Some novelists are becoming video game writers – and vice-versa
28 comments
·May 7, 2025vunderba
chongli
the combat is by far the weakest aspect of the game
I would correct that to say balance is the weakest part. The open-endedness of the game is one of its strong suits (which is surprising given how it’s written) but there are many opportunities for an enterprising player to break the game. You can make your party fabulously wealthy just by exploiting the merchants in the game and then use the money to deck out the party with overpowered equipment.
NikolaNovak
One of my favorite current authors is Peter Watts. His Blindsight is absolutely sublime and insightful, and I reread it frequently (and get more out of it each time).
Apparently he's written for Crysis and his next book is on backburner because Video Games actually pay rent :-).
makeitdouble
> Sooner or later, almost everyone I talk to brings up the radically different cultural status of games and books
This is why we can't have good things. Too many people are stuck behind the status debate, and in particular caring about status also means protecting norms that might not be beneficial to one's art.
Basically, caring about being high brow is IMHO in opposition to being creative and innovative. It can be in small or big ways, but that happens at some level I guess.
The more interesting debate to me is where the money is: it's a lot easier to work in a field that can sustain creators, and if the money is in games, game creators will outlast the other field creators.
sandspar
It's The Guardian, a British newspaper for people who consider themselves upwardly mobile. Status anxiety is kind of their thing.
chc4
One of my personal favorite examples is Seth Dickinson, who wrote some of the lore for Destiny, including the Book of Sorrow and Marasenna in-game lore books, which are IMO some of the best parts of the universe.
He then went on to write The Traitor Baru Cormorant, which I enjoyed a lot, and more recently Exordia - which is amusingly similar in themes and specific plot elements to the Book of Sorrow and really feels like Seth went "wait I wasn't done with that yet".
gwern
It's interesting how exactly this seems to parallel the rise of Hollywood in the 1920s-1960s sucking writers out of the rest of the world to work on scripts. The same risk/reward profile, the same looking down on the mass medium, the same blackhole of work if the rest of the massive project doesn't work out...
TMWNN
>MILLIONS ARE TO BE GRABBED OUT HERE AND YOUR ONLY COMPETITION IS IDOTS
—Email sent from video game writer to fellow author, c. 2025
exabrial
I very much enjoy single player rather than multi.
The plot twist at the end of Crysis, when you don’t realize there was an intelligent purpose to a game mechanic… was an absolutely unforgettable moment. I don’t want to put any spoilers… something you took into the entire game suddenly becomes extraordinarily important at the end.
Only a great novelist could’ve put that together.
MengerSponge
This is a recurring punchline in Apple's Mythic Quest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythic_Quest
tiahura
Doesn’t everyone just hit escape as soon as a cut scene starts?
dentemple
Sure, if all you're doing is buying the latest Call of Duty iteration/clone.
But imagine spending $30 on a story-driven video game and just skipping the story.
That's almost as bad as buying a book and never reading it.
(Which, to be fair, is a sin that I do, sometimes, commit).
nkrisc
Maybe I just enjoy the gameplay. The fact the story was also good is incidental to me (not that I followed the story).
bluefirebrand
> But imagine spending $30 on a story-driven video game and just skipping the story.
I cannot imagine buying a "story driven videogame" honestly. I love reading and I love stories, but to me the appeal of videogames is to play. Videogame stories mostly just get in the way of the actual appealing fun part for me
NikolaNovak
And why not - but surely you get that others may have a different perspective and preference right? :)
yareally
Not a fan of the first 3 Mass Effect games? They would feel pretty shallow without the storyline that made you care about the characters
Swizec
> That's almost as bad as buying a book and never reading it.
> (Which, to be fair, is a sin that I do, sometimes, commit).
Buying books and reading books are separate hobbies. Everyone knows this.
null
deadbabe
It is worth buying books even if you don’t read them. Having a collection of books waiting to be read is satisfying.
gxd
Some games are almost entirely about the story, like mine: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3040110/Outsider/
NikolaNovak
Depends on game and person, as does everything :). I buy games hugely for stories and characters. But also, cutscenes are hardly the only or for many games even the major place writers can contribute.
Look at Disco Elysium with more than a million words written, but also anything from Cyberpunk 2077 to Colony Ship to Days of the Tentacle and Monkey Island and Space Quest, plus Mass Effect and KOTOR, Baldur's Gate and Plascape Torment... Great writing makes for great games :)
makeitdouble
There's a full genre of games that are 99% dialog and cut scenes. You better not skip those.
hippari2
No, only you ;)
TMWNN
I have never ever skipped a cut scene I have not seen before.
Trasmatta
No. There are tons of games with great stories and tons of people that love enjoying them.
sandspar
"Phew, this novelist career is too unstable! I know - I'll become a video game writer instead!"
One of my favorite video games of all time is the Western CRPG Betrayal at Krondor, set in the Riftwar Cycle universe as written by the relatively well-known fantasy author Raymond E. Feist.
The deft writing in that game is my go-to example for how to avoid that dime-store novella quality "purple prose," that you see so much in D&D fiction, and it easily holds its own against strong contenders in the writing category (Disco Elysium, Baldur's Gate, etc.).
Fair warning if you decide to go play it: spellcasting in the game is almost stupidly OP (cough Skin of the Dragon cough). Still great fun, but the combat is by far the weakest aspect of the game.