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[cormack12]

Splitting out from TLoU post by IbizaPocholo

The Writer's Guild of America, broken up into West and East divisions, is a labor union comprised of many writers, including those who work on television, film, and web media.

Games have become increasingly acknowledged at awards shows over the past few years, but in 2020, it looks like one show will be dropping the category. The Writers Guild of America will not be awarding Videogame Writing this year, due to lack of what the guild describes as a "critical mass" of WGA-covered games.

Going back through the WGA's awards records, the category has been around since at least 2008, where Dead Head Fred for the PlayStation Portable won. Last year's nominees included Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Batman: The Enemy Within, Marvel's Spider-Man, Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, and the winner, God of War.

I think those titles above show exactly why it's being dismissed as a vanity award to be honest. Developers/writers who don't see this as an issue explain how the narrowing of criteria and membership of the association limit the awards integrity and value:

This means that game stories which take advantage of the medium's interactive nature in order to effectively tell a story (Return of the Obra Dinn, Telling Lies, and Bloodborne being just a few examples of this approach) would most likely not be properly considered by the WGA even if those games qualify for the WGA requirement.

Pretty much confirms - for me - that writing in videogames is much ado about nothing. It's purely celebrated and sought after to feed ego's and provide some sort of false validation which feeds the entire bullshit pretentiousness we see from certain titles. And completely omits those unique games which do have genuine good writing by way of gatekeeping via subscription memberships and very narrow constraints.

Good or bad? I think it shows that a game is a collective piece of storytelling. Much of that story is told in the interactivity and visuals/environment as well as a screenplay/script and they can't really be isolated. They probably need an actual videogame category which considers all these items as one and generates some validity. Videogames don't often have complex or original stories, it often boils down to how they are told and delivered.

 

[brap]

Video games have shit writing. All the writers that actually have talent write for hollywood or other places. I mean look at TLOU. It was so highly praised and why? It's just some generic cliche hollywood bullshit.

 

[RiccochetJ]

Video games have shit writing. All the writers that actually have talent write for hollywood or other places. I mean look at TLOU. It was so highly praised and why? It's just some generic cliche hollywood bullshit.

Unions have everyone's interests at heart. They are never territorial and the people in charge of the Unions want the best for everyone. They always include voice actors.

 

[ROMhack]

Looking at the list of past winners it seems horrible narrow. Looks like it started interestingly with Dead Head Fred and then quickly veered into being all about that obvious 'bang your head on the table until you're crying' style of melodrama which PS4 games have become renowned for. Uncharted 3 being on there is horribly jarring given how pants the story (and ergo writing) is.

 

[TLZ]

Good good. Now all that bullshit political messaging won't win shit. Maybe they don't want their awards infested with that crap.

Feel sorry for the good guys though. But maybe they don't care.

 

[Portugeezer]

Writing in games doesn't count... someone come up with a reason real quick.

 

[Birdo]

Any game that is praised for it's writing would be called Z-list if it were a movie.

There are some great moments here and there in games like MGS, Final Fantasy, and some other story-driven games. But most stuff is derivative and bland.

 

[Scopa]

Video games have shit writing. All the writers that actually have talent write for hollywood or other places. I mean look at TLOU. It was so highly praised and why? It's just some generic cliche hollywood bullshit.

I almost completely agreed with you, but the Witcher series has great writing. So, there’s that.

 

[Woo-Fu]

If they only recognize excellence from people whose wallet they have their fingers in then it really isn't much of an award, IMHO. Chet knows where its at, as usual.

Considering how connected everybody---well, those who want to be---is nowadays it seems like these organizations are dinosaurs that need to be replaced by modern versions. Instead of being barriers to entry they should be facilitators.

 

[BlackTron]

Games usually have garbage stories and many of the games I like don't have any story at all.

Seems reasonable.

 

[Helios]

But most stuff is derivative and bland.

Unlike the movie industry which is filled with thought-provoking, original media?

 

[Fuz]

Video games have shit writing.

Generally, yes.

Not always. There are some pearls here and there.

But thinking about it... most movies have shit writing nowadays (hello MCU). Can we just round it up and say that this geration of writers is shit?

 

[iconmaster]

I’m glad to see video game writing getting the recognition it deserves.

