You might expect change to be at the heart of an industry rooted in creativity and technological disruption, yet publishing often approaches sustainability and change slowly and with a struggle. However, three stories this week paint a picture of an industry being forced to adapt. As small, nimble players in that machine, we may be able to navigate that change with greater agility than larger organizations.
ALLi News Editor, Dan Holloway
First up is the announcement that the UK publishing industry’s campaign to commit to a sustainability pledge has reached the milestone of 200 signatories. Muddy Publishing is the 200th company to sign up to the UK Publishing Association’s “Publishing Declares” initiative. This is part of the much broader global initiative, the SDG Publishers Compact. The pledge involved in the Publishing Declares initiative includes a lot of talk about using platforms for education and impact (yes, how to slip the phrase “hot air” into this paragraph did pass a little of my time).
It also focuses on working with partners, including writers, and of course on the supply chain, our industry's biggest sustainability issue. Because this isn’t a new initiative, what it doesn’t explicitly reference is the carbon-hungry nature of technology, from streaming to blockchain, to AI. But one assumes signatories have sustainability front and center (or at least waiting somewhere in the wings?) while considering their tech strategy? Publishing Perspectives recently covered this milestone.
The other two stories are more tangential to writing but part of the same landscape. First up, and with a decidedly sustainability angle, is the news that for the first time in some while, the Burning Man festival hasn’t sold out almost as soon as tickets were issued. The festival is either a celebration of human ingenuity and creativity unleashed or a massive bonfire of the vanities, depending on your outlook. The implication that concerns over sustainability in the tech industry and the optics of such extravagance may be the cause of diminished interest perhaps indicates the general outlook is shifting. (See last week’s piece of mine on the move to the analogue and artisanal).
But lest we think the creative industries are going full-on tech phobic, this week saw the first-ever launch of a new segment in the iconic Sunday Times Rich List. We now know the thirty richest players in gaming. For many years I remember reporting on the crossover potential between writing and gaming, and it remains the case that the gaming industry is a natural home for those writers whose world-building and narrative richness suit the medium as well as a new breed of content creators in front of the camera. Eurogamer also provides a closer look at the richest developers and players in the UK gaming scene.
Both sides of that are reflected in the list. The richest figures by far are the games developers, Igor and Dmitry Bukhman of Playrix, at more than £12 billion, are the only billionaires, while the top tier is filled out by those behind the likes of Candy Crush, Grand Theft Auto, and Minecraft. Meanwhile, Gamers and YouTubers such as KSI and the Sidemen and PewdiePie also feature.
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