Games are becoming so fancy that developers and publishers are returning to their roots, looking to create titles based more on story and good quality content, rather than relying on graphics and shiny special effects.

This was the argument used to open Writing – It's More Than A Game - a session at the recent National Screenwriters' Conference, held in South Australia's Barossa Valley. Kingsley and I had made the trip out into the countryside for the day, but weren't really sure what to expect. Games writing is an often-ignored career path, generally overshadowed by the artistic or technical side of games creation - but we wanted to find out what was involved, and how writing for games was different to writing for other media.

The event was structured as two presentations, followed by a brief Q&A panel session. For those who couldn't be there but who like visual aids, we have some raw footage of both speakers plus the Q&A linked at the end of a recap of the day's events.

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First up, writer/designer/programmer Paul Callaghan took the stage to explain that, put simply, "Games are not stories". No matter how carefuly you might try to craft a narrative, the player will always do things their own way, in turn creating their own experience and story from the ideas and concepts put in place by the writers.

The conversation wheel in Mass Effect is a great storytelling device

He also pointed out that "Games have their own storytelling grammar" - they're not the same as poetry, or comics, or novels, or even film - with most of the game being made up of moment-to-moment action, and a mere "10%" story. The dramatic points in the experience are more due to the player rather than the author, he says. That's not to say that the writer is not a crucial part of the game's development - story in fact provides a reward mechanism for the gamer! It's what drives you to want to keep playing, keep going, to find the bad guys, get your money, or even win the princess. In a way, games are all about telling the audience what to do - which is something that is impossible in all other media.

Of course, it's that element of choice, and the player-driven notion of gaming that scares off many writers, but Paul asserts that there is "nothing to fear from choice". It's not a situation where authors cannot create emotions, instead, Paul wanted people to understand that it's an opportunity to create different emotions. He also explained that games writing wasn't quite as daunting as many people may expect, by the use of "story bridges" - where the gamer is given almost sandbox-like levels of freedom until a crucial point in the story, where they snap back to walking a given path (it doesn't matter how many subquests you go off on, eventually you'll come back to continue the main story arc of the game!).

BioShock: games are about doing what you are told

People are also often concerned that their writing skills - structure, pacing, premise, the idea of theme - will all be ignored when it comes to gaming, but this is not the case. Paul explains that, again, it's just a matter of using these skills differently than you might in other media.

As a writer, Paul knows everybody wants to be the centre of attention - but he rightly points out that in the games industry, you're stuck playing second fiddle, somewhere behind the gameplay itself. The story, while an important element, is only really there to support the designer, programmer and producer - if their work is no good, a brilliant story is not going to save them.

"Our job is to make the player do what we want to do, and feel what we want to feel," Paul said, explaining that the role of writer could also be labelled that of an Emotional Engineer.

He also referenced a number of games in his presentation, but the title that had the most impact on the audience was the cult favourite Shadow of the Colossus.

Shadow of the Colossus As a lone horseback traveller, your destiny is entwined with that of a lifeless young girl who lies on an altar within a vast temple. The girl is helpless, her soul has been lost and there is only one way to retrieve it... Following a voice from the heavens, you embark on a dark and dangerous quest to seek out and slay the enormous wandering monsters that roam this strange world. Only you can defeat these formidable Colossi, and in doing so, only you can bring life to the girl who lies waiting on the altar.

This is a game that contains very little speech, yet it is one of the most emotionally engaging game experiences of our time, thanks to the writers. The audience was visibly affected after watching just a few moments of a trailer for the game that illustrated the emotional turmoil that occurs when playing. Paul explained that the developers had created a compelling story that made the gamer strongly want to reach the end - but in order to do so, you have to kill the Colossi, who are generally wandering around pretty harmlessly. Anybody who has played the game will tell you that the opposition between what you have to do (kill them) and what you want to do (not kill them) creates a totally visceral emotional response, which draws you further into this story than any book or film is capable of.

