Nebula Award for Best Game Writing

Nebula Award for Best Game Writing
Awarded for	The best science fiction or fantasy game writing published in the prior calendar year
Country	United States
Presented by	Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association
First awarded	2019
Most recent winner	Adam Smith et al. for Baldur's Gate 3
Website	sfwa.org/nebula-awards/

The Nebula Award for Best Game Writing is one of the Nebula Awards, presented each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) for science fiction or fantasy game writing. The Nebula Awards have been described as one of "the most important of the American science fiction awards" and "the science-fiction and fantasy equivalent" of the Emmy Awards.^[1][2] The Game Writing category is the newest category of the Nebulas, which were originally awarded in 1966 solely for printed fiction. The Nebula Award for Best Game Writing has been awarded annually since 2019.^[3] The drive to create the Game Writing category was promoted by then SFWA president Cat Rambo after game writers were made eligible for SFWA membership in 2016. According to a statement by SFWA when the category was announced in 2018, it was added to reflect how changes in technology had expanded the media used for science fiction and fantasy storytelling.^[4]

To be eligible for Nebula Award consideration, a work must be published in English in the United States. Works published in English elsewhere in the world are also eligible provided they are released on either a website or in an electronic edition. A game is considered by the organization to be "an interactive or playable story-driven work which conveys narrative, character, or story background". Works in this category have no set word count and must have at least one credited writer.^[3]

Nebula Award nominees and winners are chosen by members of the SFWA, though the game writers do not need to be members. Works are nominated each year by members in a period around December 15 through January 31, and the six works that receive the most nominations then form the final ballot, with additional nominees possible in the case of ties. Soon after, members are given a month to vote on the ballot, and the final results are presented at the Nebula Awards ceremony in May. Writers are not permitted to nominate their own works, and ties in the final vote are broken, if possible, by the number of nominations the works received.^[3]

During the 6 nomination years, 33 games by 105 writers have been nominated. These have primarily been video games, but also include seven books for role-playing game systems and an interactive film. The first year's award was won by Charlie Brooker for the interactive film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch; the second year's award was won by a team of nine writers led by Leonard Boyarsky for the video game The Outer Worlds; the third year's award was won by Greg Kasavin for the video game Hades; the fourth year's award by a team of six writers for the role-playing game Thirsty Sword Lesbians; the fifth year's award by Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R. R. Martin for the video game Elden Ring; and the sixth year by a team of 16 writers led by Adam Smith for the video game Baldur's Gate 3. Only four writers have been nominated more than once, with two nominations each for Dominique Dickey, Kate Dollarhyde, Kate Heartfield, and Natalia Theodoridou. Interactive fiction developer Choice of Games has had the most games nominated with a total of seven over five years.

Winners and nominees

In the following table, the years correspond to the date of the ceremony, rather than the game's release. Each year links to the corresponding "year in video games". Entries with a blue background and an asterisk (*) next to the writer's name have won the award; those with a white background are the other nominees on the shortlist. Entries with a gray background and a plus sign (+) mark a year when "no award" was selected as the winner.

