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A REPORT LOOKING INTO HOW THE JOB OF A GAME WRITER HAS CHANGED, BOTH DUE TO TECHNOLIGICAL CHANGES AND INDUSTRY CHANGES
SAM P BETLEM
HTTP://GADSAMBETLEM.BLOGSPOT.CO.UK/ | sampb176@hotmail.co.uk
Game Writer
Game writers are now a vital part of a lot of games creation and development, they create the fabric of the world that hundreds of people indulge themselves into every day. Chris Crawford (2004, blurb) describes game interactivity By letting players act out the role of the protagonist, interactive storytelling creates a more complex, more engaging experience. Today the game industry brings in hundreds of freelance writers, and company employed writers to complete script or scenes for the various games; however this job has not been around since the start of the game industry in 1976. I am going to be looking at how this job has been implemented to the industry and weather the job has changed as games have changed.
How outside media has effected games industry and therefore the writers
Outside media has an effect on any industry, I have looked into some of the negative news articles about games over the years, during the late 1990s and early 2000 there was a large amount of bad press involving video games (No journalist mention) 2000 April (BCC news article) time spent playing video games in the past was associated with lower academic grades in college. This quote shows that around the early 2000s that games were receiving a lot of bad reputation for causing problems in schools, however the game industry has changed drastically since then. Later that very month another news article was brought out about teaching for games. Dr David Louis 2000 April (BBC news article) "In future it would be good to see specially designed educational video games that communicate factual information in an exciting and involving manner.
This is a prime example of the change that hit the game industry around the year 2000, games were receiving a lot of bad press for being violent, around this time new concepts started to develop teaching games were a stepping stone onto so many indie games that are growing hugely at the moment. This brought on new opportunities for game writers to change their writing style and write for completely new genres and game formats. Games werent just receiving bad press for causing bad marks in school violence and addictive video games were still creating a large amount of news organizations to turn on the gaming industry. Dr Craig Anderson 2000 (BBC news article) as the player learns and practices new aggression-related scripts that can become more and more accessible for use when real-life conflict situations arise. This again shows how bad the gaming industry was in the eyes of the media. This demanded change for the game developers, making the games, less about violence and more about other forms of entertainment, such as storytelling, teaching or puzzle games. This is speculation but from this you can assume that the roles of writers (the people who give life to the game) had to change how the stories were being told; breaking away from the normal violent games and changing the feel to something less vindictive.
Birliography
Crawford, C. (2004) Chris Crawford on intereactive storytelling. 2nd ed. Peachpit Press, p.Blurb. FreedomLab (2010) Molyneux: Multiple branching stories - Golden line of the narrative is key'. [online] Available at: http://vimeo.com/album/841956/video/14446834 [Accessed: 13 Feb 2013]. G4tv.com (2012) Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning's R.A. Salvatore. [online] Available at: http://www.g4tv.com/videos/58227/kingdoms-of-amalur-reckonings-ra-salvatore/ [Accessed: 13 Feb 2013]. MARX, C. (2010). Write your way into animation and games create a writing career in animation and games. Burlington, MA, Focal Press/Elsevier. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/book/9780240813431. News.bbc.co.uk (2000) BBC News | EDUCATION | Video games 'valid learning tools'. [online] Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/730440.stm [Accessed: 13 Feb 2013]. News.bbc.co.uk (2000) BBC News | HEALTH | Video games 'increase aggression'. [online] Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/720707.stm [Accessed: 13 Feb 2013]. News.bbc.co.uk (2002) BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Authors turn to video games. [online] Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/2542487.stm [Accessed: 13 Feb 2013]. Sarahtherebel.com (2012) Game Industry Secrets: Interview with Video Game Writer Amanda Doiron. [online] Available at: http://sarahtherebel.com/2012/11/12/game-industry-secretsinterview-with-video-game-writer-amanda-doiron/ [Accessed: 13 Feb 2013]. YouTube (n.d.) Character Dialogue and Story video game writer - Anne Toole interview. [online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic2mjfhGUPI [Accessed: 13 Feb 2013].