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Jumper: Griffin's Story

Joe Velikovsky, a freelance screenwriter for game and film, also experienced in TV writing, believes that BioShock is "the closest videogames have come to serious literature". He's an Australian developer, who recently worked on Jumper: Griffin's Story (a movie tie-in game with a cross-over plot, rather than a straight adaptation), as well as the Australian-developed cartoon release Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal.

In case you were wondering what it takes to create a game based on such a well-loved franchise, Joe explained that he watched more than 180 episodes of Looney Tunes, then picked the ten that would translate best to video games - these made up the ten 'chapters' of Acme Arsenal. For a game that doesn't contain much outright dialogue, it's still a challenging affair - coming up with twenty different ways to say "Ouch!" can get a bit frustrating!

In his fairly hasty presentation, Joe pointed out that, in most people's opinions, games need to work (bugs are really going to ruin the experience), they need to be fun to play (because otherwise, why play it?), and the storyline comes somewhere a distant third to that - even seen as being optional in many cases! In recent times however, this is starting to change, harking back to comments made earlier about developers returning to their roots and creating more story-driven titles. This is also backed up by the resurgence or development of various "story genres" - survival-horror, action-adventure, fantasy RPG - and even some platformers and FPS titles are taking a step up to now include a reason for gamers' actions.

Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal

A film is seen as being a fairly simple arrangement of premise, theme, character, plot, structure and dialogue - which adds up to three acts made up of sixty scenes of two minutes each (roughly). Game design on the other hand requires good guys / allied NPCs, bad guys, items, weapons, vehicles, and locations - plus the story elements similar to those required for film. This is then spread out over three acts or ten chapters (plus cut-scenes)... and in many cases, these chapters should be modular or cumulative, as not everybody will take the same path through the game, or one level or another may be found to be impractical or unviable for inclusion in the end product, and must be dropped without severely impacting on the story.

Another way of looking at it, and echoing what Paul was saying earlier, Joe observed that games are really "spatial stories" - with the narrative more about getting from A to B through an expansive space, rather than being more character-driven (because - obviously - player freedom will wipe out many of your ideas about character development). This is not a new concept - classic novels like those by Jules Verne (Journey to the Centre of the Earth, etc) illustrate this point too, as do the Lord of the Rings novels which include maps in their stories, or War and Peace which comes complete with family trees. Joe offers the hint - if you've written a screenplay that you think may be suitable for a game, check to see if it includes at least eight distinct (and interesting) locations.

Games writing is a viable career path for people to take, although Joe warns that they are still seen as being "below krill on the food chain". That said, landing a job on a big-name AAA title will likely to get you a couple of years of solid work, which does equate to some decent money (...and, he adds later, there may well be more money in writing for games than writing for film!).

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We can share with you the raw footage of both Paul Callaghan and Joe Velikovsky's presentations (keep in mind these are unedited and do not include the game videos referenced), and we've also got the video of the panel discussion, which ended the session. This more casual setting includes questions from the audience, and is packed with information from both Paul and Joe, and also Jim Shomos, himself also a writer for film and digital media, who hosted the morning's talks.

Download the National Screenwriters' Conference 2009 - Panel Discussion video

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(Left to Right: Joe Shomos, Paul Callaghan, Joe Velikovsky)
The National Screenwriters' Conference 2009 was presented by the Australian Writers Guild, who have recently started branching out to include games writers, as well as their more traditional media brethren - and it is an industry that is gaining recognition around the country and around the world.

When people think about jobs in the games industry, they typically think of artists, or programmers, directors or producers - but what if you're no good at drawing, don't understand code and really, would prefer to just string a few words together and come up with 20 different ways to exclaim "Oh no, I'm on fire!"? Maybe games writing is for you! A technical background isn't necessary (although all three presenters mentioned that understanding a simple "IF -> THEN -> ELSE" concept would be a good start), and there are courses and openings all around Australia if you're interested.

Want to know more? Have specific questions for Paul, Joe or Jim? Let us know!
Also, if there's any particular jobs in the games industry that you want to know more about, make sure you tell us.