Game Writing at a Distance (aka Game Writing under Contract) - Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing - page 62

While you've been gone, dozens of short conversations can occur, on-site, off-
site, in the hallways, etc., and these conversations become decisions without anyone
formally deciding anything.
This one is easier to fix than the one noted above. You can minimize the gap
that comes from drift by being on-site as much as possible as often as possible. The
dramatic shift noted above is impossible to prevent.
Collaboration Can Be Less than Ideal
Story ideas come at all times. The World Builder is working hard on a map, building
the latest point-of-interest (POI) that the two of you have carefully crafted, and she
has an inspiration about how it can change for the better. If you were on staff, she'd
just walk down to your desk and chat it out with you. But you're not there, you're not
on IM, unavailable by phone (maybe you're at a meeting at another publisher), and
so the World Builder makes a decision on her own and plows onward. By the time
you see her next, she's possibly even forgotten that moment, and you only discover
the changes she's made months later when you play the level. Hopefully her changes
don't impact your story, but they might.
You go to her and ask her about the change, and she remembers the day she
got the inspiration and simply says, “You weren't available, so I made a decision and
moved on.� It's a collaborative process. These kind of tactical decisions are made
hundreds of times every day, and if you get upset by this kind of thing, you'll be
labeled as “uncooperative� or worse.
Trust Becomes an Issue
As a contractor, you are an outsider. No matter what you do or say or believe, no
matter how hard you try, you will always be viewed as someone who isn't as invested
as the staff on-site is and may be viewed as someone who has less to lose, who might
move on at any second, who views the project as “just a job.�
Obviously, any of those emotions can belong to a staff member just as easily as a
contractor, but their physical presence acts as a buffer against those assumptions. For
example, given that most new job opportunities for designer/writers ask the applicant
to move to the city where the game is being developed, the fact that the employee has
relocated indicates a level of commitment that you, the contract writer, aren't being
asked to deliver. So, can you be trusted?
The trust issue isn't expressed in the manner of, “We're worried that you'll violate
your NDA and blurt what we're doing to the press,� but rather that your heart and
soul isn't in your work and thus when crunch time comes, will you be there along
with everyone else trying to make this the best game possible?
You'll always be viewed as a visitor to the team until the day comes when you
become an employee. There are ways you can minimize this, but none of them
totally fix it.