Going to lay this out without names, but I have had the opportunity to meet some video game writers, from what I guess you would call the last (or N - 2) generation.<p>I have never before or since met a more self indulgent, greedy, stuck up set of snobs in all my time. People who are exposed to their work might think them interesting, funny people but they were quite serious and believe themselves at the pinnacle of writing.<p>I think the stage has long been set for professional novelists to show up and eat their lunch.
One of my favorite video games of all time is the Western CRPG <i>Betrayal at Krondor</i>, set in the Riftwar Cycle universe as written by the relatively well-known fantasy author Raymond E. Feist.<p>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.).<p>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.
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).<p>Apparently he's written for Crysis and his next book is on backburner because Video Games actually pay rent :-).
I would <i>love</i> to write video games (novelist by day-job). The formal possibilities are absolutely fascinating, and so wide, and getting wider by the day with LLMs. ‘Disco Elysium’ is one of the most interesting works of literature I’ve ‘read’ in years, and there’s scope to do so, so much more.<p>The barrier to entry seems confusing, though. None of my agents seem to understand that world (fair enough!). I’ve written whole scripts for games - as writing exercises - but I find the learning curve of the engines too vicious to realistically have time to do a good job of producing a whole game solo.<p>I wonder if anyone has any advice. It doesn’t feel like book / film world, where you get an agent, they shop your story around, etc. I wouldn’t even know where to start, given how many production companies there are.<p>But it’d be incredibly interesting - creatively, and in terms of seeing the other side of the process, the limitations that need to be written around, etc - to work with someone, or a small team. I’d love to try that. There is <i>so</i> much room for innovation in storytelling when compared with writing for the page or screen.<p>(Though I’m certain there are a million dudes out there who think: “I have a great idea for a game!”, lol.)
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...
> Sooner or later, almost everyone I talk to brings up the radically different cultural status of games and books<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
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.<p>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".
Surprised that there was a lack of mention of Peter F. Hamilton's "Exodus: The Archimedes Engine" - video game "Exodus"<p><a href="https://www.exodusgame.com/en-US/news/agreement-with-random-house-worlds-for-exodus-game" rel="nofollow">https://www.exodusgame.com/en-US/news/agreement-with-random-...</a>
Marc Laidlaw had a number of novels published before and after going to work for Valve and doing the Half Life thing.<p>"The Third Force" novel and the associated game "Gadget" are probably not well known - but if you liked Myst you might like them. It's a bit more of a visual story than a puzzle game - a bizarre psychological/psychedelic story with stunning for the time graphics (1993 or 1997 depending on the version).
I very much enjoy single player rather than multi.<p>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.<p>Only a great novelist could’ve put that together.
This is a recurring punchline in Apple's Mythic Quest:
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythic_Quest" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythic_Quest</a>