Why The WGA Videogame Awards Are A Bad Thing
By Eli Green
Jan 20, 2009 - 16:00:00 PM
Last
week's announcement of the nominees for the
2008
Videogame Writing Award
by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) got me to thinking some pretty
spine chilling thoughts. Don't get me wrong. I relish the idea that
the writers of our favourite video game's storylines are able to be
recognized for their accomplishments. The introduction of the award
last year only had me saying one thing, “It's about time!”
Unfortunately, with all of the recent trouble and noise coming from
the North American writing and acting guilds/associations, the only
things I can really think about now are exclusive membership and
strikes.
For
those of you who don't remember, or simply don't watch television or
movies, there was a period of about 14 weeks from November 2007 to
February 2008 where, basically, no content was being officially
produced by any of the writers in the WGA for film or television, or
any other format for that matter. Those other formats, including
on-demand and Internet broadcasting, were part of the issue the Guild
was raising with the strike. While the Writers Guild of Canada did
not participate in the strike, the Canadian television industry was
also affected, as a large portion of content Canadian broadcasters
show is made in America. Of course, this is just a miniscule summary
of the strike issue, so if you're interested in the full story, you
can either
read the Bin's coverage, read up on the WGA's
side
of things
or search for every story on the topic on your own time. It's really
up to you.
The
two issues that worry me, with all of this in mind, is that writers
who are not part of the WGA's Videogame Writers Caucus (VWC) will be
excluded from nominations, unless they choose to join the VWC, and
that any time the WGA goes on strike, video game writers who are
members of the VWC will have no choice but to join them, thus
disrupting the workflow of game development. The first issue appears
to have been somewhat addressed already, as writers simply need a
“Written By” credit in a game to be eligible to be nominated. The
second issue worries me far more, as part of the WGA's primary goal
for the VWC is to “
Expand
writers' WGA coverage to include every writer working in the gaming
industry”.
|
In
my mind, and likely the minds of many others in the video game
industry, video game writers following the rest of the WGA into a
strike could be a devestating blow to the the industry as a whole.
Video game development takes far longer than film or television
production. Any delays, even minor, can throw things out of balance.
Severe delays, which could easily result from a prolonged writers
strike, could ruin video game development projects. I would hate to
see that happen.
What
do you think?
© Copyright 2002-2009 by Coolstreak Cartoons Inc. - All rights Reserved. All other texts, images, characters and trademarks are copyright their respective owners. Use of material in this document(including reproduction, modification, distribution, electronic transmission or republication) without prior written permission is strictly prohibited.