  *   Winners and joint winners

Winners and nominees

Year	Writer(s)	Game	Developer	Ref.
2019	Charlie Brooker*	Black Mirror: Bandersnatch	House of Tomorrow	[5]
			Netflix
	Matt Sophos	God of War	Santa Monica Studio	[5]
	Richard Zangrande Gaubert
	Cory Barlog
	M. Darusha Wehm	The Martian Job	Choice of Games	[5]
	Natalia Theodoridou	Rent-A-Vice	Choice of Games	[5]
	Kate Heartfield	The Road to Canterbury	Choice of Games	[5]
2020	Leonard Boyarsky*	The Outer Worlds	Obsidian Entertainment	[6]
	Kate Dollarhyde*
	Paul Kirsch*
	Chris L'Etoile*
	Daniel McPhee*
	Carrie Patel*
	Nitai Poddar*
	Marc Soskin*
	Megan Starks*
	Kelsey Beachum	Outer Wilds	Mobius Digital	[6]
	Kate Heartfield	The Magician's Workshop	Choice of Games	[6]
	Robert Kurvitz	Disco Elysium	ZA/UM	[6]
	Elsa Sjunneson-Henry	Fate Accessibility Toolkit	Evil Hat Productions	[6]
2021	Greg Kasavin*	Hades	Supergiant Games	[7]
	Stephen Bell	Blaseball	The Game Band	[7]
	Joel A. Clark
	Sam Rosenthal
	Jake Elliot	Kentucky Route Zero	Cardboard Computer	[7]
	Phoebe Barton	The Luminous Underground	Choice of Games	[7]
	Sam Kabo Ashwell	Scents & Semiosis	Sam Kabo Ashwell	[7]
	Cat Manning
	Yoon Ha Lee
	Caleb Wilson
	Nicolas Guerin	Spiritfarer	Thunder Lotus Games	[7]
	Maxim Monast
	Alex Tommi
2022	April Kit Walsh*	Thirsty Sword Lesbians	Evil Hat Productions	[8]
	Whitney Delagio*
	Dominique Dickey*
	Jonaya Kemper*
	Alexis Sara*
	Rae Nedjadi*
	Connor Alexander	Coyote and Crow	Coyote & Crow	[8]
	William McKay
	Weyodi Oldbear
	Derek Pounds
	Nico Albert
	Riana Elliott
	Diogo Nogueira
	William Thompson
	Balogun Ojetade	Granma's Hand	Roaring Lion Productions	[8]
	Jay Dragon	Wanderhome	Possum Creek Games	[8]
	Nate Austin	Wildermyth	Worldwalker Games	[8]
	Anne Austin
	Douglas Austin
2023	Hidetaka Miyazaki*	Elden Ring	FromSoftware	[9]
	George R. R. Martin*
	Ben McCaw	Horizon Forbidden West	Guerrilla Games	[9]
	Annie Kitain
	Ajit George	Journeys through the Radiant Citadel	Wizards of the Coast	[9]
	F. Wesley Schneider
	Justice Ramin Arman
	Dominique Dickey
	Basheer Ghouse
	Alastor Guzman
	D. Fox Harrell
	T.K. Johnson
	Felice Tzehuei Kuan
	Surena Marie
	Mimi Mondal
	Mario Ortegón
	Miyuki Jane Pinckard
	Pam Punzalan
	Erin Roberts
	Stephanie Yoon
	Terry H. Romero
	Kate Dollarhyde	Pentiment	Obsidian Entertainment	[9]
	Zoe Franznick
	Märten Rattasepp
	Josh Sawyer
	Steven Lerner	Stray	BlueTwelve Studio	[9]
	Vivien Mermet-Guyenet
	Colas Koola
	Natalia Theodoridou	Vampire: The Masquerade — Sins of the Sires	Choice of Games	[9]
2024	Adam Smith*	Baldur's Gate 3	Larian Studios	[10]
	Adrienne Law*
	Baudelaire Welch*
	Chrystal Ding*
	Ella McConnell*
	Ine Van Hamme*
	Jan Van Dosselaer*
	John Corcoran*
	Kevin VanOrd*
	Lawrence Schick*
	Martin Docherty*
	Rachel Quirke*
	Ruairí Moore*
	Sarah Baylus*
	Stephen Rooney*
	Swen Vincke*
	Stewart C. Baker	The Bread Must Rise	Choice of Games	[10]
	James Beamon
	Sam Lake	Alan Wake II	Remedy Entertainment, Epic Games Publishing	[10]
	Clay Murphy
	Tyler Burton Smith
	Sinikka Annala
	Yoon Ha Lee	Ninefox Gambit: Machineries of Empire Roleplaying Game	Android Press	[10]
	Marie Brennan
	Joel Mason	Dredge	Black Salt Games, Team17	[10]
	Julien Moya	Chants of Sennaar	Rundisc, Focus Entertainment	[10]
	Thomas Panuel

See also

• Hugo Award for Best Game or Interactive Work

References

1. Flood, Allison (April 28, 2009). "Ursula K Le Guin wins sixth Nebula award". The Guardian. Archived from the original on August 1, 2009. Retrieved December 12, 2011.
2. Garmon, Jay (October 3, 2006). "Geek Trivia: Science-fiction double feature". TechRepublic. TechnologyAdvice. Archived from the original on February 14, 2012. Retrieved December 12, 2011.
3. "Nebula rules". Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Retrieved February 20, 2020.
4. Catalano, Frank (November 12, 2018). "First-ever Nebula award for game writers approved by professional science fiction writers organization". GeekWire. Archived from the original on June 24, 2021. Retrieved June 20, 2021.
5. "Nebula Awards 2019". Science Fiction Awards Database. Locus. Archived from the original on March 22, 2019. Retrieved April 7, 2019.
6. "Nebula Awards 2020". Science Fiction Awards Database. Locus. Archived from the original on May 6, 2021. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
7. "Nebula Awards 2021". Science Fiction Awards Database. Locus. Archived from the original on July 6, 2021. Retrieved July 6, 2021.
8. "Nebula Awards 2022". Science Fiction Awards Database. Locus. Archived from the original on December 12, 2022. Retrieved March 13, 2022.
9. "Nebula Awards 2023". Science Fiction Awards Database. Locus. Archived from the original on May 15, 2023. Retrieved March 10, 2023.
10. "Nebula Awards 2024". Science Fiction Awards Database. Locus. Archived from the original on June 12, 2024. Retrieved June 12, 2024.

External links

• Nebula Awards official site