Despite pounding the pavement in picket lines, the Writers Guild of America has announced the nominees for its first ever videogame writing award, and their choices are a little surprising.
The nominees include: Crash of the Titans, Dead Head Fred, The Simpsons Game, The Witcher, and World in Conflict. I don't wish to take anything away from the nominees, but I find it somewhat baffling that BioShock and Mass Effect, two games highly praised for their excellent stories, aren't on the list. Portal's absence can, perhaps, be explained by its inclusion in The Orange Box, but only if you consider the writing for the Half-Life 2 games to be lousy.
Perhaps the Writers Guild is using criteria of which I am simply unaware. The award, which will be given out in Los Angeles on February 9th, was created "to encourage storytelling excellence in videogames, to improve the status of writers, and to begin to encourage uniform standards." Crash of the Titans has better storytelling than BioShock? Really?
Only games that were released between December 1, 2006 and November 30, 2007 were eligible for consideration.
WGA announces first videogame writing award nominees [Games Industry]
