Game Writing and Narrative in the Future - Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing - page 172

characters, and cringe-inducing dialog that were common (and ridiculed) in video
games of decades past.
There are, of course, compelling exceptions to this rule coming from certain
developers renowned for putting high-quality game writing near the top of their pri-
ority list, and who sometimes reap substantial rewards for doing so. However, these
exceptions aside, most developers still do not prioritize writing. One would proba-
bly have a very hard time getting the management team of any game development
studio to admit to this, but look at their actual investment in this area and you'll see
the reality. There are only a small handful of game development studios that bother
to retain full-time fiction writers or editors. Instead, game designers with varying
degrees of writing ability are usually tasked with producing narrative content.
16.2 Near Future: Pro Writers, Early Involvement
The days of this “good enough� philosophy toward video game writing—i.e., that
game designers with rudimentary writing skills will be able to generate narrative con-
tent that is “good enough� for what the game needs—seem to be slowly, inexorably
drawing to a close. The existence of this topic and topics like it, combined with
the active nature of the IGDA's Game Writing Special Interest Group and the ever-
increasing number of freelance game writers and game writing consultancy groups,
can be seen as harbingers of a slowly changing landscape.
Perhaps even more importantly, game reviewers are beginning to pay increasing
attention to game stories and narrative elements, adjusting their scores up or down
in relation to perceived quality in this area. With some studies showing a positive
correlation between review scores and game sales, even the stodgiest developers and
publishers will eventually need to take game narrative development more seriously
than ever before if they wish to remain competitive.
Staff Writers/Editors
The most forward-thinking of developers, especially those who specialize in narrative-
focused games, are hiring on-staff fiction writers and editors to ensure consistently
strong and well-integrated story content. This group is admittedly small but seems
to be slowly growing.
Other studios, unwilling or unable to invest so heavily in narrative development,
may ask one professional-level writer or editor to oversee all story content develop-
ment, either on a full-time or part-time basis (while also shouldering other, non-
narrative responsibilities). This role often has less to do with hands-on writing than
with reviewing and improving the work of narrative content, generated by on-staff
game designers, freelance writers, or a combination of the two.
For both of these cases—an entire staff of writers and editors, or just one—there
is an increased probability of bringing the professional fiction writing skill set into
the game narrative development process early enough to actually do some good. It's
difficult to overstate the significance of this early involvement, since most missteps in