Written Well AND Delivered Well

As a colleague pointed out to me at a recent IGDA meeting, game dialog can be written well but not delivered well.  Even if the dialog is out-of-this-world, poor voice-acting, engine limitations, or mismatched animation can hamper the performance.  Many game developers do send the writer to the voiceover session, but how many think it’s important for the writer to interact with the programmers and artists?

Nowadays, game development is a collaborative process.  Large games need teams of specialized workers. As we discussed in our SXSW Interactive session, story design shouldn’t be separated from the other disciplines.  Story can go beyond ‘just the words.’  Instead, a dedicated narrative designer working with programmers, artists, and sound designers will know how to convey story in an interactive experience.  To do this well, a narrative designer should be considered part of a multidisciplinary team.

For more on this topic, please read the article on Gamasutra - “Towards More Meaningful Games: A Multidisciplinary Approach.”

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Top 5 misconceptions about hiring a game writing team

So you want to hire a game writer.  Congrats!  Whether adding to your staff or outsourcing your game writing, you’re not alone.  Apparently, most companies that hire writers, just hire one.  But have you considered a team of writers?  Before making your decision, read on to see if you’re struggling with any of these misconceptions about hiring a game writing team.

1.  Won’t two people cost more than one?

Quantity of work and the time you need it done in set the price for game writing more than the number of people doing it.  You could pay one person for two months to get a project done, or a team of two one month to get it done.  Either way, the costs are the same.   

2.  Can’t one person deliver the same as a writing team?

The above example assumes that all else is equal.  But not all things are equal.  You also pay your game writer(s) for quality, which as we all well know varies greatly in the game industry.  With an extra person looking over the writing before submitting it, you get higher quality work from a game writing team than a solo game writer.  You’re getting greater value by hiring a team.

3.  Won’t two writers just disagree a lot?

Yes, thank goodness!  It’s in these disagreements that the writing actually gets better.  Sande and I have worked together long enough that we can discuss an issue until we reach consensus.  This week we were working on a game pitch, and, based on our assessment of what the client wants, we decided to go with the classic 3-act structure.  We spent quite a few minutes discussing “midpoints,” of all things.  In the end, our conversation yielded a stronger, more organic story than if we’d just agreed to get along.  On the other hand, some clients — and maybe you’d be one of them — want a plurality of options before they decide to move forward, so our different perspectives come in handy.  

4.  A writing team can’t work individually.

I confess I don’t quite understand this misconception in game writing, but I’ll dispell it anyway.  While Sande and I collaborate on just about everything, with large projects we often split the work.  In the event that one of us is ill or occupied, the other one steps up and works alone.   

5.  I need my writer to come into the office, and it would be too hard to bring in a team.

Good for you!  It’s always a brilliant idea to bring your writer in to work, see the builds, and eat lunch ;)  That said, we have had cases where the client only had one of us come to the office at a time.  Since Sande and I are accustomed to virtual collaboration, we can easily communicate any information we learn to each other. 

So, let me have it.  What else is nagging you about hiring a writing team?  Send me an e-mail at anne (at) writerscabal.com, or drop a comment to this post!

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How to combat the villains of team writing

Know who those villains are?  Earlier this week I talked about two problems of collaborating in a writing team, in honor of our chapter in Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing.  Of course, these problems can appear anywhere and any time in game development.  Here’s what you can do to combat the two biggest villains: social loafing and production blocking.

You can attack social loafing on two fronts.  Social loafing occurs when team members don’t feel valued, so do what you can to make sure everyone’s contributions are heard and evaluated.  If you have someone on your team who’s really quiet and has trouble being heard, you may need to help him or her speak up outside of the group.  Social loafing also happens when people don’t feel the task is all that important.  Assign each person an important task key to your project’s completion.  You see this approach a lot in some game companies that use pods, or production groups that include a team member from each discipline — a writer, a designer, and a programmer.  Each member brings a unique and important point of view to the conversation, so you’ll see social loafing less often. 

In my earlier post, I told the story of how I ended up writing my junior high school play, and I raised the question as to whether I experienced social loafing.  The answer is no.  Everyone knew their contribution would be valued — and graded — we just didn’t get our act together.  You can just chalk that one up to bad management. 

To prevent production blocking, don’t spend all your time developing ideas in a group.  Allow people to develop ideas in advance of a group meeting, or after, if their ideas didn’t get a chance to be heard. You won’t necessarily have to use the ownership method of decision-making either.  People can bring their ideas together and decide on them through consensus, compromise, or even dictatorship, if that’s how you roll.

