Playing with words: why novelists are becoming video game writers – and vice-versa

While the novel remains a high-status cultural form, video game writing is still seen as a throwaway art - despite some of the biggest names in fiction being involved

I've been working in games for a little more than 15 years, and the main thing I'd say about it at this point is that it's a pretty annoying job to explain at parties. People often say something like, Oh, I don't really play games," which is surely an odd thing to tell a game designer moments after you've been introduced; I don't really eat croissants, but that's not the first thing I bring up if I meet a patissier.

So one of the joys of publishing my first novel last year was the option to sidestep all of that, and say: Oh, I'm a writer." I wrote a novel; I'm working on another one; job done, the conversation can move on. Nobody says, Oh, I don't really read books," even though that's at least as likely to be true.