As the Writer's Guild Of America strike drags on, amid a boring avalanche of television reruns and major shows like 24 shutting down for the season, thoughts turn to other avenues of employment.
For now, the focus is on Internet revenue, which studio owners are reluctant to share with writers. It's overshadowed a pretty shocking fact about the most lucrative work for screenwriters other than Hollywood: Video games.
I'm a screenwriter. My television scripts were produced for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. I'd love to write video games,
but knowing the current pay structure for game writers, I'm hesitant.
Video game writers aren't paid residuals.
Gone are the days of little yellow guys chomping on pellets, video games are complex sagas requiring scripts like feature films. Game publishers successfully resisted Hollywood unions like SAG for actors and also the WGA for years now, so game writers are paid only for completed work. When a mega hit video game like Halo, World of Warcraft or Grand Theft Auto makes a huge financial splash, writers who toiled long and hard on that game title receive nothing else. Not even perhaps a complimentary copy of their own game. That's a pitiful picture of pixels if you ask me.
Writer "Heroes"
Tim Kring is a writing hero.
Even fans of the NBC super hit series may not immediately recognize the name. Tim Kring is creator and show runner of "Heroes."
As genre TV goes, it's one of the more original and beloved in years. For the characters Kring created, fighting injustice isn't a matter of capes, masks or secret identities. It's a matter of loyal alliances, picking your battles with moral conviction and staying out of the way of an evil brain sucking guy named Sylar.
Article Source: www.associatedcontent.com
