Today, I’d like to address one of the big misconceptions in games writing.

Have you ever asked yourself who writes the story for a AAA game? (the kind you pay £50 for on Amazon) Let’s be honest, the first reaction is ‘the writer’… 

Er…  Nope… 

I think Clive Barker might get away with it and I suppose there are some games based on books or films, but they tend to be ‘adapted’ to fit the game.  Trust me; look at the games based on Lord of the Rings and you will see that they will often take place in Middle Earth, but player agency comes at the expense of deviating from the established story.

Any videogame which is not a linear translation of another medium needs writing as a videogame story.  Okay…  So who writes this?  If it is not the writer, maybe the lead designer…

Not on any game I have worked on…

Designers nearly always start with a brief.  Even those who pitch to a publisher will usually have constraints passed down from the management and feedback from any number of production and/or marketing staff.  By the time you get approval, half the story is locked down and included in the contract.

And this is where the writer comes in, right?

Not yet…

In a small number of studios (like Bioware or Valve), you might get the writer working with the lead designer to bash out a basic design.  Mostly, it is just the design team on their own though.  The story is warped and re-worked to match the game mechanics. (this is not actually a bad thing, I don’t think, but that’s another topic) If the game has some innovative mechanics (like a gun that makes portals, for instance) then the story will have to introduce the mechanic and how it can be used in new and exciting ways.

Does the writer come in yet?

Sometimes…

Some studios, more and more as time goes on, will get the writer involved at this point, but I wouldn’t say they were in the majority.  Even discounting studios who don’t use professional writers, I think it is more common to see the story being written by designers.  They will often refer to it as ‘place-holder’ at this stage, but you end up with a semi-complete script.

I can haz writer nao?

Okay…  Maybe now.

So, in comes the writer.  They are given what is basically a completed script and then a producer tells them to ‘storify’ it.  The levels have been made, the cut-scenes rendered, character models are ready…  If you really beg, a writer can sometimes get some small changes made, maybe swap two missions around, but they usually have to ask the producer, who asks the studio head, who asks the designers if they have time, who will do their best…

Once the new dialogue gets sent back, someone (usually a junior designer) will put it into the game, often with a few transcription errors or misspelt dialogue-IDs that get fixed at the studio’s end, and the writer’s contract ends.  Some minor edits happen in-house, but tend to be minor and carefully-done.

On the other hand, in-house writers will often start writing as soon as the initial brief gets passed own from the publisher or the design team.  They can beg, threaten and bribe the artists and designers to help them tell the story and even minimise the amount of text ‘rewritten’ by producers, designers and well-meaning voice-actors.

So…  Who writes the story for a game?  I’m not sure either, and I work as a professional videogame writer, but now you have as much idea as I do.

Let’s call it a collaborative effort…