If you’re going to be a good writer for videogames, I think you need some knowledge, and a few basic skills.

You have to really understand the structure of games. Since games vary quite a bit in terms of how linear or nonlinear they are, you have to really be able to internalize what the structure of the game you’re working on is, then understand how to maximize the amount of writing you’ll need to do to achieve a certain level of immersiveness. And given that immersiveness is broken by improper repetition, and people can quickly recognize repeating patterns, that means you need to know how many variations of a particular line will be necessary to communicate a given idea to the player enough times without being repeated.

More than that, you have to understand that you’re often going to be dealing with a player character who will intentionally not be doing what you want them to do, and a player whose motivations or emotional reactions you can’t necessarily dictate. So, you can’t have the player-character say something that the player wouldn’t. Or, maybe you can, but you have to do it in a way that doesn’t break the illusion that the player-character is the player.

So, there’s all that structural stuff - that’s the part that’s hard to teach to someone who works in more traditional, linear media.

However, you can have someone who understands the structure really well, but doesn’t have a clue how to create interesting characters. The writer has to know how to construct believable dialog, provide a consistent and believable motivation for the various characters, define their personalities in a way that makes them engaging, and then write them in a way that communicates all that to the player without beating them over the head with it.

Simply, you need someone who’s a good writer - and someone who understands visual storytelling as well as prose - who’s familiar with videogames. It’s a rare combination, but I think it’s what you need. Alternatively, you need someone who’s really, really good at one, has potential in the other, and is willing and motivated to learn.

Say… were you able to play Marathon 2 without feeling like you were gonna barf?

You mean the 360 version? Nope. It did bounce around a lot, but not enough to be disorienting. But I’ve never had a game or motion simulator make me sick before, so apparently I’m impervious to motion sickness.

Who do you think is best positioned to write a good story for a video game..Someone from the video game industry or a television or film writer?

In my experience, it’s programmers of banking software that write the best videogames.

Really, I don’t know if you can draw a line like that. You have to have played enough of the type of game you’re writing for, in order to get the pacing right and to understand exactly why you need to write a dozen different versions of “I can’t go that way.” But a lot of game companies have assumed you can bring in writers from TV & movies to write dialogue for a game and you get instant quality, and it doesn’t always work. And there are plenty of writers in TV & movies that could adjust to games just fine.

I don’t think there’s any set rules for writing for “games,” either. I like to think I get how the Sam & Max games work, but then I’ve been playing adventure games for 15 years and watching TV sitcoms for 30. I wouldn’t know where to start with a shooter, or even the CSI games, so there’d be a learning process.