Welcome back to 'What I Do', Aftermath's regular feature showcasing just what it is, exactly, that individuals in the video game business do every day.
We've recently spoken with Executive Producers, Operations Managers and even someone responsible for putting a big fancy showcase demo together. Today, we're chatting with Fran Warner, who is a narrative designer, a job that involves writing but also so much more.
Luke Plunkett: Hey Fran! Tell us a little about yourself!
Fran Warner: My name is Fran Warner. I grew up in New Jersey, moved to Los Angeles to work in the film industry for a bunch of years, then met a girl from Adelaide and moved to Australia. I'm a big fan of movies, sports, very loud rock music, cooking, short narrative-driven games with interesting mechanics, and the Oxford comma.
LP: What's your journey through the video game business looked like? Where did you get your start?
FW: My first brush with video games was when I was very small and had an Atari 2600. I decided for a while that I wanted to make games and used to design them on paper before I knew that was a job. Then I got older and fell in love with movies, got a couple of degrees in film and television, and headed to Los Angeles to become a screenwriter. I did lots of work in various aspects of film production, and a lot of that served me well in my games career.
I left LA for Adelaide, Australia to be with my future wife, and discovered that the film industry here (while currently thriving!) didn't have a lot of opportunity for me. I found work as a games producer for a tiny startup who had their offices in a vacant storefront in a shopping mall. This company was called Mighty Kingdom. We didn't have a narrative department when I joined, but we still had the need for narrative content in our games. As producer, I started doing the narrative on the games I worked on. When we finally did start a narrative department, the company was kind enough to let me switch disciplines. Ten years and three office moves later, I'm still with MK.
Currently, I oversee the narrative design for two mobile games we make with our partner East Side Games, Star Trek Lower Decks: The Badgey Directive and Power Rangers Mighty Force. For these games, our narrative designers outline and write cutscene scripts, build the cinematics in our proprietary Unity-based engine, select prizes for players to earn in the games, and contribute to marketing.
LP: OK, so you're a narrative designer, not a writer. Slightly confusing. What does the job involve, exactly?
FW: I think there are a lot of misconceptions about what narrative design is, and I think that's because different kinds of games require different skillsets from a narrative designer. Generally, I see narrative design as a subset of game design. We provide a story arc, characters, and an emotional hook that work in lockstep with fun, challenging gameplay to keep players coming back for more. Narrative is often brought in later in the process, but ideally the narrative for a game is built hand-in-hand with the overall game design from concept all the way through to shipment. This is so mechanics and gameplay are thematically aligned with the worldbuilding and the stories being told. Or, to be all academic about it, so that we avoid ludonarrative dissonance.
As for my role as the narrative lead, it's a combination of administrative and creative duties. I find my experience as a producer invaluable in the role. I contribute creatively to our games, but I also manage the other narrative designers, set standards and best practices for our department, maintain a style guide, handle the content approval process with our IP licensors, participate in scoping for pitches, and assist in resource allocation.
LP: You said there are some misconceptions surrounding the job. What are some of the worst you've seen?
FW: I think there are misconceptions about narrative design mostly because we're a very small discipline. Many studios don't employ anyone in the role, and it's hard to understand the breadth of what a talented narrative designer can do for you until you have one. I think the largest misconception is that we're just writers - of dialogue, of flavor text, of UI. On big AAA games with a large narrative design team, there can be devs who are mostly just writers. But we're also designers, and we often contribute to creating the central conceit of a game, worldbuilding, environmental storytelling, character creation, marketing, level design, and monitoring player sentiment so that we can lean in to what players love about our games.
LP: What is it you love most about coming to work every day and doing what you do?
FW: There are two things I love most about the job. One is making players laugh. The other is hearing from players who love what we do. Star Trek fans are notoriously fickle, and I love sharing positive comments with the team and being reminded that we don't operate in a vacuum - we're responsible for creating stories that players can find worthy of their time, money, and fandom.
LP: Given writing is one of the jobs already within the crosshairs of AI proponents, what are your feelings about generative AI and its potential to threaten the careers of anyone whose job includes the words "art" or "writing"?
FW: I tend to think that the AI debate is a more nuanced discussion than the one being played out at the moment, but that's probably true of most things. I am absolutely opposed to any use of generative AI to create visual art, writing, or any other creative product that would otherwise be made by a human artist. For one thing, art is made by artists with thoughts, emotions, memories, and senses that can't be replicated by AI, as is clear to anyone who has consumed AI content. For another, to any extent AI is able to produce a usable piece of content, it can do so only by training itself on the work of real artists, who have not given permission and are not compensated.
I think there is a use case for AI to assist in non-creative tasks, especially as it concerns engineering, game economies, and the like. But any such case still has to reckon with both the environmental impact of AI and the temptation to expand its use beyond these parameters.
TL;DR, AI is bad for games.
LP: Have you got any advice for anyone considering a similar career path?
FW: My general advice is the same as it would be for any discipline. Make your own game, or if you don't have the skills to be a solo dev, collaborate with others to make your own game. It's the best way to showcase your talent exactly how you want to, and it's a proof of concept to potential employers. It shows that you are a game dev, not an aspiring game dev.
For narrative designers specifically, I can't emphasize enough how important it is to make sure you have a strong command of written English (or whatever language you speak). There are so many games that ship basic spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar errors and it just takes you right out of the game. I've done it too! You will rarely if ever have the benefit of an editor when working on a game, so you need to be on point.
