Session Description
It's a sad fact of life: Most players hate cutscenes and in-game dialogue. Ironically, most designers hate them too. So why do so many games have so much of both? A certain amount of in-game dialogue is almost always necessary, but there is often much more than there really needs to be.

In this session we cover the basics of effective dialogue writing, and using before-and-after examples from actual shipped games, reveal the process of trimming the verbal fat, improving impact, injecting emotion, and making every precious word count.

Idea Takeaway
Attendees should come away with a better understanding of how to make cutscenes and in-game dialogue more exciting and compelling for players.

Intended Audience
Attendees who can benefit from this session run the gamut from junior designers to experienced game writers. There is no prerequisite for understanding the content of the session, apart from speaking English and being generally familiar with cutscenes and dialogue from various video games, in order to understand the context of the discussion and techniques explored.

Presenter Bio
Evan Skolnick, Producer / Editorial Director, Vicarious Visions / Activision A former journalist and Marvel Comics editor, Evan has written for properties such as Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, X-Men, Dr. Strange, New Warriors, RoboCop, and many others. As editorial director for Vicarious Visions he has tuned dialogue for bestselling games such as X-MEN LEGENDS 2 PSP, SPIDER-MAN 2 PSP and DS, ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN DS and GBA, SHREK 2: BEG FOR MERCY GBA, CRASH BANDICOOT PURPLE GBA and SPYRO ORANGE GBA, among others.