BioWare - How Do I Become A Writer #1

David Gaider steps up to the BioBlog to write How Do I Become a Writer For Video Games?  With his characteristically dry approach, David first outlines the position in this first of a three-part series:

It’s the question I get asked most often, and whether the person asking is looking to become a writer specifically or more interested in becoming a designer in general, my answer is generally the same: “you apply, just like with any other job”. The truth is a bit more complicated, of course, but if I don’t often delve into it with enthusiasm you’ll have to forgive me. As I said, I get asked this a lot.

First things first: what does a writer do? Well, I can tell you honestly that there isn’t a lot of call for dedicated writers in the game industry. There are only a handful of companies that actually have such a beast, and BioWare no doubt has the greatest chunk of them. Most other companies, I would suspect, either have people who wear various hats or outsource any time they need actual writing to be done. We do a little of both, ourselves. There was a time when the designers wore more than one hat out of necessity, but as BioWare has gotten larger we’ve begun to specialize within the design group. The writers are the people who do the quest design and a great portion of the story and level concepting, as well as all of the dialogue writing (which takes up the vast portion of our time).