 

[ROMhack]

It might also be a consequence of putting all of one's eggs into the basket of box-office gaming. There's a lot of interesting games out there, some with cool ideas and narratives like The Talos Principle, Soma, Subsurface Circular and Device 6 but they so rarely get much coverage because they don't instantly attract clicks. That's a fault the whole gaming industry should share IMHO.

 

[Birdo]

Unlike the movie industry which is filled with thought-provoking, original media?

It's usually called out for what it is, though (Well, mostly). You've never seen a michael bay film praised for it's story.

Take The Last of Us as an example. Cliche, trope-ridden, predictable, derivative.............. Widely reguarded as one of the best story-driven games of all time. If it were a film, it would have been called all those things I just called it.

 

[ROMhack]

It's usually called out for what it is, though (Well, mostly). You've never seen a michael bay film praised for it's story.

Take The Last of Us as an example. Cliche, trope-ridden, predictable, derivative.............. Widely reguarded as one of the best story-driven games of all time. If it were a film, it would have been called all those things I just called it.

That, for me, is largely a consequence of the kind of game it is. See my post above too, which is to say that such games are defined by their cutscene-heavy cookie-cutter approach. None of them are really doing anything unique except in an industry where we, for whatever reason, ended up prioritizing the idea of polish over genuinely interesting and original ideas.

Maybe I'm being too critical though. I do genuinely like some of those games (The Last of Us, Uncharted IV, God of War, etc).

 

[Fuz]

I’m glad to see video game writing getting the recognition it deserves.

 

[bitbydeath]

It's usually called out for what it is, though (Well, mostly). You've never seen a michael bay film praised for it's story.

Take The Last of Us as an example. Cliche, trope-ridden, predictable, derivative.............. Widely reguarded as one of the best story-driven games of all time. If it were a film, it would have been called all those things I just called it.

Far better written than the movie. ‘The Road’ and that movie won a few awards.

 

[Fbh]

Video games have shit writing. All the writers that actually have talent write for hollywood or other places. I mean look at TLOU. It was so highly praised and why? It's just some generic cliche hollywood bullshit.

Most movies do too.

The last academy award for best picture went to some generic cliche "they don't like each other at first but then they do" story with the groundbreaking message of "racism is bad" and where every other scene felt like the writers were watching Brooklyn 99 and went "hey, those captain Holt scenes are pretty funny, let's do that".

The year before that it was the chick that fucked a fish

 

[ROMhack]

Most movies do too.

The last academy award for best picture went to some generic cliche "they don't like each other at first but then they do" story with the groundbreaking message of "racism is bad" and where every other scene felt like the writers were watching Brooklyn 99 and went "hey, those captain Holt scenes are pretty funny, let's do that".

The year before that it was the chick that fucked a fish

Was that any good?

 

[ClanOfNone]

"Video games have shit writing."

Well, yes they do. So do most tv shows, movies, books, comics, etc. Getting really good media in any format requires sifting through a ton of generic poop.

 

[Fuz]

Was that any good?

Meh. Not enough fish penises.

 

[Outrunner]

Unions have everyone's interests at heart. They are never territorial and the people in charge of the Unions want the best for everyone. They always include voice actors.

Is that a joke?

 

[Starlight Lotice]

Games primary are about gameplay, stories tend to come second.

Not too shocking.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

Beauty & The Beast was the first animated film to be nominated for Best Picture, and it didn't even win. That was early 90s and animation had been around for decades.

Maybe if videogame writing improves on the whole, they will be seriously considered again.

 

[dirthead]

This is great if only because it irritates fraud developers like Naughty Dog who can't get enough of the smell of their own farts.

The fact that they think their "bad episode of X-Files" level writing is art is pure comedy.

 

[kraspkibble]

if i want a good story i'll read a book or watch a movie not playing a game.

you get some people in the gaming industry who think they are a shit hot writers (looking at that Kojima character and that TLOU mob) but really they are ass. They are just deadbeat writers who weren't good enough to make it anywhere else so stick around making games where it doesn't really matter.

 

[Kenpachii]

Story's in games not even once.

 

[Gavon West]

Generally, yes.

Not always. There are some pearls here and there.

But thinking about it... most movies have shit writing nowadays (hello MCU). Can we just round it up and say that this geration of writers is shit?

Dont be a wanker! I totally resent this post. If you can do better, go ahead.. Be my guest.

 

[Clear]

if i want a good story i'll read a book or watch a movie not playing a game.

