Art that survives

I found myself playing Pacman online the other day on one of those free sites that puts up vintage computer games.

Within minutes, I was hopelessly addicted, stuck inside the 1980 maze classic until I'd lost about two hours of work time running away from four bleeping pixelated ghosts.

I'm rubbish at it, though, and always have been. Despite playing countless times over almost two decades, I've never risen beyond level seven.

Everyone under 28 is younger than Pacman. It requires such a tiny amount of computer power to run it that you can now play it for free online, listen to Bowie on your iTunes and download last night's Colbert Report all at once, while your accounts sit ignored on your desktop.

Looking back, it's almost impossible to imagine or remember quite how huge a step forward it was in terms of early video gaming.

Pacman brought a bunch of previously unimagined concepts to a world that had been entirely built around Space Invaders-style shoot-em-ups.

A couple of days after my marathon Pacman stint, I briefly considered buying the extremely sophisticated new game Spore, which was developed by the team behind The Sims. It involves controlling an entire evolutionary process from a genetic single-cell level right up to building huge civilisations.

And, of course, it can exist in virtual worlds online - what self-respecting computer game doesn't these days? - so you compete with other real Spore-builders.

It looks and sounds incredible. Yet I held back at the last moment from spending cash that I don't have, concluding that I already waste too much time on Pacman.

This left me thinking about the economic crisis.

Deep down, we don't need any more entertainment. By which I don't mean that we'll somehow lose our craving for the arts or popular culture - give us bread but give us roses, after all.

But, if we find ourselves in a situation of real hand-to-mouth poverty over the next few years, if recession and environmental disasters truly bite, surely we'll all realise the obvious.

There are perfectly enough films, old telly, old music and old computer games to last anyone a lifetime without forking out for new ones.

This will be especially true if one of the things that we currently take for granted becomes a precious, rationed resource. Energy.

Everything that we consume culturally runs off electricity, for a start.

I hate it when old codgers moan: "They don't make comedy shows like they used to" or "I won't listen to any music recorded after 1987."

But now, if just for reasons of thrift, alongside the lost crafts of repairing broken stuff, sewing and cooking actual food from scratch, we'll surely rediscover a lost joy in forgotten and, most importantly, cheap art forms.

The very best art of whatever discipline really, really lasts. The best films and novels bear repeated consumption and the best albums last a lifetime, regardless of their initial reception or first-month sales. It's only the crap art, the unart, that leaves an itch unscratched and lets you walk away.

I think that two ends of creative culture survive in times of severity.

First, those absolute undoubted masterpieces. They are cared for and perpetuated regardless of circumstance. Second, the most participatory at ground level, which are cherished because people can join in. They contribute directly and immediately to the building of community.

This is good news for the grass-roots live folk circuit and classic punk albums, but dreadful news for Jeremy Kyle, corporate Nashville and the team at Heat magazine.

If I'm honest, because art to me is so often more important than life, I tend to feel that the faster the collapse comes the better.