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 Guard. 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]

At 1UP, Lara Crigger shared the general puzzlement:

The list shocked gamers — not so much for what it included, but what it left out. Sure, The Witcher and World in Conflict were written well enough, and The Simpsons Game certainly had its fair share of good jokes. But how did Crash of the Titans — the 14th Crash Bandicoot game — and PSP no-name Dead Head Fred end up on the list when Portal and BioShock, two of the best-written games ever to hit PCs, didn't?

So what was the reasoning behind the awards?

The logic behind the list, explains Jacobs, is that writers had to be members of the WGA's New Media Caucus to be nominated. But few writers in the industry currently belong to the WGA, much less the Caucus.

Oh, eligibility. That makes sense. Do you think game writers will be rushing to join the association's Caucus in droves?

Has Game Writing Finally Comes Of Age? [1UP]

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."

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]

As the Writers Guild of America strike continues to eke its way toward a very unhappy holidays, Variety has put together a little list of things striking writers can do in their spare time.... no they didn't include playing through BioShock. They did include writing video games though.

While the WGA has made no secret that it would like to eventually cover vidgame writing, it hasn't pushed the issue yet and is allowing members to work on games during the strike.

"It has been an interesting shift," says one tenpercenter who focuses on vidgames. "The literary agents are now saying, 'Why don't we get our clients over there during the strike?' even though in the past they thought the money wasn't good enough or the work is too demanding."

While the article says that the pay isn't that good comparatively, they list the typical fee as $50,000. Man, maybe I should change jobs. The article has a lot of other interesting insights into the process of writing the story for a video game, like how long it takes and how disjointed it can be.

This pen's for hire [Variety]