How much should we pay game writers and narrative designers, anyway?

Hey game writers, narrative designers and those who contract them! I want to share some information and have a bit of a discussion about how much we pay our writers/narrative designers.

Recently I’ve been talking to a few writers/narrative designers about how much they’re quoting for larger projects, and I’ve been pretty horrified.

If you’ve got actual titles and experience under your belt, $20–25/hr AUD ($15–18 USD) isn’t acceptable.

Game writing and narrative design are highly specialised skillsets, different to all other forms of writing. Like all forms of writing, they require years of practice and research to do well — plus, we ALSO need to know almost the entire pipeline to do our jobs effectively. We need to be remunerated for this appropriately.

As a writer with multiple titles and years of experience, I usually charge between $50–80 AUD ($37–60 USD) an hour for short projects, depending on scope, budget of team and potential pain.

For longer projects, I don’t quote by the hour. a) it’s incredibly hard to predict how long this kind of creative work takes, and b) lots of my time is spent thinking, analysing and appraising alternative approaches — I’m not just charging for the time I spend physically writing.

Writing and narrative design don’t end when the day does, they are tasks that go on constantly. Value them as such.

I also want to highlight that there is a difference between game writing and narrative design. ND, by its nature, requires more experience — and should therefore be compensated at a higher rate.

For quotes, I try to make a ROUGH, generous estimate based on whatever details I have — INCLUDING revisions and polish — then add 30%. At this point I’ll be roughly where I need to be. I’ll then give milestones and dates.

If you’re an experienced writer/narrative designer and you’re consistently charging less than $20–25/hr AUD, you’re not just devaluing yourself, you’re devaluing narrative work in games and setting shitty, low-ball expectations for studios.

Make sure you read contracts meticulously, and set specific deliverables — specify the exact amount of revisions you’ll do, and that additional revisions cost $x. Make sure the payment schedule is throughout, and not paid all at the end with the last deliverable (which should be your smallest payment ideally).

Studios, especially if your game is predicated on narrative or where narrative and writing are crucial elements, you need to be remunerating freelancers properly. $35–40 AUD ($25–30 USD) on the lower end, $60–120 AUD ($45–90 USD) or more on the higher end, and even higher if you’ve got significant titles and experience.

Make sure your freelancers are charging appropriately. If someone low-balls you, come back with an appropriate offer. Don’t accept their low-ball figure. That’s unethical and devalues writing and narrative design as a whole.

If you’re a beginner, absolutely charge $20–25. That’s fine, it’s reflective of your experience level. But with time and additional projects under your belt, you should be raising your prices.

OCCASIONALLY, you might have a project where you low-ball your figures because you love it so much. That’s fine. But do me a big favour: Include the REAL amount you would charge on your quotes and invoices, and then include the discount to bring it where it needs to be.

This allows people to understand what your time is actually worth, even if you’re not actually charging for that.

Charge what you’re worth — and recognise that as freelancers we NEED to charge more than we would get working full time (roughly 20%). Writers and narrative designers, take yourself seriously.

Studios, take writers and narrative designers seriously. We want to build great games, not lose talent to other industries.

Additional hot tip from the always-excellent @annlemay: “Leverage your experience not just on the writing side, but also on your understanding of pipelines and deliverables.”

Thanks to Wanderlustin and ImASithDuh for proroferanating!

Additional reading from @toiyakfinley — https://gamewriting.org/2016/03/professional-rates-for-freelance-writers/

Additional reading from the Writer’s Guild of Great Britain — https://writersguild.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/WGGB-A4-Videogames-2.pdf

Original Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/liamesler/status/1008507869392539649