The Grand List Of Video Game Writers

[Wolf Kanno]

It''s plot gets a lot of praise on TV Tropes along with Earthbound and Persona. I'm only curious cause I plan on starting it up myself and try to get back into Tales of franchise.

[Depression Moon]

One thing I will point out about Japanese writers, is that often the story and characters are a collaborative process among the whole team. What this means is that just because the plot may seem terrible to you, it may not be the writer's fault as the part you may not like has to do with some input from the director and other team members. For example:

Daisuke Watanabe is one of the main writers of the Kingdom Heart's franchise, the only game he wasn't one of the main writers for was KH2. He also wrote the plot of FFXII and helped with the plot of FFXIII. In the case of XII, he was helping Matsuno write the plot but after Matsuno left, Watanabe was forced to try to tie up a story that mostly was in the head of Matsuno and also had to deal with a team that had conflicting views about where to take the story and characters. In XIII's case, he was asked to take Toriyama's rough script and make it workable. He allegedly only worked on the first eight chapters of the game and had to do several re-writes due to Toriyama's wishes.

In both cases, Watatnabe is listed as the main scenario writer but background information shows he wasn't necessarily the mastermind behind each script. Masato Kato was one of the writer's for Chrono Trigger but Yuji Horii (Dragon Quest creator and DQ's head writer) wrote out several sections of the game such as the opening with Marle disappearing in 600 A.D. because she accidentally changed history and erased her existence. Hence why time travel rules are a bit inconsistent because Kato wasn't consulted while he was writing out the later parts of the story. Sakaguchi has also had a strong hand in writing or at least putting his own stamp on the plot for the first nine games in the FF series even though he isn't always listed as being part of the writing team.

How do you get your information?

[Wolf Kanno]

Various wiki's, developer interviews, and reading Ultimania translations. Just paging through the developer pages on the various wiki's or checking Lifestream.net's work will usually fill in some gaps. Hell even Wikipedia gives some good info as well.

[NeoCracker]

One thing I will point out about Japanese writers, is that often the story and characters are a collaborative process among the whole team. What this means is that just because the plot may seem terrible to you, it may not be the writer's fault as the part you may not like has to do with some input from the director and other team members. For example:

Daisuke Watanabe is one of the main writers of the Kingdom Heart's franchise, the only game he wasn't one of the main writers for was KH2. He also wrote the plot of FFXII and helped with the plot of FFXIII. In the case of XII, he was helping Matsuno write the plot but after Matsuno left, Watanabe was forced to try to tie up a story that mostly was in the head of Matsuno and also had to deal with a team that had conflicting views about where to take the story and characters. In XIII's case, he was asked to take Toriyama's rough script and make it workable. He allegedly only worked on the first eight chapters of the game and had to do several re-writes due to Toriyama's wishes.

In both cases, Watatnabe is listed as the main scenario writer but background information shows he wasn't necessarily the mastermind behind each script. Masato Kato was one of the writer's for Chrono Trigger but Yuji Horii (Dragon Quest creator and DQ's head writer) wrote out several sections of the game such as the opening with Marle disappearing in 600 A.D. because she accidentally changed history and erased her existence. Hence why time travel rules are a bit inconsistent because Kato wasn't consulted while he was writing out the later parts of the story. Sakaguchi has also had a strong hand in writing or at least putting his own stamp on the plot for the first nine games in the FF series even though he isn't always listed as being part of the writing team.

How do you get your information?

Upon Kawaii Ryukishi's death various parts of his systems were implanted into Wolf Kanno. This has granted him Kishi's ability to absorb information from various parts of the internet few know even exist, and do so with inhuman speed.

That or he just has no life, take your pick. :P

[Bolivar]

Warren Spector probably deserves to be on this list, the creator of System Shock, Deus Ex, and Epic Mickey most recently. I would also add Jean Francois-Dugas, the director of the team now in charge of Deus Ex. Human Revolution was pretty good but only time will tell if he can really stand with the greats.

