The WGA today announced the creation of a Videogame Writing Award, to be presented at the guild's Los Angeles ceremony on February 9, 2008. According to the WGA, the idea is "to encourage storytelling excellence in videogames, to improve the status of writers, and to begin to encourage uniform standards."

"Videogames are written and many are written very well," said WGAW president Patric Verrone. "By recognizing the skill and craft of videogame writing, the Writers Guilds intend to raise the profile of these writers so that they can get WGA contracts and benefits for this work. We aim, we shoot, we score."

The award is a product of the WGA's New Media Caucus, a panel created to bring the WGA out of the 20th Century--and, of course, bring more paying members to the guild in the process.

"Writers are finally being recognized and valued in the videogame industry. Both artistically and financially, videogames matter--and videogame writers matter to the WGA," added WGAW New Media Caucus member Jay Lender, a former writer and director on the TV series SpongeBob SquarePants, and writer of games such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Dukes of Hazzard: Return of General Lee.

This year the entry requirements will be open to anyone with a videogame writing credit, although entrants must apply to become members of the New Media Caucus. In future years, only work produced under WGA jurisdiction will be considered eligible.