It sounds pretty obvious, but Movies and Games that are based on book often are better written.

I think more books should be turned into video games. like Metro series and the Witcher series both are very excellent games with good writing. Now If I would compare the Witcher with Dragon Age for example. Dragon Age would not hold a candle on The Witcher. and even the elder scrolls -what i consider the father of W/CRPGs-  are not as polished when it comes to writing scenarios, sure the Elder Scrolls has a great lore but it is mostly background stuff and is poorly implemented most of the time. On the other hand The Witcher while you do play as a single character (Geralt) you do feel like you're part of this world and you're not just "role playing" you are Geralt and you do care about his friends. 

Then we have Dragon Age, which is (and this is just my opinion of course) made by bioware, a developer studio that hires writers that would probably feel at home in sites like Fanfiction.net. Even though they have been doing games way longer than CDProject Red, their games feel like they were just rip offs of many novels and molded into a sexy and amatuer fanfiction. 

Now we also have the Metro series, which is ,for a shooter game is expertly written, that is because it borrows heavily from the source material, and the source material is good. So you don't have to worry about hiring shitty writers. 

Western RPGs try too hard to be "Epic" and "Huge" when they should instead focus on writing on set scenarios and tell more personal stories. A lot of people say that having a mute protagonist is a good thing, because you project your own view on the character or something. But that's way too dull, You really don't feel anything interesting is happening when your character is just picking up options on a list. Your character have to have some emotions not a "Yes" "No" thing.

Elder scrolls for example suffer from having characters that are just there to offer you quests, same with MMOs. all the characters you meet are shallow and once you talk to them they're pretty much done. I say instead of trying to have "HUGE EPIC WORLD" make one that is smaller but more interesting. 

There are exceptions of course for the mute character thing, Bloodborne/Dark/Demon's Souls I think was expertly written, but that game is very clastrophobic and dark that you feel every piece of dialog even if it is small actually means something. And it is a bit more obscure compared to the other WRPGs, in that it never tells you anything about the world you just have to figure it out yourself. It is not trying to be "Epic" but tries to be "Mysterious" 

There are games with good writing though. I don't think that adapting books is the solution though, because games have different qualities vs books and movies. Same as any new medium. It would result in better stories, sure.  But unless the writer for the game is already highly skilled, the adaptation will just limit the potential while simultaneously still being poorly done. 

However, there does need to be more effort put into writing. That's one of the areas I actually aim to work in personally someday. Hopefully. A lot of games focus too hard on making the plot action crazy and over the top at the expense of shallow characterization and lack of internal conflict.

The hard part for game is how to tell the story through your actions. SotC did that very well, yet most games fail. The Witcher 3 has excellent writing, but that's where it ends. Your actions don't really compliment the writing. You're asked to act out certain scenes within strict confines and never really feel like you're making the story.

Adapting a book will improve the conversations and back stories, however it doesn't do anything for the interactivity. You might as well read the book. Or in other words, if you ignore the documents in The Witcher 3, it becomes like any other rpg, pick quest, follow arrow, kill or loot x.

I haven't played Dragon age inquisition yet, the first one had very well written characters though. I loved all the banter between characters while you are exploring. For that reason alone I played through it 4 times with different character combinations.
DA2 had bad game play, the writing was pretty good. Interesting enough to try the different choices and sit through the bad game play again.
The Witcher 3 has better story telling, yet I don't feel like playing it again if I make it to the end, (Just going to the isle of mist now, the game never ends) since it doesn't feel like any of my choices matter. Plus there is way too much filler. The Witcher 2 was much better for choices with 2 completely different versions of act 2.

I can't really agree with this. There are tons of great written games and they aren't as rare as you think. I love Bloodborne and Dark Souls is quite decent. The plot however is very sloppy and non-existent in my opinion. The game was made for gameplay purposes only and the story is dabbed in like pin-up notes. I would say the story is about as deep as your average Super Mario game. I've said it once and I'll say it again! I love Bloodborne and have hours logged in. I'm STILL playing it! ^.^ Elder Scrolls is another bad example because its story is like Zelda (but debatably weaker). Something to keep the gamer going but so bare boned that it can focus on gameplay mechanics.

I would use examples like Naughty Dog games for an example of fantastic writing. When you play their games for a second time you actually realize that their huge plot twists and major revelations were actually seeded in the game and even have hints that are unavoidable to notice once you know them.

I could make a huge list of well written games and it's been getting better and better. There are tons of old games with great plots as well, granted not as many! However there were still TONS that existed! :)

I think many games have very good writers. The real challenge is presenting it in the actual game while making it interesting for the player.

thats true,  they all were at the george lucas school of writting.  class of episode one..

As a comic book reader, I can tell when something has bad writing. Jonathon Hickman for example, currently writing Avengers and Secret Wars is pretty bad. The story he's trying to tell is all over the place, jumping forward and back in time to different people and not explaining what is going on in a single issue. But this kind of writing is specific to comic book writing.

For games, it's say it should be a similar affair. In comics you see the story unfold in the pictures as well as the world. Games are no different but you can also experience it yourself. The key is to get the player hooked on the story, don't hide too many details from them and explain as you go. Destiny was awful, it explained nothing, added to a plot by telling you instead of you discovering and left huge chunks out for 'DLC'. It was extremely clichéd too. I mean one of the last lines was "All ends are beginnings." No crap, how did they think of that.

Bioware does have good writing but it this is done via good characterisation. That is it's strength, it's why Inquisition story didn't quite work as well as DA:O or even DA2, it tried to have too much and too big of a scale and because of that your character felt outside of the plot but being part of it, while in DA:O and DA2, without your character none of it would happen.

EDIT: What I'm saying is 'Hire comic book writers.', they work on commission anyway.

If you want to play games with good writers get a playstation. You conveniently leave out Naughty Dog games which has great writing.

Somebody needs to play The Last of Us

The only writer in gaming that stands out is Neil Druckmann.