Writers Guild 2012 Best Game Writing Nominees Disappoint

[Leperous]

Hi All!

To qualify for the Writers Guild of America Best Videogame Writing Award, games must apply, they must submit a script, all writers must be credited, and they all have to join our Videogame Writers Caucus for one year.

If you're wondering why your favorite game isn't here, there are a number of possibilities:

(1) the company didn't credit their writers. Portal 2 has this problem... as the world's largest union of working professional writers, we can't really be seen giving out awards to companies who won't acknowledge the contribution of their writers. I understand that some companies like Valve want to just list everyone alphabetically in order to make everything "more democratic," but other companies want to list everyone alphabetically in order to obscure who does what and keep their workers' salaries down and prevent headhunting. We can't be put into the position of figuring out which companies are which, so we have a rule: you can't get the award unless you credit your writers. We're the WRITERS Guild. We always err on the side of the writer, sorry, Portal 2... you probably would have been a finalist, otherwise.

(2) the writers must join the WGA's Videogame Writers Caucus for a year. Yes, it's $100. No, that's not a lot of money for someone who writes videogames for a living. No, that's not the same thing as joining our Union. Some people choose not to do this because they don't like Guilds and Unions, or because they already have health and pension plans, and because they don't ever foresee themselves working at a company where they don't have high pay, good pension, and health care. Personally, I think that sounds great, and I wish that all employers were great companies who provided such things... but we don't live in that world. We live in a world where corporations feel free cheating employees, or not providing health care, or looting pension funds, or slamming you into a bad 401(k) with poor options, or working you for 80 hours a week during "crunch time." I've watched companies go out of business left and right, and I've watched 401(k)'s that I had with companies become worth 50% of what they were worth overnight just because that company went out of business. So yes, unions do still serve a purpose, but some people still don't see the advantage.

So, not everyone wants to work with a Union/Guild which provides health care & pension, and we can't FORCE anyone to join our ranks. You'll note that some Canadian or British game developers, located in countries which provide free health care and rigorously oversee retirement plans (unlike America) might not be eager to join our Guild... but a lot of them do, because winning a WGA writing award is a pretty credible resume line.

(3) Some companies REFUSE to submit scripts because they consider those scripts (yes, even for released games which are in stores) to be proprietary trade secrets. coughcoughROCKSTARcoughcough. Other companies are befuddled as to how to submit a script. Bioware writes their games' conversation trees in a proprietary hardware tool which can't export a film-format script (nor would it make sense if they did). Their games are also REALLY long, and might cover thousands of pages of script. We've tried to explain over and over that we only need to see a "representative" script for games like this, and last year, I was gladdened to see "Fallout: New Vegas" submit 300 pages and get nominated. This should have been a step forward with Bioware, but I'm not aware of all their internal politics, so I have no idea why they didn't submit a script for Dragon Age 2. Hell, they could have merely submitted the cutscene scripts (which I presume they write in Final Draft), and they probably would have gotten a nomination because the game's story was just that good. It distresses me when good games don't submit... but I'm not about to change the requirements just to make it easier for them, because the point of our rules is to make sure that companies aren't cheating/hurting their employees, and if I change the rules for Bioware, I have to change them for everyone, and then what's the point of having rules in the first place?

(4) Some companies FORBID their employees from submitting for our award, out of sheer, idiotic terror that somehow winning an award will transform their employees into 1920's style communist revolutionaries out to Occupy Electronic Arts or something. I don't have a lot of understanding for this scenario... it's not like we have a massive history of violent labor actions in the videogame world, but they're still terrified of us. Probably because they're worried that accepting an award today means not being able to work their employees 80 hours/week at some point in the future. It's paranoid and stupid, but what can you do? Not all corporations give a care about their employees dreams, wishes, or careers... and don't kid yourself, winning a big award makes it possible for those employees to ask for a pay raise, and THAT is definitely a reason some of these companies forbid their employees from submitting.

