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Could there be a speculative script industry for narrative games?

Games writers have historically been treated as what Rhianna Pratchett dubbed 'narrative paramedics', brought in too late for an emergency operation to patch up bad story or stitch together characterisation and dialogue to fit the game design.

It often happened because the more invisible art of story and narrative design was taken on by those who can build games. Only at the point when it was too expensive to fix, the story and gameplay didn't gel, characters had no complexity, or the dialogue was hammy and without subtext, did the skill of creating story world logic, narrative structure and characterisation - expressed in actions, events, mechanics, environments and dialogue - get revealed.

As Dan Abnett said in an interview published on GamesIndustry.biz last week: "It's past time studios got past the idea that story is something anyone can do, that it's something that can be scribbled down on the fly by people whose expertise, often brilliant, lies in other areas. It's like expecting your very skilled plumber or engineer to sort out the electrics for you while he's at it."

Hannah Wood, Falmouth University

Game projects overwhelmingly start with those skilled plumbers or engineers; but, what happens when electricians who also understand the complex wiring, plumbing and engineering of the house, have a game idea? How do they find ways to bring a team together and pay plumbers and engineers?

Sam Barlow is the most obvious example. He told me that he self-financed Her Story because "it felt like something that no publisher would want to fund". The outcome was a critical success that reinvented interactive storytelling, sold 100,000 in the first month and swept the board of narrative and innovation awards in 2015-16. So why isn't there a speculative script industry in games that bets on these kinds of dreams in the way the film industry does?

North by Northwest, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Thelma & Louise, Lethal Weapon, Basic Instinct and The Matrix were all original ideas, not owned or commissioned by a studio and written by out-of-work hopefuls. At Hollywood parties, those writers were looked upon pitifully, like they must be in bad shape to be working on 'an original'. Then Butch Cassidy became 1969's highest grossing movie, a multiple-Oscar winner, and created a new business model: write first, sell later.

Not all spec scripts become successful movies, but they do introduce more diverse content - so could they work in the video game industry? Especially as game engines like Unity and Unreal become more universally accessible and hardware becomes standardised, making experimentation cheaper, increasing interactive design literacy and reducing the production time spent grappling with technology. Does that free up more time to focus on narrative innovation and its value at the start of the process?

"North by Northwest, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Thelma & Louise, Lethal Weapon, Basic Instinct and The Matrix were all original ideas, not owned or commissioned by a studio and written by out-of-work hopefuls"

Technological advances have always impacted narrative possibilities; an early example being increased storage space enabling representation of larger narrative worlds, and aiding the popularity of adventure games in the process. Half-Life 2 was a watershed moment in game narrative, the absence of cutscenes amongst the many innovations that made it so popular. Mods of it (in the form of Dear Esther and The Stanley Parable) then went on to have huge success, inventing the story exploration game/walking sim genre that removed combat mechanics and gave narrative affect primacy over mechanical tasks like shooting and puzzle solving, lowering barriers to entry in the process.

The market for narrative-driven games has only grown; studios recognise that story is a differentiator and narrative isn't just laid over game rules but provides an interwoven set of devices that support and manipulate the actions of gameplay, with every discipline contributing to its delivery and impact. There's still some way to go, and it's a long time since Half-Life 2, but the technical skills required of writers are gaining equal value to other technical disciplines as players demonstrate how much they like story in games, and call it out when it's bad. As a result, writers are more often there at the beginning of the process and integrated with all elements.

Have these changes created the conditions for a business model where writers, or writing teams, fully script an idea that can then be put into production? Especially in a climate where many freelance game writers are based outside studios; and in a context where gamers are calling for more complex characters, and narratives that go beyond hero quest power fantasies, and goal-directed 'entitlement simulators,' to explore the messier and more intimate details of life. As 80 Days writer Meg Jayanth said in her GDC 2016 talk: "Whoever heard of that great novel where the protagonist got exactly what they wanted all the time?"

Games are a different animal to novels, film and theatre, and there are different aesthetic and technical decisions to be made, not least with the current limits of AI heavily impacting on the use of narrative devices. Writers in games need to be collaborative and can't think the script has all the answers; it doesn't in film or theatre either, but what it does offer is a place where new ideas can be experimented with on the cheap.

"Games are a different animal to novels, film and theatre. The current limits of AI are heavily impacting the use of narrative devices"

Academic research has identified how stimulating players with goal-directed mechanical tasks, like shooting and puzzle solving, can stymie empathetic engagement - a cornerstone of narrative impact. This might go some way to explaining the success of story exploration games, where the goal is to assemble narrative, rather than to dominate, solve or win. These games have found ways to traverse the limits of AI, that make it easier to shoot NPCs than have a conversation, and deliver narratives that tackle intimate and everyday human realities. Dear Esther reached profitability in 5.5 hours, Gone Home sold 250,000 copies within six months, Firewatch is on 700,000 in a year and a half, What Remains of Edith Finch has sold 50,000 within two months on Steam, and more on PS4 (these figures are all taken from online sources).

I'm one of a demographic with a hunger for shorter play, story-driven games that pair self-directed gameplay experience with empathetic narrative immersion. I'd rather sit down with one of them and a pizza on a free weekend than watch Netflix. I want to make a business of them too and, in the past few years, developed a script and design for a crime drama video game called Underland.

source:http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-07-11-could-there-be-a-speculative-script-industry-for-narrative-games