Writers Guild Nominates Video Game Writers
On a cold snowy night in the midwest, it warms the cockles of my heart to see videogame writers getting a bit of love from the big boys upstairs. The big boys meaning the Writers Guild of America who nominated five of 2008's releases for their second annual Videogame Writing Award. Any time those word wizards who craft the narratives of my favorite games get recognition, I become the happiest geek on the planet. This year's nominees range from space epics to war stories to post-apocalyptic mutant blasting RPG's. Here are the five nominees, in no particular order:
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 (EA LA). Writer: Haris Orkin. Story Producer: Mical Pedriana.Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble! (Mousechief). Writing: Keith Nemitz. Additional Writing: Adrianne Ambrose.
Fallout 3 (Bethesda Game Studios). Lead Writer: Emil Pagliarulo. Quest Writing: Erik J. Caponi, Brian Chapin, Jon Paul Duvall, Kurt Kuhlmann, Alan Nanes, Bruce Nesmith, and Fred Zeleny. Additional Quest Writing: Nate Ellis, William Killeen, Mark Nelson, and Justin McSweeney.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (LucasArts). Writers: Haden Blackman, Shawn Pitman, John Stafford and Cameron Suey.
Tomb Raider: Underworld (Eidos). Story: Eric Lindstrom and Toby Guard. Screenplay: Eric Lindstrom.
Has anyone else heard of Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!? Now before my heart was completely defrosted, I learned that only writers in the WGA are eligible for the award. This leaves out most video game writers, and leaves us with some arguably confusing selections. If I had to pick a winner, it would either be Star Wars or Tomb Raider, once again proving that I'm the only person on the planet who didn't love Fallout 3. I would have thrown Prince of Persia in the mix for the dialogue alone and Metal Gear Solid 4 for sheer insane complexity. Which games are missing from the WGA list and which nominee do you vote for?
Fallout 3, Tomb Raider, Red Alert 3 Nominated By Writers Guild [Gamasutra]
TheDoctor
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 12 January 2009
· Comments (5)
Other stuff like this: awards, writers guild of america, writing
This year the awards were opened to any game writer who applied for membership. This is how we entered our game, by applying for membership at the same time.
I'm surprised you haven't heard about DHSGiT, because this website was one of the first sites to write about the game.
http://gaygamer.net/2008/02/indie_hotness_dangerous_high_s.html
I even followed up with a couple emails offering to supply free review copies.
Keith Nemitz
Mousechief Co.
www.mousechief.com
"We put mischief in your mouse!"
Even though he probably has nothing to do with WGA, I think the guy who translated the Thousand Years of Memories segments for Lost Odyssey deserves a honorable mention. Those texts were originally written by some big-name Japanese author, but in my opinion the translations are just superb too, clearly more than just word-to-word translations.
Being what I'd call a playable novel, Lost Odyssey deserves a playthrough from everybody who don't have an attention span of two seconds. Which unfortunately excludes quite many people nowadays. ;P
Don't worry doc!! You are not alone, i don't love Fallout 3 either.
Hey Keith,
I'm sorry for being an ignorant ass about your game. It was before my time on the site. Congrats on the nomination!
TheDoctor
Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble! has an excellent writeup by Emily Short over on Gamesetwatch. Not surprisingly, it's a column about the writing in the game.