Beep, Beep, Splat - The Life of a Games Writer

"People really write games for a living? Actual scripts?", a look of disbelief.
"Yes".
"So, you write 'Beep, beep, splat', right?", they laugh into their pint.

"Actually, I'm involved in designing interactive, branching narrative structures, intelligent dialogue response models and evolving character designs for the fastest growing entertainment medium in history. The script I am writing will outsell many Hollywood films and the dialogue will be quoted by people worldwide."

I think about saying that and then I realise it will make me sound like a prat. Instead, I tell the guy I got to meet Lara Croft and he buys me a pint.

You see, a lot of people don't take games writing seriously, or believe that it exists. Some of these people are writers. Some of these people are in the games industry. All of them are anachronisms. True, not every game has a polished dialogue, or gripping plot, but good examples are becoming increasingly commonplace and of greater economic importance. The biggest selling games titles of recent times such as Halo, Grand Theft Auto, or Half Life, have all attracted notice as much for their stories and dialogue as they have for their gameplay. Strong narrative is now essential to many game formats, so good writers are required who understand how to write in this new medium.

In comparison to the evolution of other forms of writing, games narrative is only in its infancy. It is learning to say "lorry" and to point out of the car window at the exciting roadwork vehicles. Some outside observers only see the infant's ability to embarrass its parents in public; but for the writers working in the games industry, this toddler does something new and amazing everyday and above all, we its parents, know a secret - our baby is growing up to be a genius.

While film writing has explored most areas open to the medium, games writing has already eaten everything film writing has evolved and then left it behind. Ninety minutes of linear plot? We'll try forty hours of evolving, non-linear, interactive storytelling, and just for good measure we'll give that story over 250,000 lines of dialogue to bring the world and the player's choices to life. Here is a story where the player chooses what to do within the narrative and each choice changes the plot. In games the viewer doesn't have to watch from the outside the medium, they can live inside it.

So, what is a game? A game is simply something that is interactive, which is to say there is an enormously diverse range of creations which fall into this category. Sitting on the bus there is someone playing bat and ball on their mobile, that's a game. The person two seats down has a PSP. Half the people on the bus have PCs at home, a large number of them have a games console and practically all of them have access to interactive television. Each of these platforms offers a huge array of strategy, roleplaying, arcade, side-scroller, platform, adventure, shooter and other game genres. All of these different game genres and platforms explore the spectrum of narrative genre. Scarily, games even leak out into the real world, look to Alternate Reality Games and discover a game that can phone you in the middle of the night to say it's been kidnapped and needs your help.

The thing all of these branches of the games industry have in common is that they are now employing professional writers. Not every company and not on every project, but across the industry the requirement for a professional writer is becoming standard. However, just as there is no single model for a 'game'; there is not a single model for a games writer. Some writers work in-house as a resident writer working on all the projects the company is doing, or updating evolving projects. Rolling projects, such as the MMORPG (Massively Multi-player Online Role-Playing Games) World of Warcraft, constantly require new quests and fresh material adding to them. Many other writers work freelance, working from home and moving company to company as titles are completed. Some writers produce the narrative structure, others write only the cutscenes which are the animated, film-like scenes that happen at key moments in the game. Some writers work solely on games and others work across a variety of media with games as part of their portfolio.

So, how do you become a Games Writer? The answer's in the title, you need to write and you need to game. While the basic rules of writing; the Three Act Structure, character creation and so forth - can be employed in writing for some games, there are also many points of departure where the old rules to cease to apply. A games writer must learn the traditional skills that apply across all media and then they must write and write and write. A writer learns by creating and then testing their creation. The fastest and best ways to learn are to see what an audience, or an editor make of your writing and to embrace the changes this brings. Challenge promotes ideas and the more challenges you face the faster your writing will evolve.

Once the writer has mastered their craft, they need to know about games (it is of course, perfectly acceptable to do this in reverse order). If you know how to write, but don't know how games work, you are not a games writer. A games writer must know and have played a wide range of games across different platforms. This way they can experience what a player will and have points of reference that will allow communication with the rest of the games development team, they will understand their medium. For a more in-depth introduction, writers can consider one of the games design courses that universities are currently offering. Games Design links in strongly with the writer's job, indeed many Games Designers help evolve the game's narrative.

To mix with and learn from other games writers there are two key places where a number of these strange animals can be found. The International Game Developers Association ( http://www.igda.org) offers a haven for the established professional and the newbie within the games industry. They have a very active Writers SIG (Special Interest Group) which campaigns on behalf of writers within the games industry and talks over hot topics on how to take care of their growing infant. The Writers' Guild of Great Britain (www.writersguild.org.uk) has held a games writing events in the past and is currently organising another. Later in the year it will be releasing guidelines about writing within the games industry. Both bodies offer occasional leads to work, but neither body is set up with this as their main purpose.

For employment, the games writer must set about contacting companies directly, or watch games industry websites such as Gamasutra, which advertise vacancies. Paper based research is possible through the newsagent where it is easy to locate titles such as PCZone and Playstation 2 Magazine. These will give you information on the latest releases, but you'll need to get magazines such as Develop or Edge (available in bigger magazine retailers or by ordering them over the net) to find out more about what's going on in the games industry.

It is worth looking at these magazines as the games industries trade publications. It might even be worth cutting out a few of their recruitment calls to take to the pub and show to the guy who doubts that you do this for a living. But in the end, it's worth taking some flak. After all you're the one who gets to write and play games for a living. So, believe! It is true you can do this as a job and that people will pay you for it. So go out, write, earn, game and who knows - you might get to meet Lara Croft too.
Andrew S. Walsh has written stories and scripts for theatre, radio, television, film, animation and computer games. To date he has worked on a wide range of games of all sizes and shapes as a writer and/or voice director. If you need more proof that games writing really is a job you can see his work at:

www.andrewwalsh.com