Would you ever want to write a story for a game developer?

I said "show me the results", but I wouldn't mind writing a story if whoever was making the game didn't mind it having the lamest story ever.

I make games, and my writing is probably my second weakest point right above my art.

Haha, that would probably the first and only thing I would knew regarding game development. Let's face it, writing a story may be difficult if you have like zero imagination, however it virtually doesn't need you to have any kind of knowledge regarding programming, 3d graphics, art and whatnot.

Because I'm not a good writer, I would have to say no, but in light of recent events, I would certainly take up the opportunity to look over an already completed story and provide some feedback.

I would love to do that. Depending on the developer though a writing job might be pretty insignificant to the project, if they have one at all.

As a screenwriter, hell yeah. But video games often have such a backwards approach to these things. And the result is bad writing.

PS Saying the word screenwriter makes me profoundly depressed because I think how many days it's been since I've written anything. Then I want a rum and coke. So, screenwriter.

Writing for video games is drastically different from writing for TV or movies. The pacing is entirely different and there's a large amount of player agency involved that's impossible to take into account. Look at something like Red Dead Redemption which got a lot of flak for always depicting John Marston as a goody goody in cut scenes regardless of how despicably you played him during the game. You can't write instructions for your lead actor because that's your player, and they're going to do what they want to do. Good video game stories are told through game play as well as cut scenes, and coordinating those things is more difficult than it seems. I think one of the reasons a lot of video games stories are so lame is because the writers approach it as though they're writing for TV or movies.

I'd certainly give it a shot. It's far different than any format I've ever written, but it would be fun to try.

Abso-Freaking-Lutely. I'm a professional writer, so I do journalism, comic books, screenplays, and I have some tech skills so I'm making games as well. I would love to write a game. I wrote one before that was kind of a "Choose your own adventure" thing, but the project fell through on the developer's end.

Is there an offer here or is this just a question posed out of curiosity?

Because I'd be totally down for this! Experimentation is how the narrative of games will and has grown through the ages!

It depends, for example if you wanted me to write the whole script of a game like fallout new vegas, i would say hell no!

@giant_gamer: Damn I'd make a solid attempt at something that grand! Haha, as long as it was getting made...It'd be hard to know that you put in like several novels worth of story and dialogue for something that never got off of the ground.

Still worth doing for a fun imagination exercise, probably.

I'd love to.

@sinusoidal: Yeah. That's one of the common problems with video game writing. When I think about bad video games writing though, I think of Gears of Wars. Where someone clearly wanted a grim, dark post apocalypse. Then someone thought a chainsaw gun would be cool. And a minecart. And everything is just working against itself. Overall, video game stories are often either bolted on or buried by junk.

Very accurate description. For a project that unfortunately crashed and burned, we brought in a professional writer to handle the story. Problem is, we did so at the very start of pre-production, when we had just a very vague idea of the game itself and had not nailed down the gameplay yet. It ended up being a disaster because the writer had to pretty much be clairvoyant to predict what the final product would be like. In the end we had to rewrite/adjust the majority of it as the game's scope and mechanics changed (through no fault of the writer, who was great to work with), and the project folded before we got to integrate any of it.

You better believe the writing is now an integral part of the development process.

Probably, but I don't have quite enough faith in my ability to write a great story.

I'm going to write a crossover where the girls of Senran Kagura and Dead or Alive fight each other. And then they realize they are all the same and become friends and then hang out at the beach playing volleyball.

Yes, no idea if it would be good but I would at least want to give it a shot. The story telling in games is my favorite part of playing them, so of course its the thing I'm most interested in.

Sure, I would like to do that; I don't see any reason not to and it would challenge me on a creative level.

Oh man, imagine taking on an entire multi-choice RPG by yourself? I'd crack so early on. Thank god for multiple writers.

I don't know you at all, but I bet you could, I think we all have at least one great story hidden in our lives, look at the game Gone Home, whether you like it or not, they made an engaging narrative out of something as so damn simple as "Go to your nostalgia filled home and see what sis has been up to."
I think everybody has a good story to tell if they dig around for a sweet spot. But I'm an optimist, sometimes, haha.


Anyways, video game writing was one of my major child hood drams, never took a turn to get into it, but I would absolutely love too some day, especially with so many indies out there you really could make any story you want, it would be the coolest.

@zolroyce: I feel like right now if I wrote a story, it would either be very simple (just one strong but vague feeling), or a synthesis of several different stories that I have read lately.

I'm arrogant enough to think that I could write a better story than like half the video games out there.

Nope. Only for my own game. I'm pretty sure we'd have different opinions on how the storytelling should be. I would barely want any dialogue and almost no cutscenes.

I'd love to work with a partner or two. Not really on my own. I want someone who'll be there to pull me out of tropes I unknowingly fall into.

Writing in games for publishers is not You Come Up With Everything and then the drones work to make your vision a reality. The art team hands you sketches for characters, locations, aesthetics. The designers tell you about mechanics they want included in narrative, big set-pieces and general thematic tones they want you to produce. And then you produce to order. You are the drone in this relationship. Your writing needs to be the vehicle to get people to new art and new gameplay, not vice versa.

To me that sounds awesome and is a big plus for taking up writing in games over other storytelling mediums. Contextualising mechanics and art seems like a logical puzzle to solve. Taking the responsibility of deciding the whole thing (say when writing your own novel) is a much larger task where you not only have to decide the overall connective tissue of the narrative, but also the details that bring purpose and reason to the story.

As a games writer your purpose is to realise these other parts that you have to build upon, whereas as the all-saying-storyteller you have to define the reason for the audience to care from the ground up. I think both have their merits and are interesting challenges, but I have a personal interest in the former over the latter.

Absolutely. I've tried working with some indie and mod teams, but when people aren't getting paid they tend to not work, and things fall apart.

Without question. I'd love to work in that kind of environment and like to see how the process differs when story might not be the main focus of a product. It can present different challenges than say writing a book or screenplay because there's always something else to consider. Film and TV are effectively mediums used to enhance a written story whereas games writing is about being in service to the gameplay. It also means the story could wind up being developed in a vacuum instead of being in conjunction with the game itself.

I've done it before. But I'd like to write for Alan Wake 2.

Yeah, sure. I'm thinking about applying for a writing job in the industry actually.

I've seen some games with some pretty bad writing, so sure why not.

It would be worth it for the difficulty of it alone.

Nope, never been a writer. I could probably look over the script for corrections and stuff like that, but I'd stick to art, UI and possibly level design.