(5) We try hard, but we don't always reach everyone. Why don't some game writers submit their own scripts? Sometimes it boils down to them just not knowing that they CAN or SHOULD submit their script. We get out there, we ask writers we know to submit, we contact companies and request that they submit, we post on game writer boards and forums, but we can't and don't reach everyone, and some people just miss our awards. I remember having a conversation with Paul Dini a few years ago and asking why he hadn't submitted a script for "Batman: Arkham Asylum" and he just stared at me in horror and said "Oh, I didn't know I had to actually submit..." It was heartbreaking, but that's just human nature, and the best thing we can do is continue to work harder to publicize our application deadlines each year. You'll note that this year, "Batman: Arkham City" WAS submitted (and nominated by the first-round readers). Progress!

(6) We may not have liked the script you liked. Tastes vary. Remember, though, we're seeing the full thing, all written out in text. We're not judging the acting, we're not judging the directing, we're not judging the gameplay, we're not judging how well the writing is integrated with the gameplay, we're just looking at character, story, and dialog. Just as the WGA gives out awards for the best television writing not the best television show, we're giving out awards for the best videogame WRITING only.

I find it amazing that people here really think that the Writers Guild shouldn't be giving out a games award, as if we're incapable of judging game writing, despite several dozen of our member/writers being EXCLUSIVELY game writers for a living. I myself switch back and forth between film, games, and television, but I love writing games the most, and have worked on over 3 dozen games. EVERYONE judging the submitted games works in games. The final round of judges have all shipped AAA games, and are some of the biggest names in the games business. Often we recruit former nominees to judge the next year's writing. We go to great lengths to make sure that judges don't have conflicts of interest. Of everyone in the world, we are probably the MOST qualified people to judge the level and quality of game WRITING, because that's what we do for a living.

We choose the best of the scripts which are submitted to us... so if you don't see your favorite games in our list, perhaps instead of the WGA being a bunch of dummies who don't understand how videogames work, maybe instead it's because your favorite big game corporation has threatened to fire their employees if they dare submit a script to us, or because the writers got busy and missed the deadline, or because they're Canadian and think that they're not eligible even though they are, or because one of the writing team (ALL writers must agree to submit) on a project is a weirdo Libertarian who doesn't like being "forced" to join our Caucus for a year and doesn't mind screwing their fellow team members in order to make a weird political point (actually happened!), or maybe, just maybe, our first-round writers actually LIKED the script for Brink when they sat down and read it, even though you hated it when you played it.

I mean, I do find it completely awesome that a lot of people sneering at us above say "I didn't play Game X, but it's terrible and no way should it get nominated." How can one reason with that kind of logic?

-Micah Wright
chair, WGA Videogame Writers Caucus

 

[Leperous]

This list is because of the dumb rules of this Guild. Moneysucking idiots.

Insults are always a good start to a reasonable argument...

The Writers Guild of America is the largest union of professional working writers in the world. We have several dozen members who write EXCLUSIVELY for videogames. We have several dozen other members who go back and forth from games to movies to television. David Goyer is a great example of this kind of writer; he worked on all 3 of the recent Batman movies, he wrote Modern Warfare: Black Ops, and he has a new television show on the air next year. While it's fun to pretend that "Hollywood" people are all stupid and don't know anything about videogames, it's just incorrect. Many of your favorite games were written by the "idiots" you declaim above. As for "moneysucking," I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean... should we not get paid for our work? We certainly don't get paid any more than what the other developers on the games are getting paid, for the most part. The assumption that just because someone is in our Union, that makes them a "moneysucking idiot" is just hostile for no reason. The CEO of Activision gave himself a $300 million bonus a year ago. I'm hard pressed to think of a SINGLE videogame creator who's ever made that much money, much less in one year... and we're the people who actually MAKE the games. Who are the Moneysucking Idiots here, we, the people making your games, or the suit-and-tie-wearing corporate types who loot these companies via stock options and bonus payments?

Oh, right, we're a Union dedicated to getting our members health care and pensions, so we're evil. I forgot.

