[...] role of writers in the entertainment software industry. Ron Toland offers a rebuttal. Ryan Shwayder comments, followed by Steve Danuser and Aaron Miller. I don’t have a lot to say on the subject except [...]

How many times have you thought, “this game would have sucked if not for the story”? Conversely, how many times have you thought “this game would have been awesome if only it didn’t have a story”?

For example, R.A. Salvatore is a great fantasy novel writer. Can he write well for games? Yes… Why? He’s a hardcore MMO player with multiple max level characters in games like WoW, EQ, and others, and he’s been learning more and more about game design.

Would I expect Michael Moorcock to be good at writing for games? No… Why? Because I don’t think he plays video games.

A game writer is as different from a movie writer as a game artist is from a canvas artist. Many of the same things apply, but you can’t expect one to do well in the other field.

The writer needs to know his medium.

When I take a story I wrote in text and try to put it to comic book, I often have to change story elements to play to the medium’s strengths. If I were to try to make a screenplay from it, I’d again have to rewrite entire events- often making the story unfold quite differently- to make the best use of the medium I’m dealing with. These changes can be substantial.

A good book writer won’t be a successful game writer unless he understands the medium and writes to its strengths. Once he does, he’ll pick up much the same jargon that a game designer does. He may even start slipping into game design roles… exploring the impact of a game mechanic has on the flow of the epic (even a “good” game mechanic poorly placed can work against the overall effect). Of course, at some point some people just start lumping these people into “game design” because… well, writers don’t do that sort of stuff, right?

That’s not right, either. I could read a programming language long before I could fluently write in it. Similarly, I can understand the impact of different game mechanics on a story before I could comfortably come up with new creative game mechanics myself.

Now, depending on the size of the design shop and the budget, yes, one individual may have to wear multiple hats, but that doesn’t diminish the importance of the role.

All I get from his point is that a stupid writer is not a good add to a team. This does not rule out “good writers”, which are a great add to a game design team. I can see how he might want to avoid stupid ones, though. I’m also not surprised that a game designer (who also writes) thinks that the world needs more game designers (who also write). Or at least more jobs for them.

Expecting great programmers or great game designers to also be great writers is stretching things.