Writing in the videogame industry has always been seen as a murky factor in the creation of videogames, some seeing it as merely an appendage that is tacked on by most companies, others seeing it as the crux of a project. This then makes David Gaider's series of posts on his blog incredibly interesting, for not only does it detail the entire process of working on a big game project, but also showcases the role that narrative design plays within the creation of a videogame.

The posts sport fascinating insights into the industry such as: "Game writing has much more in common with screenwriting a movie than it does with authoring a novel. Storytelling in a game involves so much more than just the writing. And that's not just being kind— if the words we wrote don't have the character design, the level art, the music and the cinematics (never mind the gameplay and many other things I'm forgetting to write down) to back them up, they're going to fall flat." and "And it's not like we sub-leads go, "yes, sir, Mr. Lead Designer sir!" and then run off to do his bidding. We argue. We argue like nerds on an Internet forum argue, albeit with a slightly greater grasp on the reality of the situation. If you're not someone who's willing to collaborate, who understands what that entails, you won't last long in game development. Throwing a tantrum and going, "I'm a writer! I refuse to allow such things as budgets and technical limitations to affect my art! How dare you, you philistine, presume to have ideas on the story! The nerve!"... well, that wouldn't go over very well. You'd be out the door in no time."

The fact that David Gaider took the time off to write this extremely entertaining and illuminating series of posts is a heartening one, as we as a gaming community are seeing developers for who they are, not faceless game-creating drones, but rather living, breathing and most importantly, thinking fellow human beings with a burning desire to create.