Nebula Award for Best Game Writing


The Nebula Award for Best Game Writing is one of the various Nebula Awards presented each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America for science fiction or fantasy game writing, defined as "an interactive or playable story-driven work which conveys narrative, character, or story background". To be eligible for Nebula Award consideration a short story 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. Works in this category have no set word count and must have at least one credited writer. The Nebula Award for Best Game Writing has been awarded annually since 2019. The award has 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.
Nebula Award nominees and winners are chosen by members of the SFWA, though the authors of the nominees do not need to be a member. Works are nominated each year between November 15 and February 15 by published authors who are members of the organization, and the six works that receive the most nominations then form the final ballot, with additional nominees possible in the case of ties. Members may then vote on the ballot throughout March, and the final results are presented at the Nebula Awards ceremony in May. Authors 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.
During the 2 nomination years, 10 games by 20 writers have been nominated. These have primarily been video games, but also include an interactive film and a book for a role-playing game system. The first year was won by Charlie Brooker for the interactive film ; the second year was won by a team of nine writers led by Leonard Boyarsky for the video game The Outer Worlds. Only one writer has been nominated more than once, with two for Kate Heartfield. Interactive fiction developer Choice of Games has the most games nominated with four.

Winners and nominees

In the following table, the years correspond to the date of the ceremony, rather than when the game was first published. Each year links to the corresponding "year in literature". 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
+ No winner selected
YearWriterGameDeveloperRef.
2019*House of Tomorrow, Netflix
2019God of WarSIE Santa Monica Studio
2019God of WarSIE Santa Monica Studio
2019God of WarSIE Santa Monica Studio
2019Choice of Games
2019Rent-A-ViceChoice of Games
2019Choice of Games
2020*Obsidian Entertainment
2020*Obsidian Entertainment
2020*Obsidian Entertainment
2020*Obsidian Entertainment
2020*Obsidian Entertainment
2020*Obsidian Entertainment
2020*Obsidian Entertainment
2020*Obsidian Entertainment
2020*Obsidian Entertainment
2020Outer WildsMobius Digital
2020Choice of Games
2020Disco ElysiumZA/UM
2020Fate Accessibility ToolkitEvil Hat Productions