Ron Gilbert should also be here for what he did with Monkey Island and other games in the early days of Lucas Arts, as what he did really paved the way for David Cage and experiences like Heavy Rain.

Speaking of whom, I think the dude's definitely a good writer. A lot of people freaked out over Heavy Rain for some reason, in a way I've never seen people rally against a video game before. But at the end of the day I think he succeeded in what he sought out to achieve, I thought there were a lot of story elements that he was on point with.

[Forsaken Lover]

I completely agree with you there man. There is a RIDICULOUS amount of hatred for David Cage, the likes of which I've never seen directed at a video game maker.

Look at these topics
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/foru...egion-of-Honor
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/foru...n-the-industry

It's gone far beyond the "I don't like his games" stage. In the last couple days I've read numerous comment that he's:
a racist
a sexist
a failed filmmaker
a narcissist

Oh and most importantly - he HATES video games. Apparently, according to the internet, he'd rather be doing anything but making video games.

I think this YouTube comment I found on him is more or less a perfect representation of all his haters:
"he's a dick but he gets to hang out with Ellen Page all day."

Fact of the matter is...it's jealousy, plain and simple. Internet nobodies can't stand the fact Cage is more successful than they will ever be. And the problem with Internet Nobodies is they have self-esteem issues which means they naturally hang on to any bandwagon that comes their way. This is more or less what happened with Twilight - a bunch of people started to hate on it so everyone else joined up so "be cool." Hating David Cage is "the In Thing" on the Internet.

Because God knows losers have to justify the fact they are losers and will never achieve anything. What's that quote? Something like "if we did not have any faults of our own we would not take such pleasure in pointing out the faults of others"?Something like that... Well people on the Internet have nothing BUT faults so naturally they have to bitch about somebody to try and ease their hollow existences.

[NeoCracker]

Here's the thing with David Cage, he does have some issues with his writing at times, but I think he is still a good writer on a whole. However, if you listen to his interviews, he comes across as a moron. For example, prior to showing off Beyond, he spoke about how all video games relied on gun fights, car chases, and explosions to sell, and how he would make a game that didn't do that.

The trailer he showed immediately after was full of gun fights, car chases and explosions.

I could go on, but David Cage himself is pretty much a complete douchebag in any of his interviews, though I do love both Beyond and Heavy Rain. It's really hard though to imagine the guy who says the things he does makes the things he does.

[Forsaken Lover]

I dunno...I have not seen every video with him or read every interview but I did see this
(SPOILER)

The Internet portrays him as a video game hating snob who spends all his free time from hating women saying "I AM PERFECT MAN ALL OTHER GAMES SUCK ONLY I DO IT RIGHT".

That does not seem to be the case from what I can tell. It's just the e-community wants to throw every possible insult at him.

[NeoCracker]

I never got the hating women thing, but he has claimed no one else makes games as emotional as he does, and that it's because he uses hollywood actors as apposed to other games use of professional voice actors.

[Wolf Kanno]

The only thing I have ever heard from people about David Cage is that his writing tends to be hit or miss. While most of his stories are intriguing he often get's sidetracked or tries to resolve them in not the most graceful ways. I think Heavy Rain is the only game where I have not heard any negative commentary on it.

[Madame Adequate]

Michael Kirkbride for writing all the best Elder Scrolls in-game lore books.

Pls add to list Forsaken Lover.

[Forsaken Lover]

Kay, list updated. Almost up to 80 now! It be awesome if we got to a full 100 but I don't see that happening. Ah well, 80 is a good benchmark.

@Bolivar I looked up that guy you said directed/created the games but it seems like he didn't write them. Ken Lavine or whoever is credited as the writer of System Shock for example.

[Ayen]

I hear the sexist comments in regard to Dave because Beyond has a bunch of shower scenes, an achievement for getting laid, and attempted rape.

I tell myself I'm not going to read the YouTube comment section and what do I do?

[Karifean]

I'd add Ryukishi07, mainly for his work on Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and Umineko no Naku Koro ni. He was also one of the writers for Rewrite.