Every year the Game Writers Conference at the Austin Game Developers Conference is a great opportunity for our organization to get together, recruit new members and discuss the craft.

This year the conference was under new management, but I thought the speakers and subject matter was better than last year and the convention floor was definitely fancier. The Writing SIG had a booth in one corner of the expo hall and if you could find us through the fray you got donuts. (At least until noon.)

We gained nearly 75 new members from the mailing list sign-up there at the booth and appreciate every one.

The speakers included some excellent sessions on writing for franchises, creating original IP, helping players follow the golden path and writing the Bioware way. On Friday there was also an excellent opportunity for writers to workshop material with other writers and two writing managers. This two-part session brought up a great deal of hands-on advice and discussion all based on the work of writers in various stages of their careers.

SIG members picked up a sticker to add to their conference badges and attempted several times to get together for meals, with varying degrees of success. We’ll try to do better on this score next year.

It was great seeing all of you who made it to Austin, and we hope many more will make it to the bound-to-be-excellent Austin 2008.