Greetings, glorious adventurers! If you're joining in our Alpha One spot testing, please follow the steps here to see all the latest test info on our forums and Discord!
Options
Can you write for Intrepid Studios? Can I? Intro to video game writing
sunfrog
Member, Founder, Kickstarter
I’ve been attending Virtual Comic-Con and watching anything video game related. Today I learned about writing for video games. Did you know they start you off writing names for items? What the heck? Yes, that’s a job. Someone has to come up with the names of all the items in the game. Now try to imagine how many items will be in Ashes. 10,000? 50,000? 100,000? How many do you think? That’s a full-time job. How much does that person make? I want THAT job. I can do that. 
If I write 250 item names a day that works out to 5,000 names per month with Saturdays and Sundays off. So like, .10¢ per name? Is that too high? It’s only $500 a month. Hmm… how many names should I come up with per hour? Let me do some more math.
60 names per hour for 8 hours a day = 480 names per day. Times 22 work days in a month = 10,560 names per month. That sound’s more realistic. At .10¢ per item name it comes to $1056 a month. Hmm.. I gave myself 1 minute per name but in real life it’s probably more like 4 item names per minute. 42,240 per month.
Okay, let’s do more math. In Sandy Eggo the minimum wage is $15 per hour. (Woohoo progressives!) At 2.5¢ per name (’cause it’s 4 names per minute) that’s 600 names per hour. Which is 4,800 names per day, times 22 days in a month, and it comes to 105,600 item names per month. That should be enough for the game don’t you think? That’ll hold 'em for a while. But that means I’m out of work in one month and I only made $2,640. What do I do next month?
The next step up from item naming is writing barks. Barks are what non-important characters say, like, grenade! Get over here! Look out! They’re coming! Give ‘em heck boys! Stuff like that. It isn’t part of the story but needs to be there for flavor. It’s just flavor text.
I like saying flavor text. But since Ashes won’t have voice overs or cut scenes that might not be a job. Or will it?
NPCs need something to say that isn’t a quest, so is that the next step up for writers at Intrepid?
Beautiful day today isn’t it?
I hope the fish are biting.
I can’t wait to get off work today.
Ugh, did you see that massacre? I’m surprised anyone made it out alive.
Better not let Steven catch you doing that. You’ll be on latrine duty for a month.
I can do that too! How much do these writers get paid? Is it more than a month of work? (I hope this is called small talk just so I can say I write small talk for dwarfs)
Anyway, I found this peek into the world of video game writing very interesting and whimsical. I hope you did too. Steven, let me know if you need any help. I’ll be here sorting though my pile of…
Potions
Nausea inducing mussels
Hairy apples
Questionable bananas
Turtle sweat
Urlor’s Tears
Wood
Stainberry Bark
Backscratch Pine
Yellowood
Immortal Saplings
Slothwood
Animals
Octobear
Vague Clam
Green Sparrow
Sneaky Porcupine
Cucumber Snake
Wait, will we be able to name our original Animal Husbandry creations? I’m going off topic. I hope so. I should ask that in the Livestream. Get ready for Kelly McCamelface! Oh yeaaahh!~
If I write 250 item names a day that works out to 5,000 names per month with Saturdays and Sundays off. So like, .10¢ per name? Is that too high? It’s only $500 a month. Hmm… how many names should I come up with per hour? Let me do some more math.
60 names per hour for 8 hours a day = 480 names per day. Times 22 work days in a month = 10,560 names per month. That sound’s more realistic. At .10¢ per item name it comes to $1056 a month. Hmm.. I gave myself 1 minute per name but in real life it’s probably more like 4 item names per minute. 42,240 per month.
Okay, let’s do more math. In Sandy Eggo the minimum wage is $15 per hour. (Woohoo progressives!) At 2.5¢ per name (’cause it’s 4 names per minute) that’s 600 names per hour. Which is 4,800 names per day, times 22 days in a month, and it comes to 105,600 item names per month. That should be enough for the game don’t you think? That’ll hold 'em for a while. But that means I’m out of work in one month and I only made $2,640. What do I do next month?
The next step up from item naming is writing barks. Barks are what non-important characters say, like, grenade! Get over here! Look out! They’re coming! Give ‘em heck boys! Stuff like that. It isn’t part of the story but needs to be there for flavor. It’s just flavor text.
I like saying flavor text. But since Ashes won’t have voice overs or cut scenes that might not be a job. Or will it?NPCs need something to say that isn’t a quest, so is that the next step up for writers at Intrepid?
Beautiful day today isn’t it?
I hope the fish are biting.
I can’t wait to get off work today.
Ugh, did you see that massacre? I’m surprised anyone made it out alive.
Better not let Steven catch you doing that. You’ll be on latrine duty for a month.
I can do that too! How much do these writers get paid? Is it more than a month of work? (I hope this is called small talk just so I can say I write small talk for dwarfs)
Anyway, I found this peek into the world of video game writing very interesting and whimsical. I hope you did too. Steven, let me know if you need any help. I’ll be here sorting though my pile of…
Potions
Nausea inducing mussels
Hairy apples
Questionable bananas
Turtle sweat
Urlor’s Tears
Wood
Stainberry Bark
Backscratch Pine
Yellowood
Immortal Saplings
Slothwood
Animals
Octobear
Vague Clam
Green Sparrow
Sneaky Porcupine
Cucumber Snake
Wait, will we be able to name our original Animal Husbandry creations? I’m going off topic. I hope so. I should ask that in the Livestream. Get ready for Kelly McCamelface! Oh yeaaahh!~
1
Comments