Awards for the best video game writing? Isn't that an oxymoron? Aren't video games about jumping, shooting, running, shooting, and -- more shooting?

Not according to the Writers Guild of America which, this Thursday -- despite the strike -- intends to single out one game as worthy of a 2008 Writers Guild Award. It's a first for the WGA, having been spearheaded by the Guild's New Media Caucus "to encourage storytelling excellence in video games, to improve the status of writers, and to begin to encourage uniform standards" within the gaming industry.

The award is the brainchild of Micah Wright and Jay Lender, writing partners who have created numerous video games together, including "Shadow Ops: Red Mercury" for Atari and "Looney Tunes: Back in Action" for Warner Bros. Interactive. They believe that the attraction of quality graphics in games is on the wane and that character, dialog, and plot are widely expected to be the next "killer feature" in games.

"Sadly, on the eve of this revolution, the vast majority of game writers currently receive far less in compensation than their film and TV counterparts for similar work," says Wright. "They receive no minimums, no guaranteed credit, no profit participation, no benefits of any kind, and TV and film writers can look forward to the same as many of them migrate to the games industry. Given the fact that the domestic games industry made more money last year than theatrical film distribution, this may be the next major battlefield for WGA member writers."

Unfortunately, says Wright, there is little understanding in the public mind -- or even the game industry itself -- of the unique contribution of writers to the game development process.

"We are most often seen as 'dialoggers,' afterthoughts to the process," he adds. "As evidence of this, game industry awards, which cite writing or story, are handed out exclusively to publishers or to designers; they receive credit in the public mind for our work even when their contribution to story is negligible."

So the "Best Videogame Writing" award was born, with five nominees in the initial go-'round: "Crash of the Titans" by Christopher Mitchell, "Dead Head Fred" by Dave Ellis and Adam Cogan, "The Simpsons Game" by lead writer Matt Selman and others, "The Witcher" by lead story designer Artur Ganszyniec and others, and "World in Conflict," by Christofe Emgard and others.

But the list of nominees generated an almost-instantaneous storm of negative reaction from the gaming press who wondered aloud what happened to higher-profile and widely praised games like "Halo 3," "Mass Effect," "BioShock," and "Half-Life 2."

Writer Flint Dille -- who, together with his writing partner John Zuur Platten, just released their book "The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design" -- recalls much debate during the birthing of the writing award.

"We needed to figure out how we were going to do this," he says, "and one thing we decided was that we needed to get away from a 'hit game-hit script' mentality. In other words, we weren't necessarily going to nominate games simply because they had huge sales. Similarly, were we going to give the award for most innovative storytelling, for highest quality of writing, for breakthroughs in format? Selecting just five nominees was no trivial matter, I assure you."