Unable to construct a grammatical sentence for their thesis, yet feels so bold as to pass judgement on other people's writing abilities, going so far as to throw shade on everyone who writes for games... classic!

 

[Fbh]

Was that any good?

Visually it was really nice, the sets and environments were great and gave the whole thing a unique style and mood like most other Guillermo del Toro projects.

But the story is about a woman that fucks a fish, don't know what else to say about it. At first I thought the idea was going to be about looking past our external differences or something like that, but IMO the fishman behaves too much like an animal to take the story as anything other than "Woman falls in love with a fish because it sort of looks like a dude"

 

[Spukc]

Video games have shit writing. All the writers that actually have talent write for hollywood or other places. I mean look at TLOU. It was so highly praised and why? It's just some generic cliche hollywood bullshit.

go eat your dogfood dinner
TLOU is one of the most intelligent scripts ever written
even surpassing the IQ level of rick & morty

 

[Hypereides]

Maybe they'll focus on better gameplay now.

 

[VGEsoterica]

Makes perfect sense. I’m sure a ton of writers live in video games to make a decent living. Unlike films which are almost always safe blockbusters written by established names, games probably provide a ton more opportunity.

but that’s just a guess lol

 

[anthraticus]

style of melodrama which PS4 games have become renowned for. Uncharted 3 being on there is horribly jarring given how pants the story (and ergo writing) is.

Just the type of cringeworthy overemotional (modern) Hollywood bullshit I love to avoid.

 

[Caffeine]

with most of these games coming out being service games that dont really have deep narrative I really can't blame them. A couple of these games narratives were basically hollow husks of what we once had. and its just a bunch of gameplay loops into fetch quests to stop enemy at the end point but once thats done u have to buy expansion or something to fight new enemy.

 

[ROMhack]

Games primary are about gameplay, stories tend to come second.

Not too shocking.

I tend to agree with this. However, I think it's perfectly fine when some of them forego gameplay in favour of stories, like text adventures and walking simulators (which I personally really like).

I've long since been in favour of treating them as something different to 'videogames'. Having them under one umbrella seems to just end up confusing.

 

[Kadayi]

Unlike the movie industry which is filled with thought-provoking, original media?

90% of everything is shit but let's be honest here gaming rarely throws up much that is praiseworthy in terms of overall writing quality, especially compared to the mediums of Film or Television (which seems to be Top Dog these days). In large part aside from a few exceptions its generally YA level writing and increasingly chock full of eyerolling pandering to special interest groups as a means to garner review positives from the incestuous Twitter circle Jerk know as "Game Journalism"

However, I've long since been in favour of treating them as something different to 'videogames'. Having them under one umbrella seems to just end up confusing.

I tend to favour 'Interactive Fiction'

 

[ROMhack]

90% of everything is shit but let's be honest here gaming rarely throws up much that is praiseworthy in terms of overall writing quality, especially compared to the mediums of Film or Television (which seems to be Top Dog these days). In large part aside from a few exceptions its generally YA level writing and increasingly chock full of eyerolling pandering to special interest groups as a means to garner review positives from the incestuous Twitter circle Jerk know as "Game Journalism"



I tend to favour 'Interactive Fiction'

Yeah something like that. It's a bit like the distinction people tend to make with movies - like when they're described as indie or arthouse. People tend to treat them more fairly that way.

 

[GreenAlien]

Video games have shit writing. All the writers that actually have talent write for hollywood or other places. I mean look at TLOU. It was so highly praised and why? It's just some generic cliche hollywood bullshit.

Writers with actual talent write books. Even Hollywood has mostly bad to mediocre writers...

 

[Spukc]

Writers with actual talent write books. Even Hollywood has mostly bad to mediocre writers...

dayyum you just outsnobbed him

 

[Petrae]

...and nothing of value was lost.

I rarely give a shit about story. If I want heavy narrative, I’ll watch a movie. I can count the number of games that I’ve actually cared about the story on one hand.

I enjoy shutting my mind off and just playing a game. Hell, story didn’t matter in games for years. It was either implied (Stop the invaders from reaching Earth or Keep Pac-Man away from the ghosts) or very lightly included (like SFII’s character cutscenes or Super Mario Bros.’s “...but our Princess is in another castle” scenes. More in-depth narrative weighs games down, and turns some into absolute snoozefests.

