The Game Writers Group Gathering has been going on at GDC for as long as the Writers SIG has, and is always well attended. It was the last time the gathering would be hosted by Chris Bateman, who this year stepped down from the SIG Executive Panel along with fellow long-timer Rich Dansky. Given the 9 am starting time, we were well attended with some 34 people coming to discuss issues that face writers working in games.We began by going over some of the successes for the SIG over the last year or so, including the Austin Game Writers conference, the Quarterly (which was given away free to attendees), the successful lobbying for the addition of a writing prize in the Developers Choice awards, not to mention the book, Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames, which has sold out twice since its publication.

The writers present had a number of ideas for things to take forward, including a white paper on Best Practices in Narrative, a FAQ on getting credits listed on resources such as mobygames and the IMDB, legal advice for game writers, and suggestions for what a game writer should have in their portfolio when approaching companies. Another idea was to run a service for issuing press releases relating to the work of game writers. These suggestions were taken away by the SIG committee for further discussion and addition to the initiatives program.

The gathering ended with a freeform discussion, as people made their way around the crowd, exchanging business cards and meeting and greeting. On the whole, another successful gathering - but once again, it would have been helpful if we could have found a microphone. Still, there’s always next year!

As well as the Group Gathering, GDC also saw a considerable number of sessions by Writers SIG members, including three excellent round tables by Rich Dansky, and a talk by Susan O’Conner which was also well received.