14 DAY TRIAL // Speaking at the GDC Online event in Austin, Texas Chris Metzen, who is the senior vice president of creative development at video game developer Blizzard, has talked about how important writers are to the company and to the success of the MMO World of Warcraft.
He spoke about what writing means for Blizzard, saying, “To us is not about the best hooks in the world, or the most clever hooks. It’s not about being the most unique in the world, or the best-written dialog in the world. To us it's about heart, it's about the engagement.”
He added, “That might sound naive, but at the end of the day there are amazing game companies out there, and great minds at work. There's a lot of competition for peoples' attention. You're always going to get clobbered on ideas, but what you won’t get clobbered on is expressing your personal ideas and experiences - your personal truth.”
Metzen says that writers have a bigger role at Blizzard than just writing the words that players read when accepting quests or talking to characters.
At the successful developer a writer also has to be involved with all other developers and need to be the one who holds together the overall vision of the game.
Blizzard has long held that gameplay is crucial to the success of World of Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo and that means that story is important but comes second.
This means that writers need to know when to compromise and when to push their ideas.
At the moment Blizzard is working on putting the finishing touches on Diablo III, which is at the moment in closed beta stage, with the launch coming in early 2012.
The company is also producing a new expansion for the MMO World of Warcraft and an expansion Heart of the Swarm for Starcraft II.