Video game writing
Video game writing is the art and craft of writing scripts and narratives for video games. Similar to screenwriting, it is typically a freelance profession. It includes many differences from writing for film, due to the non-linear and interactive nature of most video games, and the necessity to work closely with video game designers and voice actors. There are many differing types of text in video games in comparison to stage shows or movies, including written text, foreign or made-up languages, and often situation-based information. Especially when developing Triple A games, more than one writer will be required to create the game, split into different roles.
Writers
People who write video games are part of the design team, during pre-production, and create the main plot of a video game but can also focus on the dialogue, the character creation and development or the worldbuilding.During the game development process, the design may change, and a video game writer can also be asked to fix the eventual narrative issues.
The importance of the plot can be minimized by some video game designers, for instance Harvey Smith of Arkane Studios claimed that "The world is very important. The characters are very important. The plot? It can be thrown away. Because each gamer will build his own story." Moreover, according to academic and video game designer Ian Bogost video games can be much more than narrative media, by putting together, in a non-linear structure, elements of everyday life, as in What Remains of Edith Finch.
One issue specific to the medium is that priority is given to interactive play mechanics over narrative which could lead to ludonarrative dissonance: a situation when ludic and narrative elements are opposed to each other, as Far Cry 2 director Clint Hocking defined the concept in his blog.
There is no specific training to video game writing and some video game writers – such as Tim Schafer and Sam Barlow – are also in charge of other game development tasks.
Types
Video game writing differs from writing for other arts, due to the non-linear and interactive nature of most video games, and the necessity to work closely with video game designers and voice actors. There are many differing types of text in video games in comparison to stage shows or movies, including written text, foreign or made-up languages, and often situation-based information. Subsequently, more than one writer will often be used to create the game, split into different roles, with more specific job titles that can range from being a traditional writer, developing an overview of the story and how it reacts to the player, or creating a translation or localization.Pitch writing
A pitch writer specializes in writing pitches for video games to publishers. They create collaborative pitch documents within a game studio that often contain design mockups or art concepts. The main parts of a pitch document, in order from first to last, are the executive summary, audience analysis, story, competition analysis, market analysis, gameplay, and budget and schedule.With an increasing emphasis placed on game profitability, especially in the free to play model, the F.T.U.E. and retention metrics have also become important parts of the pitch document.