story is supplemental and is often times built around a game. Thief 2's scenarios were crafted first and then its story was developed based off it. I really don't think writing awards are going to net much of anything for the game overall, at least if a game isn't pushed for its writing.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by RacinReaver

Rotor, do you think a game like Phoenix Wright is completely dependent upon the quality of its writing? Stop being such a whiny bitch about just story and think about all the ways writing can be important. I mean, the story of History of the World Part I is ridiculous, but it's the quality of the writing that makes it a classic movie.

u mad?

I think writing is a big part for visual novels, yes. Exception, not the rule.

Conversely, how about you list all the ways writing could be important to games? Universally to all types of games. Because I can't really think of too many and that seems to be the issue at hand here, I don't have a problem with accolades, but it's already been pointed out that this all seems pretty opportunistic. I mean, great point about movies... but different medium, chief. I realize that "writing" and "story" can be separate, especially given how most people love the plot of Final Fantasy VI but I would also realize that it isn't exactly Shakespeare.

But that's why I was wondering what the criteria was. Again, the award says "Best Video Game Story" by the Writer's Guild of America. How else am I suppose to infer it, especially when I've admitted I don't quite know everything about what they're going off of.

Quote:

Also, would your panties in as big of a bunch of there was some sort of award given by some ridiculous group of movie CG people for best graphics in a game?

Well, considering the only one who seems upset here is, well, you... I don't think I really have any grounds to answer. I'm wondering how writing helps games universally, the awards themselves? You're telling me Skills didn't quite spell out to you what was fishy about this?

If anything, the idea that "Game Writing" is special and different from any other kind of writing is pretty stupid to me. But... hey, whatever.

Originally Posted by Nall

First of all, thanks for propping my post, Rotor, that was very mature of you.

It was a good post, a lot of what you've said I've agreed with.

Quote:

There probably won't be any major changes, I know Spike TV's awards show did very little on the state of the game industry, and are usually lauded by the very community they're supposed to appeal to, so we might not see any effects from this at all, aside from maybe a very small boost in sales for the games nominated. At any rate, a few more people in the general public were reminded that some games do in fact go through a writing process, so that's something at least. It just always seems to be news when games are treated the same as other media like TV and movies, even though their presence has only grown in the past several years.

My thoughts on this have always been that we shouldn't be wondering how we're going to be taken "more seriously" in this activity. We play video games, I really think we shouldn't worry about the perceptions of people who don't. We all know, through experience, the types of things games are capable of projecting and executing. It's truly a versatile medium.

I feel we have nothing to prove to people who haven't taken the time to discover the medium for themselves, and that pandering to them (not to say you were implying that) only hurts the developers and the people concerned about their craft.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by RacinReaver

How did we make the jump to comic books here?

We didn't. That's what the Japanese classify a game like Phoenix Wright as.

Quote:

Writing isn't important to all types of games. In the same way that special effects aren't important to all kinds of movies. That doesn't mean it isn't an integral part of the industry or something people should write off as ancillary to the experience.

I'll be saying it later, but I think I view writing in this case as story... and I'd wager that might not be what what you mean when you use the term.

If it IS, I think you've got it twisted. If you strip away all the art, all the story, and all the voice acting and everything else that isn't the objective. The game itself remains. You don't need a story to create an FPS. It's nice. You don't need a story to create an RPG, though it's nice to have. You don't need a story for a puzzle game, a fighting game, a shooting game.

No game absolutely needs a story unless it's designed to have story as critical, unless it plays it into the fold. That would still make it an optional ingredient to designers. Story is supplemental to video games. Writing, scripting events... it all depends on how you want to use it. Writing -- or as I think I understand it at the moment, story -- can enrich the experience, but you can still have a video game without it.

Quote:

If you hit the actual WGA webpage you'd see it's titled "VIDEOGAME WRITING NOMINEES" under the category of "PROMOTION WRITING AND GRAPHIC ART NOMINEES."

Caught Deni's post just now. Thanks, by the way.

Quote:

What do you mean by universally? As in, video games as a form of mass media competing against books, movies, and tv? Or is it meant as how does good writing help each individual game stand out against each other within the context of video gaming?

I mean, all these game genres, right? How can writing help enrich the core of a fighting game? 2 Players fighting each other, that is. Or an FPS? How can writing factor into surviving a first person shooter or changing the mechanics of a puzzle game. I've always seen that the artist and the technical designers on game projects always clash, because art and game design have fundamentally different goals in mind. That said, I want to know how all games could benefit from the act of writing... but I think "writing" has turned into a euphemism for story, though that's where the topic began in a way.

I think it is safe to say that video games are all universally different, because barring same genre, similar elements, no game is played the same way. That said, no 2 games in different genres would need the same things, so I find it hard that just one element can completely enrich a game. Granted basic writing factors in the same way math probably would in game creation. You still need to dream up scenarios, script, all that fun stuff that goes into the infrastructure of a game.

Quote:

http://www.gamingforce.org/forums/vi...tml#post568401

Guess I must have missed it where I mentioned it two posts before him.

That makes two of us? Or just me, doh.

Quote:

Well, it is different. Just as the way writing in every different medium is different. I mean, I wouldn't expect a poet to be a top notch sit-com writer, so why shouldn't game writers be seen as their own sub-niche category of authors? They need to be able to get their message across in far less space than they'd ever have in a novel, movie, or tv show. Sadly most of the writing in video games is on the level of poor fanfiction (and the inability of Japanese to use any sort of symbolism or subtlety) hurts the overall experience for a lot of games out there.

I agree and disagree. The latter part of your post... yeah, definitely. As for the former, writing is writing, to me. Certain mediums don't always need the same things that others do, but it bothers me in the same way you can say a game has good "Gameplay", but you'd look like an ass if you said a movie had good "moviewatch" or a book had good "bookread."

I think that narrows it down to a personal problem until I can argue otherwise... and I don't think I can at the moment.

Most amazing jew boots