Sande and I have added asynchronous brainstorming and story-generating to our bag of tricks.  While we still brainstorm one-on-one, we have added a document where we can throw out ideas and add on to each other’s without blocking each other. 

Have you encountered any of these villains of team writing?  What have you done to overcome them?

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2 situations to avoid when writing in a team

You’ve already got the book — that’s Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing – and you’re anxious for more.  Whether you’re a game writer, or you’re a game developer, you’ll want to know two situations to avoid when game writers work as a team.  They’re so common, they even have names! 

Production blocking
Working as a group, throwing out and adding to each other’s ideas leads to some of the best results out there.  We’ve already talked about the different ways to run a team — ownership, compromise, and consensus — and the different drawbacks and benefits.  But when you gather in a group, production blocking can occur no matter how you organize the decision making. 

What is production blocking? Whenever someone is talking or you are moving forward on one idea, it prevents all the others from moving forward on their ideas. I have been in groups where, in an effort to avoid criticism during the brainstorming phase, we’ve drilled down on an idea that didn’t show much promise instead of gathering as many ideas as possible and focusing on the best ones.  

Social loafing
I love the name for this problem, and it’s more common than you think.  I’m reminded of a time in junior high when I was working in a team of three.  We were supposed to work on a script for a play together, but aside from some initial efforts researching together, we’d never sat down to write the script.  The day before it was due, I sat down and wrote the whole thing so we would get it in on time.  Were my teammates demonstrating social loafing? 

Social loafing occurs when people in a group don’t contribute as much as they normally would.  Social loafers don’t feel like their contributions will be valued or even recognized.  It also happens when people don’t feel their task is all that important.  A good example of social loafing was in an episode of Top Chef.  In a catering challenge, a caterer tried to get her point of view heard, but her teammates repeatedly dismissed her thoughts.  When the team lost, she expressed her anger loud and clear, surprising the judges.  How is it that she didn’t fight this hard when she was actually in the team?  The answer: it didn’t matter how loud she yelled, her opinion didn’t matter to them.  When she felt confident she would be heard, in front of the judges, that’s when she really spoke out. 

So how do you combat these two pernicious problems?  Were my friends in junior high social loafers?  All these answers and more in our next post! 

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Got cross-discipline? Why you need it in game development

Only a week or so ago, we had a designer/writer say you don’t need specialist writers.  But the fact of the matter is, everyone is somewhat specialized — few indeed can say they program, model, produce, and write.  And if you know anyone, send them our way ;)  To make a good game, we don’t need to roll up every talent into one person.  We do, however, need to find a way to get the various disciplines working together.  I’ve rounded up a few links on how game developers have been doing just that.

Inside Game Design: Media Molecule
Kareem Ettouney loves the small core team of different disciplines.  He sites other larger companies following the same model.  I’ve worked in a small core team of different types of designers and a programmer on staff — and I loved it!

Getting Coders and Artists to Communicate 
Chock full of great tips for building communication between any two disciplines — whether it be in person or e-mail.  These producers advocate getting out of the way of communication, especially if you’re a control freak, which none of our readers are ;)  Producers should create the opportunity to create, then reward it when it works.  These suggestions dovetail nicely with helping a writer “get it.”

Why Your Game Studio Should Practice ‘Shared Design’
Instead of putting experts from different disciplines, Crystal Dynamics’ Arnab Basu suggests putting your designers across different areas.  Put junior and senior together, let them get their hands on every project coming out of the gate.  This process includes interfacing with external teams, especially in “stunt” design — bringing someone on for a short period on a specific challenge.  Seems like you could use a writer in there who could flexibly move between projects.  I’m just sayin’.

The Secrets Of Portal’s Huge Success
You know this panel had to show up somewhere.  Kim Swift saw the importance of cross-discipline here, saying there’s a story story and gameplay story.  We like to say they’re ideally the same, but we’ll give them a pass. Working these stories together created a game that was better than the sum of its parts, which is the result of any good cross-disciplinary work.

Sharing the Design
You can still share the design, even if you’re not playing well with others.  This article shows how the old ownership model can still play in in cross-disciplinary design.  Split the work based on strengths, develop a common vocabulary — especially with outsourcers, then keep coming back together to communicate.  A good model for a designer working with a writer whether on staff or on contract.

Found any other great cross-discipline success stories out there? 

