Game Writers SIG/Initiatives/Improving GDC

International Game Developers Association

1 Details
2 Plan of Action
3 Volunteers
4 Research Items
5 Current Status

[edit] Details

Game writing materials being offered at conferences are too vague or (worse) based solely on cinematic principles. We have the resources in the SIG to educate other writers as well as other professions in the industry about writing. Conferences are a great context for furthering our goals.

[edit] Plan of Action

Other Shows – GDC isn’t the only conference out there. Develop a list of other shows and people willing/available to speak at them.
Tutorial/GDC Talks – The tutorial proposal we put together for this year’s show was rejected. We’d like to revisit it for next year, so anyone interested in helping revamp it should let it be known.
Identify what went wrong with the writing materials at the GDC this year and last
Encourage members of the list to propose writing talks (and follow that up with proposal critiques, etc.)
Engage in dialog with GDC and other conference organizers.
Organize writing tutorials, round tables, lectures, panels, including outlines and speakers.

[edit] Volunteers

Coray Seifert
Rhianna Pratchett
Susan O'Connor
Edward Kuehnel

[edit] Research Items

List of conferences:

GDC
Austin Game Dev Conference
World Horror Con

Materials from 2004 GDC proposal:

Critiques:

Suggestions:

I would like to see technical writing and design documentation covered. Dave Rorhl (EA) ran "Advanced Documentation Techniques" at GDC '03 and it was an excellent session. Can we have a session like that?
Ed: I'd like to propose a lecture entitled something like "How Research Fuels Creativity: Avoiding Cliche Like the Clap". Something like that would hopefully be of interest to writers as well as producers, creative directors, etc.
Ed: "Creating Comedy: How to Best Manage Your Project for Maximum Results". The angle here would be, "I'm not going to teach you how to be funny, or even how to write jokes, but I will teach you how to make sure your project is funny by zeroing in on your target market, finding the right writers, creating a feedback loop that works, creative freedom vs. the need to schedule, etc."
Ed: Maybe a workshop for foreign developers seeking help with their writing on titles being shipped to English speaking countries? I've met a few small European developers who seemed almost desperate to recruit native English speaking writers. Could be a discussion on how to find the right writers for the right project without getting screwed?
Stephen: By sending them a track's worth of stuff we highlight all the things they've been missing, ie genre stuff, building blocks stuff, business or writing and localization stuff etc. If we hit them with a number of proposals, all coming from/through the SIG to give it a tad more weight and focus, we might make some real progress in educating the powers that be. Once they're educated we might get a better shot at putting some things in.
Klug Remember that the people who are deciding which seminars get in are NOT writers, and they are the very ones (with all due respect) that make our lives miserable most of the time. Why would they think that the conference needs more writing stuff? If the theme of the conference is Emerging Technologies or something, they'll never get how writing fits into that. For cripes' sake, we can't even move the current state of technology beyond dialogue trees! We should propose a series of linked lectures that illuminate writing as PART of the design process, instead of something that comes after the design is done. Something sorta like "Dramatic Structure for Better Level Design" although maybe not that one, per se.
Richard

Given that:
   * Any writing talk/round table/whatever is going to be subsumed as
     part of the design track...
   * Big names and/or big titles "sell" sessions...
   * There is never going to be a writing track until there are so many
     writing talks given that it makes sense to clear us out of the way
     to make room for more pure design stuff...
We should consider...
   * Continuing to propose the tutorial, though potentially with fewer
     proposed speakers to make it seem a bit less unwieldy. This is
     more a case of "we're not going away because you told us no once"
     than anything else. I don't necessarily expect it to succeed, but
     there's much to be said for persistence demonstrating seriousness
     of intent.
   * Have SIG members propose a broad spectrum of other programming,
     including round tables and panels, and coordinate through the SIG
     so there's no crossover or competition between similar talks.
   * Whenever possible, those proposals should be tied to recent
     projects, at least as a jumping-off point. I'm a lot more likely
     to get tapped for "Techniques of Smartassery: One-Liners as
     Character Development in Far Cry" than I am for "Techniques of
     Smartassery: One-Liners as Character Development."