It took 3 writers for Mortal Kombat. It took 8 writers for Assassins Creed. WHY? (with this I mean just the amount, not the quality since I haven't played those games. But having many writing styles which compete with each other in a story doesn't seem to be a good idea)

Why? Because different game companies work in different fashions. Assassins Creed has a number of different writers, all of whom performed different work on the game. Because we're a WRITERS Guild, we seek to honor the contributions of ALL of the writers. All 9 of these people wrote on this game, so all 9 get a nomination. As to why it took 9 writers, versus 3 writers, versus the one writer on, say, Brink, well, it's not our job to suggest working methods to the game industry, only to make sure that all the writers are fairly credited. I will say this: it's not difficult for 9 writers to all sound like ONE writer; Breaking Bad, the best TV show on the air last year in my opinion has a fairly large writing staff who work together to make sure that the entire series has a unified authorial voice and all the dialog and writing styles all merge into a singular, unified vision. This is what a Head (or Lead) Writer does; set the tone and make sure that everyone else adheres to it. I don't know, but I'm guessing that's what Darby McDevitt did on Assassin's Creed.

Then the obvious lack of great storydriven games this year: Bastion, Portal 2, Witcher 2... I don't want to be judgemental but all 3 kick Batman Arkham City in the ass and Batman AC is without a doubt the strongest story on that list.

I don't mean to be judgmental, either, but that's an assertion I find surprising, since you readily admit above that you haven't played several other games on our list. How do you know they aren't "storydriven" if you haven't played them? We, on the other hand, actually say down and read all the scripts for every submitted game. I assure you that you could beat a policeman to death with the rolled-up script to Assassin's Creed: Revelations. If that's not "storydriven," I'm not sure what is.

Why do people still consider those idiots from that Guild worth for news? They only accept games where at least one writer is member (ergo paid them money), they don't consider the story in context of the game, they don't take games where the writers are not credited. Based on the last point alone there can never be a Valve game because of the way Valve does credits.

I find it amazing that people here really think that the Writers Guild shouldn't be giving out an award for game writing, as if we're incapable of judging game writing, despite the fact that final round of judges have all shipped AAA games, and are some of the biggest names in the games business. Additionally, we recruit former nominees to judge the next year's writing, so it's likely that some of the writers from "Fallout: New Vegas," which was nominated last year, helped judge this year's games in the first round of judging. None of those writers has ever worked in TV or Film.

As to your contention that we only accept games where "at least one writer is member," that's incorrect. We simply ask that all the writers who submit their game join the WGA Videogame Writers Caucus for one year. That's NOT the same thing as being a member of the union. The Caucus is a separate group exclusively for game writers which seeks to better the working life of game writers, to set standards in the industry, and to convince companies to credit their writers. Any writer is free to quit after their one year membership... very few choose to do so. Does that membership cost money? Yup. A gigantic $100, which isn't very much money for someone who works in games. Believe me, the awards statues cost $800 apiece... we're not getting rich off of videogame writers.

And no, we don't consider the game writing in the context of the game. Nor do we consider movie writing in the context of a movie when we give out the Best Original Film Writing award. We read the script. We have that power, the power to read scripts and figure out what is and isn't good writing. That doesn't mean we haven't PLAYED the games, it only means that we don't consider gameplay when giving awards for WRITING. Because we're not awarding the Best Videogame Award, we're awarding the best writing IN a videogame. There's a difference.

And finally, no, we don't accept games without writing credits. This comes from 200 years of tradition... Film Writers get credits because playwrights got credits, and they got credits because book authors got credit. Videogame writers are just the latest step in that long tradition of fairly crediting the writer for his work. We will NEVER change that rule. Nor should we. Pleasingly, it seems that we may never have to, either; the first year we gave out our award six years ago, we had to turn away over half of the nominated games because the companies hadn't fairly credited their writers (one game gave the Writer who had written the entire thing a "additional thanks to" credit, for example). Every year since we established our awards, that number of non-credited games has gotten smaller and smaller and smaller as game companies realized that if they wanted the award, they had to fairly credit their workers. This year only a very small number of games were declined due to missing credits. That says to me that we're on the right track.

Sorry if you don't like our award nominees... but I assure you that we actually pay attention to what we're doing here, and that a group of 25 professional working game writers thought that these were the best games of the ones submitted to them.

Micah Wright
chair, WGA Videogame Writers Caucus