What's my motivation?!?

The Writers Guild of America announced recently that they will be adding a Video Game writing award to their 2008 Writers Guild Awards ceremony. The award was instituted "to encourage storytelling excellence in video games, to improve the status of writers, and to begin to encourage uniform standards". The Guild went on to say that this award "Aims to spotlight a wide range of quality work by video game writers." I would like to know who exactly they could be thinking of when they instituted this award. I'm not trying to say that this award is ill advised or not needed, In fact I'm all for promoting better writing in video games. However I fear that the creation of this award will do nothing to "spotlight quality work" but rather spotlight what little to no quality work is being generated on the story telling front of video games. I hate to beat a dead Master Chief But unfortunately story telling has not only taken a back seat to game play and graphics but they have stuffed it in the trunk under the spare tire. As a gamer I find that I am starved more and more for a good story. And as a western society that has made great moves and written amazing novels I don't know why we find it so hard to inject a good plot line into a game. The entire Halo series felt like a bad remake of Star Wars meets Starship Troopers. Even the Halo ring itself wasn't original, Larry Niven wrote Ringworld years before the "writers" of Halo wrote their story. I mean how many more different ways are you going to have me kill an alien invasion, before you make me WANT to squash the alien invasion. Duel wielding is great, duck and cover games are fun, squad based strategy is cool. But what is my motivation here director? Story is lacking in games today and while I love the idea of a game writing award I'm not sure our medium is ready for it quite yet.

However something is stirring in the industry, I believe we are close to a new era in video games where the Story will start to show a more predominate face. If we look back at the history of video game creation we see an odd evolution of sorts. The dawn of video games was characterized by innovative, ground breaking advances in computer programing and so programing was the main focus of games. The art therefor was very rudimentary and simple filled with spaceships that were nothing more than triangles and aliens that resembled mushrooms. Granted technology at the time was no where close to what we have today, but art simply wasn't a priority. Today I believe we are at the end of a renaissance of game development where game art has taken a more predominate seat in the industry. The inklings of this began as far back as Mario. As games progressed and studios sprang up and started hiring artist rather than relying on programmers for assets, the art progressed. Art continued to refine itself and grow and now we are seeing games like Shadow of the Colossus and Heavenly Sword, games that fuel the fires of games as a true art medium. You can't talk about a game today without discussing its Art (Graphics) alongside its game play, but story is still rarely disused or critiqued. But now I hope the next step in game evolution is upon us, a second renaissance, where story driven games become more of a priority. Studios I hope will begin to integrate the great game play and art, that has become a standard, into a great story. Rather than slapping a pieced together plot on top of a good game mechanic and stunning visuals. Why is it that people will still watch " It's a Wonderful Life" or "Casablanca"? Movies that have stood the test of time. Its because of their story, not because they look so good or have innovative special effects. Once we start to make games that get people talking about the story rather than the new feature. I hope then we will start to see games that our children and grand children will play just so they can experience a good story.

Jon Wheat