Okay, this may cause some alarmists to scream "Big Brother!" so before all the speculation, here are the known details - just so all you privacy advocates can relax a bit.

Google has filed a patent that reveals that they plan to compile psychological profiles of millions of gamers by covertly monitoring the way they play online games. Now you may think that this only concerns folks who play MMOs on their PCs, however, the patent apparently says that Google can also monitor people playing on any game console that hooks up to the internet, including the Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, and Microsoft Xbox 360.

What's even more hair-raising is that it says that information could be retrieved from previous game details saved on memory cards. To quote: "Such saved information may be thought of state information, and offers a valuable source of information to the advertisers." Yes, if you've played 350 hours of Oblivion, they'll know. Yep, the patent is that creepy; it even says:

In a car racing game, after a user crashes his Honda Civic, an announcer could be used to advertise by saying 'if he had a Hummer, he would have gotten the better of that altercation', etc... If the user has been playing for over two hours continuously, the system may display ads for Pizza Hut, Coke, coffee.

Now here's why we're asking all those privacy advocates to calm down and not cry foul. Google has said that they do not plan to roll out the technology in the near future. They say that it was just one of the patents that they wanted to file. The Guardian reports that a Google spokesman had this to say: "Google registers different patents irrespective of whether we actually intend to use them."

So no, Big Brother, er, I mean, Google isn't watching you. Not yet. *insert cheesy B-movie sci-fi music* It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you.

There's a feature on writer Wynne McLaughlin on Austin American-Statesman... What? Who's McLaughlin? Well, he's got several screenplays and television scripts to his name. He's also got a lot of writing credits on sci-fi and detective shows.

What's that? What does he have to do with gaming? Wait a bit okay? We're getting there.

McLaughlin you see, is a professional game writer and designer at Austin game publisher NCsoft Corp. McLaughlin says:
 

With Tabula Rasa, I am writing dialogue and alien names, but I have to be able to physically put that into the game and understand how to set that up and what events happen within the game.

His job in Tabula Rasa basically requires him to come up with reasonable sounding terms and techno-babble such as "Tinchtu Herb" and "Stim Dus." He says that a most useful tool when doing his job is Google. He uses it to make sure that there isn't already a word like that or to better understand the Latin origin of certain words and concepts he has to work with. In his words: "It's a writer's best friend."

What's interesting about this is that his job hardly existed ten years ago, but now that the industry is maturing and there is an increasing need for more mature and complex plots. Face it, it's not just about the graphics and the speed and the twitchy-ness of the games anymore. The gamers are growing up, and they're demanding better more involved in-game experiences.

Now, there aren't many pure writing jobs available in games. A lot of the jobs available require an unusual blending of creative writing and technical know-how. It pays good though as salaries can range from $30,000 per game to more than $100,000 a year for someone who writes and designs.

One has to keep in mind though that writing for games is something almost alien compared to writing for novels or movies. For one thing, more writing is done for games, especially the ongoing massive-multiplayer online games. A screenplay averages about 110 pages. A game can contain thousands of pages of dialogue. Imagine how many pages of script there are for those 60+ hour RPGs?

A lot of guess work is done to try to predict what a player will do in each situation. Why is that? Because writing for games isn't about having the best dialogue or the most realistic or compelling characters, it's about satisfying the player. For some game genres, it's about making the player feel like he's the star of the show. For others, it's about immersing the player and suspending disbelief as much as possible.

Whatever the genre, the story, or the design/setting of the game is, all of that should give the game a lot of sense. Just a little career idea for you if you think you've got whole worlds spinning around in the mysts of your mind and you're into gaming.