The Writers Guild of America gives out awards for video game writing- did you know that? This is only the second year they’re doing it, but it’s nice to see games with clever scripts get notice.
This is the list of this year’s nominees-
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 (EA). Writer: Haris Orkin. Story Producer: Mical Pedriana.
Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble! (Mousechief). Writing: Keith Nemitz. Additional Writing: Adrianne Ambrose.
Fallout 3 (Bethesda). Lead Writer: Emil Pagliarulo. Quest Writing: Erik J. Caponi, Brian Chapin, Jon Paul Duvall, Kurt Kuhlmann, Alan Nanes, Bruce Nesmith, and Fred Zeleny. Additional Quest Writing: Nate Ellis, William Killeen, Mark Nelson, and Justin McSweeney.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (LucasArts). Writers: Haden Blackman, Shawn Pitman, John Stafford and Cameron Suey.
Tomb Raider: Underworld (Eidos). Story: Eric Lindstrom and Toby Guard. Screenplay: Eric Lindstrom.
I’m still scratching my head at that last one. And actually, come to think of it- the Star Wars game wasn’t all that, either… although it certainly beat anything George Lucas could have (or has ever) done. But where’s Telltale’s representation here? Sam and Max or Strongbad should’ve gotten a nod.
Course, no one knows how many games actually submitted their games to the WGA- the writers need to either be members or have recently applied for them to be even considered.
Last year Dead Head Fred won, which took a lot of people by surprise (it beat out more well-known titles like The Witcher and The Simpsons Game), but the PSP title is actually pretty damn clever and quirky.
The winner will be announced during the WGA awards ceremony on February 7th.