10 Reasons Video Games Are The Hardest Thing To Write
8. Conflicting Deadlines
If you wandered up to a films composer, handed them a copy of the script, and suggested that they crack on because youd only hired the orchestra until the end of the week, youd almost certainly leave the studio in intimate possession of a musical instrument. The idea that the film would be scored using anything other than a damn-near-final print would be considered preposterous. In games, these kinds of crazy deadlines are common, and they often hit writers the hardest. Unlike films, games can launch simultaneously in over a dozen languages, each of which needs to be first translated, then recorded, then edited and mixed. Its a sequence of events that routinely takes months, and it requires the script to be finalised and locked down so that any change doesnt have to be hastily replicated by a team of people who might well have moved on to the next project. Hitting a deadline can be tough, but thats not the problem with trying to lock down the script - youre probably trying to clarify the details of something that only partially exists. If you need to write finalised instructions for how to drive a tank, and that tank hasnt been designed yet, how can you possibly proceed? One solution is to use a lot of alts alternative takes that swap out the key details, like which button fires the tanks cannon, and maybe a generic safety line that works whatever the circumstance. Alts cost time and money to record, so writers can be forced to fall back on generic dialogue and vague instructions these lines are often clunky but at least theyre not flat-out wrong. Sometimes, thats as close as youre going to get.
