Writer's Guild of America nominates 007 Legends, neglects The Walking Dead

The Writer's Guild of America has announced its nominees for outstanding achievement in video game writing for 2012. Shockingly, the critically drubbed 007 Legends made the short list, while the near universally praised The Walking Dead did not.

The rest of the picks weren't much better with Far Cry 3 making the list after its attempts at satire were so subdued that its writer had to defend it to the press, while Uncharted: Golden Abyss has often been declared the weak link in that franchise as series creator Naughty Dog didn't pen it.

The full list of nominations is as follows:

• 007 Legends - Written By Bruce Feirstein; Activision
• Assassin's Creed 3 - Story By Alex Hutchinson, Corey May, Matt Turner; Multiplayer Story By Richard Farrese, Jeffrey Yohalem; Lead Scriptwriter Corey May; Scriptwriter Nicholas Grimwood, Russell Lees, Matt Turner, Danny Wallace, Ceri Young; Ubisoft
• Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation - Scriptwriting by Richard Farrese, Jill Murray; Ubisoft
• Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two - Writing Consultant Marv Wolfman; Disney Interactive Studios
• Halo 4 - Narrative Design Christopher Schlerf; Microsoft Studios
• Uncharted: Golden Abyss - Written By John Garvin; Sony Computer Entertainment America

How can this be? According to the stipulations on the WGA's official site, "Credited videogame writers must have been or must have applied to become members of the WGA Videogame Writers Caucus at the time scripts were submitted."

It then noted, "Work that was not produced under WGA jurisdiction was also eligible for submission." Thus, this list makes even less sense.

Another limitation was that eligible submissions had to have been released between 1st December, 2011 and 30th November, 2012. Of course there were plenty of other well written games that fell into this time-frame.

We've reached out to the WGA for comment and will update if we hear anything back.