“Auto Assault” creator Adam Maxwell said that game writers are irrelevant next to designers in an editorial on Gamasutra.
“Writers do not dictate the way players interact with the world, nor do they dictate the way the player experiences the content that they themselves may create. These are the responsibilities of the game designer,” he wrote.
“Even when the writer has written the dialogue, decided the plot, created every character and conceptualized every setting,” it’s the designer who puts the world together, said Maxwell. “When it comes to playing the game, to interacting with the world presented within, a writer has no real power.”
This is in stark contrast to Denis Dyack’s opinions. Dyack devotes a while section of his “Too Human” team to content. Rather than releasing writers after the plot is set, as Maxwell proposes, Dyack has them work closely with the designers to ensure that their concept of the world is implemented and that art and gameplay supplement the plot.
Maxwell is ignoring the spirit of cooperative enterprise that makes games great.
He compares games to Hollywood, and agrees with Roger Ebert that “authorial control is not something native to video games.” Do directors have absolute authorial control? Absolutely not. Films are a team effort, produced with the work of hundreds of people on and off the screen. The director doesn’t turn actors and lighting engineers into puppets, but allows their creative input to become a part of the final piece.
It’s the same with games. Game designers aren’t the only necessary part of making a good game, as Maxwell suggests. Concept artists, composers, managers, testers, and especially writers all have something to contribute to a game and all influence each others work.
Games aren’t made in a step by step process. Writers don’t write the script, then pass it off to the designers and leave, nor do designers make the levels then give them to someone else. Games, and film, require a team of people working together to bring a shared vision to life. They have just as much artistic potential as any other medium, and cooperation with talented, creative writers makes a good game.
Hmm, you know, I don’t actually disagree with you - rather I believe we’re looking at the topic at different levels of granularity. I was referring specifically to authorial control over the player. In games, this can be best illustrated with the “golf club scene” in Bioshock. (I’m trying to avoid spoilers for those who haven’t yet played this excellent game).
I really wanted to make a choice there, but I could not - the 2K Boston crew had enforced their authorial control on me, the player. This is exactly how writing in static media such as films or books works as well - and this is the authorial control to which I was referring.
This type of authorial control is not intrinsic to games. In fact, partially because of the uniquely collaborative nature of games (where developers AND players collaborate together to create an experience), I might go so far as to say that I think in the long run we’ll look back at this period and realize that enforcing that type of authorial control has held back game innovation. Only time will tell of course, and I love story based games in the meantime, so it’s not like that statement matters, but none the less - it was this level of authorial control I was referring to. I don’t know Roger Ebert, but as I said in the original piece, I suspect this is the type of authorial control he means, as well.
You are correct; games are a collaborative process. However, you’re also incorrect: Games are also (in many cases) a step by step process. There comes a point in every game where your writer is done — this point comes earlier than the point where your designer is done, in the majority of cases.
There are exceptions, such as your writer working for other aspects of game publishing (writing manuals, website copy, etc.), but looking only at the development team of a game as I was - there comes a time when your writer is out of work. A designer, on the other hand, will always have something to do. You will have to tell her to stop, in fact.
and that’s the core of my point: dollar for dollar, a designer who is also talented as a writer (a scenario I posit is more common than anyone gives this industry credit for), is worth more to your game than a writer who is not a designer.
You posit a truly collaborative process where the writer is involved in every aspect. That’s a good idea, if your game calls for it, and an invitation for disaster if your game does not. In either case, and for that to work at all, your writer basically has to be a designer - because she’ll have to think like one in order to understand where and how to work with everyone to realize the plot your game is enslaved to.
At that point, haven’t you hired the designer who can also write that I was talking about, in the first place?