I read this article yesterday and was going to “review” it, but it’s just too good. If you love the concept of storytelling and exceptional writing in video games, you have to go read Susan O’Connor’s take on it. Who cares about Susan O’Connor? Oh, I dunno, she wrote some of the best video game plots of the past 10 years including Tomb Raider, Far Cry 2, and BioShock. She also headed up the Games Writers Conference. So yeah. READ IT. Then come back and talk to me about it 😀
http://gameological.com/2013/05/susan-oconnor-game-writer/
iamspacegiraffe
Buuuuhhh.. I’m in no way in the right frame of mind to comment BUT YOU ASKED!!!
So, a quick note…
“I don’t want to tell stories that involve shooting or being shot at.” – JUST IGNORE ALL THOSE GAMES I HELPED MAKE.
#quotesoutofcontext
Laurie
Hahahaha, I DID ASK. And even though I knew you were joking, my heart cried out “But Tooooomb Raaaiiiddeeerrr!”
Wa hoo for jokes!
eljugganot
I sure as heck WILL read it.
Laurie
BE CAREFUL. I said I was going to read it for two days and only finally read it as I was writing this post.
eljugganot
I finally read this…and I have to say…i don’t know what to make of it. It seems like she spent equal time dropping gems of wisdom for people who want to be involved in game design (like myself) as well as half of the interview essentially saying she’s tired of this game writing shit. I guess that’s just the complex nature of humanity or something…lol. She seems be totally void of any joy in writing games for a living…but she wants to share her theories on how to potentially make the experiences better….I dunno, why not just try to write with a smaller development team where she may have more freedom in the direction of the game development? Where she can truly apply her ideas before she walks away from the medium? Great article and great post, to be sure.
Laurie
Ha, it’s true – her writing fatigue showed in the interview. I’ve found, trying to break in, that smaller devs (this is purely anecdotal, so what do I know) don’t even have writers, because they just needs artists and coders to get it going. Story comes second, always. *shrug It’s hard line to toe, no doubt.
Regardless, thanks for the comment! Always nice to hear some other thoughts on the matter.
Ashton
Yikes! I totally haven’t had the time to check back on this site for a week or so, Laurie, so I’ve just been saving up the email notifications I get every time you make a new post. I’m stabbing myself in the eyes now for not getting to this sooner because this is totally up my alley. I’m going to give O’Connor’s article a thorough read before I make any comments here directly related to it, but I’m always excited to glimpse the perspective of a writer in the industry (partly because it’s what I’ve always wanted to do). BRB ASAP! TTFN!
Ashton
Okay, I had a chance to read the interview last night, and I found my opinion shaping closer and closer to eljugganot’s comment above. O’Connor has been such an outspoken figure in the industry and such a strong advocate for video game writers, it was disheartening to read that she had, effectively given up.
I was particularly troubled by her claiming that she had worked on (to paraphrase) some of the best games ever made, to have reached the peak of the industry, and still find it was “not enough.” BioShock was terrific, don’t get me wrong, but we all know that it was largely a spiritual successor to System Shock 2 and wasn’t as revolutionary as I think O’Connor wants to believe it was. The genre is moving forward every day. Sometimes we take baby steps, other times we take leaps. If she really wanted to be a part of the solution, she’d involve herself even more deeply with the game design process (she specifically states that she would not want to take on the role of a Ken Levine).
She seems disconnected from the industry, and I think that’s why she feels so invisible. She wants to write video games like they’re books or screenplays but, by her own admission, games can’t be designed that way. The best storytellers in video games are those who can marry design and narrative. Should writers play a more integral role in the development of games? I think they most assuredly should. But they can’t expect to approach their work the same way that a screenwriter, playwright, or novelist would.
Laurie
I think that definitely hits the nail on the head – managing comparisons between art forms. Games writers have to navigate that line between “I’m a creative artists and want that to be king” with “There are too many cooks in this proverbial kitchen for me to demand my narrative be the number one consideration.”
I think I enjoyed the article so much because people (read: me) really put games writing on pedestal, and even when you are great at what you do, like Susan O’Connor, you can get burned out, there are crappy parts of the job, you want to quit, and you can’t keep advocating from the rooftops for better narrative in games by yourself, without some support. So . . . the article is good, and the sadness it generates is good too, I think.