Action, Time And Vision

Yesterday, Taylor Swift dropped a new album, entirely out of the blue. I do like this trend, where albums appear, fully-formed, out of the void, like Venus rising from the waves. Don't you wish it would happen that way with games?

I'm not sure when it started. I only began to notice it a year or two ago. I imagine it's a function of digital distribution systems, changes in listening habits, musicians being able to exert more control. I know it has something to do with algorithms and streaming. There will be money involved as much as art, no doubt. Always.

Change has been rolling over the creative industries for a while now, since long before the current crisis smashed the old models out of shape. The pandemic poured on gasoline, sure, but it didn't set the fire.

Fire, infamously, terrifyingly, both destroys and creates. The sudden and complete collapse of the structures we've relied on threatens the commercial and creative existences of individuals, businesses, entire artforms, even as any number of extraordinary and unusual projects come blazing out of the darkness. Light shines through the cracks as the building burns.

Some of the possibilities revealed have gotten me very excited indeed. Over-excited, probably. I've been waiting a long time. I was beginning to wonder if I'd live long enough to see promises made in the eighties and nineties come true. The sixties and seventies, if it comes to that. Some of what I imagined would be my past by now suddenly feels tantalizing close to being my future, but I've been fooled this way before.

A lot of people with money or status to lose are doing their damnedest to haul normal back by sheer force of will but no matter how hard they pull, they don't have the status quo ante on the hook. We're all staying in this strange place for a while and we're going to be doing things differently. There's a chance to do some of it better. Why not take it?

Yes, why? Because there's still a vast nostalgia for the traditional, not to mention that pesky humanity of ours to consider. The old ways may yet win out, given time.

Seriously, could this be any more Lana?

Which is fine. Babies and bathwater and all that. One step forward, two cliches back. But let's take that forward step. It would be disappointing to come out the far side of something so terrible only to find ourselves back in the same place we left behind. Wouldn't it?

All of which is a little more intense than I was expecting when I sat down to knock out a very quick post pointing out that Taylor Swift seems to have filmed some of her new video in Dierdre's Steps. It was just going to be a little joke but jokes have an awkward way of turning serious, sometimes.

I do believe the worlds of music and movies will change because of what we've all been going through. They've already started and anyway they already were. Taylor and Charlie wrote and recorded their albums in lockdown but why wouldn't they? They document their lives in their art and this is our life, now.

I'm not one to say prizes matter but I hope Charlie wins the Mercury this time. She deserves it.

Games, though? I'm not so sure. According to Gamesindustry "The UK video games industry has proven to be resilient in the face of a global pandemic, with the majority of businesses reporting lockdown has not put their company in danger of layoffs or shutdown." Also, the same source tells us, the pandemic has driven interest in games to new heights even as old practices persist.

The way games companies work may change and so may the way they behave. God knows it needs to.  But then, what doesn't? I mean, if you can't trust garage rockers to set the standard, what's the world coming to? We live in unusual times, that's for sure.

And it's hard, when one minute we're yearning for games like the ones we used to play and the next we're complaining that everything feels the same. There's no pleasing us.

(Careful with this one. It has triggers. "The following short film contains scenes that some may find disturbing . Viewer discretion is advised.")

But things are moving forward. What's ahead can better than what we've left behind. Not that getting there is going to be easy. To quote Polly Scattergood "... if you could see into the future, would you make the same decision again? Knowing you would have to go through both bad as well as good".

Well, I don't know. Would you?