{"id":52945,"date":"2021-10-05T06:00:12","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T10:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=52945"},"modified":"2021-10-05T09:57:59","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T13:57:59","slug":"why-is-game-writing-so-terrible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=52945","title":{"rendered":"Why Is Game Writing So Terrible?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leslee Beldotti sent a question to our podcast this week<\/a>. As I thought about the topic, I realized it was too big and I’d never be able to do it justice on the show. We’ve touched on this topic many times in the past, but we’ve never gone in-depth. So here it is…<\/p>\n

Dear Diecastians,<\/p>\n

Greetings from Berlin!<\/p>\n

For the past few months I have been playing Outriders, from Polish developer, People Can Fly.<\/p>\n

I realize that as a 54 year old woman, I am probably so far outside this game’s intended demographic that I could be in the next galaxy, but this game is emblematic of worrying trend I have been seeing in AAA gaming: THE WRITING IS ATROCIOUS!<\/p>\n

Everything about this game’s writing — the story, the characters, and the dialogue — is juvenile, emotionally immature, and downright mean-spirited.<\/p>\n

What is going on?!?! Why does it seem that game studios no longer prioritize quality story writing and dialogue in their games?<\/p>\n

Am I just getting old?<\/p>\n

Your devoted fan,<\/p>\n

Leslee Beldotti<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So let’s interrogate this. The first thing we need to acknowledge is that…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Money Isn’t the Problem<\/h3>\n

If all it took was money to make a story good, then we'd be drowning in brilliant stories by now.<\/div>
If all it took was money to make a story good, then we'd be drowning in brilliant stories by now.<\/div>
\nThe curt answer that people typically throw out goes like this, “Game companies figured out that bad writing doesn’t hurt sales, so they don’t bother to spend money making it good.” And if you’re happy with that answer, then you probably won’t have any use for the rest of this. But I find that explanation kind of unsatisfying, so I want to look deeper and see if we can find some systemic faults to blame this on.<\/p>\n

For one thing, I think bad writing does<\/b> hurt sales. (Or if you prefer, good writing boosts sales.) The Last of Us<\/i>, Portal 2<\/i>, and Borderlands 2<\/i> were all bolstered by the widespread praise of their writing. Metroid Other M<\/a> and Hitman: Absolution<\/a> were singled out for their terribly mishandled stories. As it turns out, critics don’t enjoy bad writing<\/a>. At least, when they have the time and skill to detect it<\/a>.<\/span> And while the narrative tastes of the average videogamer cause them to give a free pass to crappy stories<\/a> when paired with solid gameplay, in the end they will<\/strong> complain if the story is bad enough. That means that bad writing will drag down Metacritic scores. And we know that publishers believe that those scores are important. So cutting corners on writing doesn’t make a lot of sense as a money-saving measure.<\/p>\n

Moreover, developers do lots of things that don’t directly drive sales. You can’t make a business case for having a custom font and an animated scene for the title screen \/ main menu. You can’t point at a spreadsheet and say, “If our main menu options slide around and animate as the user scrolls through the list, then it will result in us selling N additional copies.” Games are a creative and collaborative medium, and thus lots of effort gets spent on little details that don’t fit the barebones “Tentpole AAA Video Game Template”.<\/p>\n

People who make games don’t like making stuff that sucks. So even if the publisher doesn’t care about writing quality, that doesn’t mean that the people making the game will go out of their way to make sure the writing is terrible.<\/p>\n

And finally, good writing doesn’t cost that<\/b> much. Sure, maybe a talented writer can demand a higher salary than a bad one, Assuming the employer can tell the difference. We’ll come back to that in a bit.<\/span> but it’s not like they make five times as much. Most writers – good or bad – are going to fall into a fairly predictable salary band. Maybe<\/b> the great writer makes 50% more than the lousy one, but on the scale of a AAA project that spans years and involves hundreds of people, the salary of one person doesn’t matter that much. Writing is so important to the quality of the final product, and the difference between good writers and bad is basically a rounding error in the overall budget. Cutting corners on writing to save money is like leaving the tires off your car to save on fuel. Sure, your car won’t be as heavy, but maybe there are less critical systems you could start with for weight reduction, you know?<\/p>\n

I know I’m always complaining that the AAA publishersEA, Activision, and Ubisoft are the big offenders here.<\/span> don’t know what they’re doing, but even those doofuses ought to be savvy enough to spot the inherent contradiction in this:<\/p>\n