"Is 'Grand Theft Auto IV' the greatest writing of the century?"

Opinions here seem to be as I expected. FWIW, I did appreciate the writing in GTA games I played previously, although obviously not the best in any video game (let alone any entertainment medium). Of course, it does do well given the style of the game, not to mention the popularity of the franchise (GTA may have the best writing of games that sold 10M+). Personally, I never really thought that much of the stories in TES games, although perhaps Bethesda did something special with Fallout 3. While they don't have the best writing in terms of the main storylines, I think these games do a great job of creating a great world to experience.

As for games with (possibly) better writing IMO, I would agree with most of the games listed here (except for maybe COD4, although it did have some great set-pieces). Those games, along with many others IMO (Silent Hill 2, Deus Ex, probably a dozen RPGs or so, etc.), are a few notches above GTA...although some of them have their fair share of issues, sometimes related to writing (EX: poor dialogue, although this could be related to localization). At least I could possibly see some of these competing with some movies or possibly books for best writing anyway.