The Writers Guild of America know video games can have good writing. And last year handed out their first video game writing awards. This month, it’s time to hand out their second awards.

Up for nomination this year are the following:

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 (EA). Writer: Haris Orkin. Story Producer: Mical Pedriana.

Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble! (Mousechief). Writing: Keith Nemitz. Additional Writing: Adrianne Ambrose.

Fallout 3 (Bethesda). Lead Writer: Emil Pagliarulo. Quest Writing: Erik J. Caponi, Brian Chapin, Jon Paul Duvall, Kurt Kuhlmann, Alan Nanes, Bruce Nesmith, and Fred Zeleny. Additional Quest Writing: Nate Ellis, William Killeen, Mark Nelson, and Justin McSweeney.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (LucasArts). Writers: Haden Blackman, Shawn Pitman, John Stafford and Cameron Suey.

Tomb Raider: Underworld (Eidos). Story: Eric Lindstrom and Toby Gard. Screenplay: Eric Lindstrom.

Dangerous High School Girls In Trouble!?? Haha, brilliant. Glad to see the panel – which consists of the 200-member WGA Videogame Writers Caucus – didn’t leave the left field out when screening for candidates.

Writers Guild videogame award nominees announced [Variety]

Of the survey’s respondents, all of which fall into 18-49 demographic that advertisers just adore, 27% say they are watching less network television, while only 12% of cable series viewers have been turned away by the lazy fare being served up on the airwaves these days. The DVD industry is seeing the biggest benefit from the strike, as 43% of Americans turn to DVD movies for comfort and another 23% prefer to curl up with a TV box set of shows gone by. Another 26%, however, have discovered they suddenly have more free time to fire up their consoles or computers and get their game on.

“The strike makes scripted programming more valuable than ever,” Interpret CEO Michael Dowling said. “As top shows disappear from primetime, viewers may go back and view critically lauded TV series they missed the first time around, play more video games or watch more movies on DVD.”

Looks like Joseph Olin knew what he was talking about late last year when he suggested the strike would prove fortuitous to gaming as a whole.

The only thing that worries me here is that video game writers are slowly being allowed into the Writer’s Guild of America as part of their new media push, which could mean that in the future such strikes could affect the game industry as well. Where then would the game companies turn for witty, borderline attractive writers with a background steeped in video game culture and history? Oh, and tall. They’d have be very tall. *finger-phones to the ear while mouthing “call me”* We’ll just have to hope that never comes to pass.
Survey: DVD, games not striking out [The Hollywood Reporter]

– Crash of the Titans,” written by Christopher Mitchell for Sierra Entertainment
- “Dead Head Fred,” written by Dave Ellis and Adam Cogan for D3 Publisher
- “The Simpsons Game,” with lead writer Matt Selman, written by Tim Long and Matt Warburton, dialogue by Jeff Poliquin for Electronic Arts
- “The Witcher,” with lead story designer Artur Ganszyniec, dialogue by Sebastian Stepien, additional dialogue by Marcin Blacha and writers Sande Chen and Anne Toole for Atari
- “World in Conflict,” story design by Christofer Emgard, story consultant Larry Bond and script consultant Ed Zuckerman for Sierra Entertainment.

Crash of the Titans? Really? I suppose that just goes to show that your game can have a great story and still be overwhelmingly mediocre.

WGA announces videogame nominees [Variety]