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Game Writers SIG book available on Amazon

I know you were just waiting for the next book on writing games to come out, so it’s pretty lucky for you that a bunch are coming out at once.  Of course, we’d like to direct you to the one to which we contributed: Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing, available for pre-sale on Amazon.  Despite its name, it actually will be of interest to developers and producers as well.  In it you may find some familiar or not-so-familiar discussion about collaborating in a team as well as working with writers on contract.

In the interest of full disclosure, two other books on game writing and design have recently hit the shelves.  Game Design: From Blue Sky to Green Light by Deborah Todd appeared on the scene nearly a year ago, and the modestly titled The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design by Flint Dille & John Zuur Platten was published in January.  All of this goes to show you that one of the side effects of writing for games is the urge to write about writing for games.

If you’re at a loss as to which book to read, you can of course just keep coming here.  You know you like us best.

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How to manage ego in games

It’s funny where you’ll get little pearls of wisdom.  I was wandering around in circles today in front of the AMPTP — that’s the coalition of Hollywood producers that the WGA currently has an issue with.  I ended up speaking with a writer who had gotten started in animation and recently made the transition to live-action primetime.  We spoke about animation writers, who are generally just cooler than live action writers, and he had a great reason why. 

Many primetime writers end up with large egos, and there’s no way to take them down a notch.  Many of their shows are great.  Many of their shows are watched by millions.  But in animation, all you have to do when anyone gets too big for hir britches is lean in and say, “Dude, it’s just a cartoon.”

Should game developers have the same attitude as animation writers?  Nothing is just a game anymore.  It’s “just” an outgrowth of the oldest form of entertainment on Earth.  It’s “just” a billion dollar industry.  It “just” entertains people all over the globe, young and old.  Many of us make games because we wouldn’t dream of doing anything else.  How could we possibly say, “It’s just a game?”

We can and we should.  Not because the game industry is “just” anything, but because to work on an intensely collaborative medium, we need to manage our egos to create something worth playing.  We’re creating a fun experience; it should be fun to make, too.  So next time someone leans in and says “Dude, it’s only a game,” don’t think he’s denigrating the great medium of games.  He’s probably just telling you to check your ego at the door.  

It’s not too late to enter the win THE WITCHER UK!  Contest ends Wednesday at 8am PST. 

Last week’s game moment came from ZOO VET. Did you guess? More Guess that Game Dialog to come this week!

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Game writing links you haven’t seen

You’re a long-time reader, and you’ve noticed something missing.  Maybe you can’t quite put your finger on it, but it’s there, gnawing at you, the unanswered question: Where are all the posts about Gamasutra articles?  Fear not, reader, because I haven’t forgotten – I have been saving up for one big blow-out! From game design to team building, here’s what Gamasutra reported in the past month that matters to game writers and the developers who tolerate them.  Check out the links, then come back and argue with me about my take ;)  

MIGS 2007: Jonathan Blow On The ‘WoW Drug’, Meaningful Games
Blow thinks games should give players challenges to work through and choices to make.  Could he be talking about the non-trivial moral choices that story-driven design can provide?  Hmmm…

Working Without Crunch
Instead of the old pyramid of time, money, and quality, how about time, scope, and resources?  Writers can help reduce scope without sacrificing quality, and outsourced writers are a great resource when your core team is pressed for time.  But you already knew that.

Gas Powered’s Swanson On Managing Next-Gen Artists
Swanson discusses the difficulty of finding managers who can handle artists, or finding artists who can handle managing.  Luckily, those working with writers can turn to the Writers Cabal Blog!

Epic’s Mike Capps Talks Team Building
Capps lowers the boom on running his team at Epic.  When he talked about reducing inefficiency, we know he was really talking about the benefits of outsourcing your inefficient weaknesses, like writing.  To keep relations smooth, he also discussed the three C’s - compliments, concerns, and criticism.  We’re a little disappointed there’s no mention of the feedback sandwich, but he probably ran short on time.

Game Design: Bottom-Up And Top-Down Approaches
Explores two approaches to designing a game: designing from gameplay up, or designing from story down.  I admit, I was so horrified by the idea that story didn’t form the basis of gameplay in the article (!) that I couldn’t read the whole thing.  Run over there and come back and tell us how it ends.

Now that I have blown all possible blog posts for the rest of the year, check back next week to see what we come up with!

Guess that game moment! What game requires the hero to fight for “everlasting peace?” Can’t remember? Check back next week to see where it came from.

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