My idea for The Nottingham Project - want to rejuvenate the culture? Bring back GameCity

19 Jul

Coronavirus has not just hit us all physically, it has hit us emotionally also.

As cities and towns shut down across the country, our means of self expression and social interaction were removed. Granted, we have Zoom and the tools and means to stay in touch, but they’re not quite the same.

It’s also hit creativity also, speaking from the experience of this mental rut I find myself in, but no doubt that’s a similar situation other people are also experiencing.

Don’t get me wrong, when the pandemic begun, I was in the rare air of what some people would call “my element.”

It’s true for me especially that limitations are the lifeblood of creativity. The moment I’m just forced to work with what, I make better stuff like The Virtual Pub podcast and my rebrand of the Twitch channel.

Me, in my twitch streaming element at 2am, wearing a Hawaiian shirt.

And I know it’s not just me that feels this - look at gaming (because of course, this is my blog and I’m going to make a nerdy example). The final year of any console generation is a moment when people realise you’ve squeezed every drop of power from the PS3 (in this example), and you believe there isn’t much else that can be done with the hardware. Then The Last of Us comes along and exceeds every possible expectation you had for video game storytelling and presentation.

I’m going off on a tangent again. You get the point I’m making. Limitations are good, as they challenge you. But after several months of this, it’s hard to keep up and across the nation, you can see that too. It’s time to plan for the rebirth of our creative society, and the city I love has made a start.

A new Nottingham Board for Culture and Creativity has been formed, creating a 10-year project to rejuvenate culture with the “power of culture, creativity, the arts, music and sport.” It’s an ambitious goal, and while I can’t speak to the sport side of it (spoiler alert: I was always the last kid picked in PE), I can speak for the culture, creativity and the arts part with the very medium immediately referenced at the beginning of this blog - gaming. Specifically, GameCity.

Now, the first question that more national and international readers may have. Why on Earth am I talking about this?

I was born in Nottingham and have lived here all my life. My childhood was in Ashfield (the “shire” part of Notts), but I went to college in the city, went to Nottingham Trent University and have enjoyed living out my years in this uniquely rebellious pocket of the nation.

Is it perfect? Of course not, but it’s been my home for 30 years and I’m damn proud of this city and its surrounding area.

It was 2006, and I had a free afternoon at college to head into town. Normally, I went with friends, but wanted some time to myself, so loaded my iPod up with some podcasts and took the bus.

Something is always happening in Market Square - normally an outdoor market or some sort of protest. But I was welcomed with something different… Video games. Specifically a cavalcade of indie titles that changed my perception of gaming as a whole.

You see, coming from small town Notts, we only really saw and talked about the big releases - formed Xbox Live parties with mates on Halo and Call of Duty, occasionally seasoned with a bit of FIFA. Indie games were a distant idea none of us had really engaged with beyond the hilarious small flash games we played on library computers.

This small celebration to gaming is one of the first times I experienced the rebellious nature of indie gaming - casually waving two fingers at the conformist norm and blowing my mind with artistic expression.

It was creatively inspirational, and quickly became one of my favourite times of the year for Nottingham. It also became an important educational tool for future generations with coding classes - a critical skill for many career paths of the future.

And that’s where my idea lies. You want to be the beating heart of independent culture? Of the “power of culture and creativity,” to rejuvenate the city? There is one name that fulfilled both of those prerequisites - GameCity.

I know this idea evolved into the National Videogame Museum, which recently picked up sticks and moved to Sheffield from Nottingham’s Hockley area, but this important effort to preserve the gaming’s past never really had the same independent energy that the one week bonanza of GameCity did.

The National Videogame Arcade in Nottingham’s Lace Market area.

Are there other indie game events? Of course there are. But nothing quite takes over the city and becomes a cultural mark on the calendar quite like gamecity did. In London, you’d be lucky to get a conference room in a hotel. In Liverpool, I went to talk to some Indie developers at a bar in the docks. Birmingham - your best place is the Insomnia festival at the NEC.

Plus, it is so on point to the independent spirit this city has that we’d be mad to not take advantage of that connection.

You want to rejuvenate the creativity, the culture, the spirit of Nottingham after what has been a terrible time for us all (to say the least)? Gamecity should be part of the plan to do so.

Headline image credit: Peter Taylor. All other images captured by myself.