The Writers Room
Sidelines director Sini Downing offers a glimpse into the world of games writing - and how stories are improving
As videogames become more detailed, the stories that go with them have become far more intricate - and crucially, the work of professional writers, rather than producers or other team members... mostly.
Sidelines, an offshoot of dialogue-recording company Side, is an agency which represents writers working in the games industry, and here its director Sini Downling explains that side of the industry in more depth.
We represent professional writers for the interactive entertainment industry, and these are guys that have either worked in the games industry, or in TV, film, theatre, film, comics... so many different types of writing, because we have so many types of games, so we need people who can cover all the genres and styles.
Sidelines started under the umbrella of Side, and as a dialogue production company we were seeing the good, bad and ugly of scripts... we started thinking we could probably put some people together who could do better.
Clients were also asking if we knew somebody who could fix stuff like that, and writers were also looking to get involved - so we made it official and put together a roster of writers. That's just been growing in the past two years that the company's existed.
It's still one of the biggest complaints from writers, that they're brought on board too late. They're told: "This is the gameplay, these are the levels, if you can come up with some sort of story to link everything and give everyone a purpose as to why they're doing it, that would be great..."
We're definitely seeing more chances to come in early so that they're working together and the writers are getting to talk to the level designers to make a story together - which is probably better for everyone. We still do have cases where they're brought in perhaps a little bit too late.
Yes, and I still speak to producers who have never hired a writer before - they've either written it themselves, or someone in their team has written it. I've had emails asking exactly how does this work... we're all still trying to figure out how it works and how often a writer needs to go into a team - because often the writer is working from home, they tend to like that better - but how often do they need to meet with the team?
We have some who are going in every week, depending on where the writer and the company is based. Otherwise they make commitments that they'll be available for an internet chat several times a week, just so they can communicate with the teams. So yes, I'd say it's evolving, so that writers are becoming a part of the team.
That's definitely going to help. But just because of the people I speak to, who are coming to us to find a writer, they're giving me the creative side of it anyway. I don't deal with the technical side of things at all - but it's definitely its own form of art, it just happens to be one that uses a lot of technology.
But you have that with films as well - you hear a lot more about James Cameron's technology before you hear what the story is about, I'd say. If you're reading a movie magazine you're reading about how something looks that hasn't existed before...
People are excited - I don't think I've ever had to persuade someone, it's just a new avenue for them to be creative and play with their skills. They have a toolkit, and games are another way to use it, to have their product out there in different ways.
A lot of them happen to be gamers as well - sometimes I've hired a TV writer because I've felt they've written similar types of things, but not for games, and it turns out... there was even one that started writing for his favourite game franchise. But unless they're tuned into presenting themselves as wanting to write for games, they don't tend to put which games they like on their CV.