Blog - Out of Work Writers Flocking to Games?
Wednesday, February 6, 2008As mentioned in my previous entry, the game industry is in some ways in a unique position with the writer's strike affecting television. Today I found an interesting example:
As I have come into games from a film/television production background, with an emphasis on screenwriting, the idea of writing for games is something that has interested me for a long time. And I figure I'd do well as I've been studying both writing and game design for years now, so I've got a leg up on Hollywood writers that don't know game design, and the game designers out there that don't know writing (Although in fairness, there's certainly plenty of designers who do know their stuff when it comes to writing!)
Anyway, as such, I joined the IGDA Game Writer's SIG's mailing list, although I mostly only lurk there as, well, I'm just a student so I feel I don't have much to contribute yet. Also, most of the questions I have are being answered by either my narrative design class, or the Writer's SIG's upcoming book.
In any case, someone recently wrote a comment on the SIG mailing list that someone had contacted them asking how to pitch a game based on a script they had originally written as a movie. The SIG member gave as much advice as he could, but mostly explained that it wasn't really likely to go anywhere.
He concluded the email with the line: "Personally, I think some of the Hollywood writers might be getting a little strapped for cash right about now..."
So perhaps, with the strike going on, we'll see more out of work writers might try to find a place in game development. A medium that they may not understand, but has not yet slighted them.
I can't say if any of these writers would do well, as who knows if any of them know much about how games and game development work. That tends to be the complaint with Hollywood writers among our industry, and one I'm hoping to avoid by having as much of an educational background in game design as I do in writing.
(Note that the person mentioned above wrote the pitch to originally be intended "as a movie", so that sounds like a sure-fire sign that it'll do well as an interactive work, with solid game mechanics, no? Ha! Then again, I remember quite liking The Dig when I was younger, and that was intended to be a movie first...)
Labels: writing
posted by Brian Shurtleff @ 8:17 AM
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