Over the weekend, the Writers Guild of America handed out trophies in its annual Writers Guild Awards. Top honors in film went to Christopher Nolan for his original screenplay for Inception and to Aaron Sorkin for his adapted screenplay for The Social Network. TV series that scored plaudits included Mad Men, Modern Family, and Boardwalk Empire.
The WGAs also have a video game category, where the winner was Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. The game's story was written by Jeffrey Yohalem, Corey May, and now ex-Ubisoft creative director Patrice Desilets. Its lead script writer was Jeffrey Yohalem, with Ethan Petty, Nicholas Grimwood, and Matt Turner serving as script writers.
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood beat out five other games in the category: Fallout: New Vegas, Singularity, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, God of War III, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II. However, its win was not without controversy. The exclusion of several of 2010's most awarded games, including Red Dead Redemption and Mass Effect 2, led to some criticism of the WGA's game category.
In an op-ed on Gamesindustry.biz, Writers Guild of America's Videogame Writers Caucus chair Micah Wright defended the selection process, saying BioWare and Take-Two Interactive refused to submit the scripts for Mass Effect 2 and Red Dead Redemption, respectively.
"Maybe they hate unions, or maybe they just hate winning awards, or maybe they have enough statues on their mantle," said Wright. "No way to know. So another game gets what would likely have been their nomination. Are we happy about it? No…but rules are rules and our rules are clear and very fair."
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