I think I speak for everyone in the games industry when I say that seeing our medium receiving recognition in more traditional spheres it at least somewhat heartwarming.
Back in October, GamerNode reported that the Writer’s Guild of America would be creating a new award for excellence in videogame writing, to be conferred on February 9th of this year. Today, the WGA has announced the nominees for the first ever Videogame Writing Award, and they are as follows:
CRASH OF THE TITANS, Written by Christopher Mitchell, Sierra Entertainment
DEAD HEAD FRED, Written by Dave Ellis and Adam Cogan, D3 Publisher
THE SIMPSONS GAME, Lead Writer Matt Selman, Written by Tim Long and Matt Warburton, Dialogue by Jeff Poliquin, Electronic Arts
THE WITCHER, Lead Story Designer Artur Ganszyniec, Dialogue Sebastian Stepien, Additional Dialogue Marcin Blacha, Writers Sande Chen and Anne Toole, Atari
WORLD IN CONFLICT, Story Design Christofer Emgard, Story Consultant Larry Bond, Script Consultant Ed Zuckerman, Sierra Entertainment
Like I said earlier, it is wonderful to see our industry getting a bit of positive mainstream recognition, but I also can’t help but feel that a few more worthy contenders for this honor have been overlooked. The reason? Nominees must either be members of the WGA’s New Media Writers Caucus, so anyone who hasn’t applied is out of luck.
So who do the GN faithful feel is most worthy of a videogame writing award in 2007? I know my picks, and they start with a "Bioshock," end in a "Mass Effect," and have a "Half Life" and a "Portal" somewhere in between.