If writers are all emo that their “art” (heh) isn’t being properly recognized with awards, then switch the medium and get out of video games. These people can bitch all they want about video games being art or that they should be taken more seriously, but they just aren’t and won’t ever be taken as seriously as some want, and that’s fine.

 

[Rean no Kiseki]

Contrarians the lot of you, the truth is games like TLOU, UC etc do thier job very well and use thier medium well, and as we have seen in this very thread people will shit on movies and say if you want a good story read a book while ignoring the fact that film is a visual medium and you get much MUCH more in film with visual story telling then for example using GRRM words to imagine Westeros.

 

[ROMhack]

Contrarians the lot of you, the truth is games like TLOU, UC etc do thier job very well and use thier medium well, and as we have seen in this very thread people will shit on movies and say if you want a good story read a book while ignoring the fact that film is a visual medium and you get much MUCH more in film with visual story telling then for example using GRRM words to imagine Westeros.

I think it does too. I'm not even a fan but it's got a lot of decent environmental storytelling. Never understand people who got emotional about things like the giraffe scene though.

I also think Uncharted 4 does that pretty well until after the heist mission when it becomes a bit shit story-wise.

 

[Yoda]

Can't say I disagree, most games nowadays have bland and derivtive writing which always feels like the developers viewed story-telling as an afterthought. Granted, movies in the last few years are becoming pretty derivative themselves, so maybe those'll get dropped in a few years too?

 

[The Scrivener]

"One step forward, seven steps back" is a missed opportunity. She should have written "one step forward, double-jump back". Not much of a writer is she.

 

[Helios]

Take The Last of Us as an example. Cliche, trope-ridden, predictable, derivative.............. Widely reguarded as one of the best story-driven games of all time. If it were a film, it would have been called all those things I just called it.

You think TLOU wouldn't have it's dick sucked by journalists and critics if it were a high budget Holloywood movie? I think it would.

90% of everything is shit but let's be honest here gaming rarely throws up much that is praiseworthy in terms of overall writing quality, especially compared to the mediums of Film or Television (which seems to be Top Dog these days). In large part aside from a few exceptions its generally YA level writing and increasingly chock full of eyerolling pandering to special interest groups as a means to garner review positives from the incestuous Twitter circle Jerk know as "Game Journalism"

Agreed, but I still think we should praise the games that do have a good story and fit the medium rather than go "Well, if I wanted a good story, I would've just watched a movie". Just seems like a very closed mindset.
Doesn't matter anyway since the WGA isn't really dropping video games for their quality of writing but rather for their own benefits.

 

[Dr. Claus]

Video games have shit writing. All the writers that actually have talent write for hollywood or other places. I mean look at TLOU. It was so highly praised and why? It's just some generic cliche hollywood bullshit.

...What? So Clannad, Witcher 2 and 3, To The Moon, Red Dead Redemption 2, Steins;Gate, Final Fantasy IX, God of War 4, Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3, Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward and Shadowbringers - just to name a few - are all considered shit writing?

No, there are amazing writers and brilliant stories in gaming, but the issue is that they are spread across the world. So of course an American-based Union award ceremony won't have even a third of all those fantastic games.

 

[Dr. Claus]

Contrarians the lot of you, the truth is games like TLOU, UC etc do thier job very well and use thier medium well, and as we have seen in this very thread people will shit on movies and say if you want a good story read a book while ignoring the fact that film is a visual medium and you get much MUCH more in film with visual story telling then for example using GRRM words to imagine Westeros.

I can't agree with TLoU. It squandered its nature as a video game to tell an engrossing story with the limitations and benefits that this medium contains. Look at NieR or Automata. Both use the fact that they are games to help elevate and push the story far beyond what could be done otherwise. Literally everything in TLoU could have been done on a TV show, film, or book and nothing would have been lost.

 

[Kadayi]

Agreed, but I still think we should praise the games that do have a good story and fit the medium rather than go "Well, if I wanted a good story, I would've just watched a movie". Just seems like a very closed mindset.

I'm all for better writing in games, but if we are going to be handing out gongs, maybe let's do it on the basis of it being good writing alone versus 'the best game writing from amongst our paid membership'

The whole saga sounds like Druckmann throwing a rattle because TLOU2 clearly isn't going to be getting a WGA gong this year and Naughty Dog paid for those memberships already. I get it on some level, but at the same time 'Go fuck yourself Neil you pandering cunt'