Writers Guild of America Game Nominations

Author: Joe Martin
Published: 16th January 2008
Comments (6) Stumble
Writers Guild of America Game Nominations

Crash of the Titans is better written than BioShock? I think not!

Writing the plotline and story for a computer game may sound easy to you, but in reality it's quite hard. There's lots of plotting, drafting and imagineering to do and it's never as simple as just "Kill him with a big gun". Plus, there's lots of filing to do.

Finally and for the first time ever, the Writers Guild of America has seen fit to recognise the amount of work and dedication that goes into writing the story for a computer game and, frankly, they couldn't have seen a better year to start. In 2007 we had BioShock, Half-Life: Episode 2, Mass Effect and the first Call of Duty game with an original plotline. Ripe pickings, eh?

Of course, the Writers Guild is new to all this computer business, so naturally none of those games made the list. Instead, they've decided that the cream of the crop is as follows...

Crash of the Titans -- Written by Christopher Mitchell for Sierra Entertainment
Dead Head Fred -- Written by Dave Ellis and Adam Cogan for D3 Publisher
The Simpsons Game -- With lead writer Matt Selman, written by Tim Long and Matt Warburton, dialogue by Jeff Poliquin for EA
The Witcher -- With lead story designer Artur Ganszyniec, dialogue by Sebastian Stepien, additional dialogue by Marcin Blacha and writers Sande Chen and Anne Toole for Atari
World in Conflict -- Story design by Christofer Emgard, story consultant Larry Bond and script consultant Ed Zuckerman for Sierra Entertainment.

OK, so the last two are fair cop, but Crash of the Titans? Really?

Ah well, if you just want to learn more about what goes in to writing and designing a computer game then you can always check out our regular feature on game design - the latest installment of which looks specifically at World in Conflict, funnily enough. Otherwise, why not swing by the forums and let us know what you think?
Quote Delphium 16th January 2008, 10:53
Crash?? CRASH!!???!?! more like ****ing TRASH!!
z0mg, Bioshock, Crysis, Company of Heros, and the many others mentioned on the front page have far superior plots to them!

Great news for the game writters, and I think its deserved, with all the great games of late, some recognition would not go amiss ;)

However, can we please have a viable pannel of judges, ones that actually know and have played the games, not just a glimpse at what there 8yr old son/daughter might be playing on the big TV as they go to make a cup of coffee.
Quote Flibblebot 16th January 2008, 11:26
Do these organisations (Writers' Guild, BAFTA etc) actually go out and look at games themselves, or do they just look at whatever gets sent to them?

I wasn't even aware that Crash thingy had a story line worthy of mention.

As Delphium, said, it's good that game writers are finally getting recognition, but it's worthless if the crappest games always get the awards.
Quote Jamie 16th January 2008, 11:50
I've got Crash of the Titans and it certainly doesn't deserve any writing awards in my opinion.
Quote l3w1z 16th January 2008, 12:56
The crash games, I feel, are more like playing Super Mario Bros. for the first time where you don;t fully understand the storyline. But in this case, you really couldn't care as the game play is utter trash.
Quote DXR_13KE 16th January 2008, 15:18
what the hell? these guys are another BAFTA..... just ignore them.....
Quote thecrownles 17th January 2008, 07:20
I hope they go on strike as well.
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