Taylor Swift Games That Flopped
Taylor Swift is an inescapable phenomenon. Having already taken the music industry by storm and essentially reinventing her own legacy with her "Taylor's Version" series of album reissues, Swift has become a crossover sensation in every sense of the word. Her music has been lauded for bridging gaps between genres, uniting country and pop fans alike with her soul-bearing lyrics and catchy melodies. She's even conquered the box office with the release of "The Eras Tour" concert film, which played to sold-out theaters in October 2023. The only medium she hasn't seemed to have conquered just yet is the world of video games — though that doesn't seem to be for lack of trying.
Some of Tay Tay's fans have theorized that the singer-songwriter may harbor a secret distaste for video games, while others have concocted in-depth theories about how much she really loves them, to the point of planting supposed clues in her lyrics to shout-out her favorites. Whatever the case, the fact remains that Taylor Swift has actually lent her likeness to a few different gaming projects over the years.
In addition to games like "Just Dance" featuring some of her most popular songs, Taylor Swift also filmed motion capture footage to become a virtual avatar for aspiring rock stars in "Band Hero." While Taylor's "Band Hero" visage left a bit to be desired in terms of accuracy, fans mostly got a kick out of stepping into her digital heels and rocking out in the "Wii Music" era. However, she's only been the main star in a few smaller game projects, and they're mostly forgotten at this point. Let's take a look back at the Taylor Swift games that more or less flopped with critics or general audiences.
American Express Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience
To promote the release of her music video for "Blank Space" in 2014, Taylor Swift partnered with American Express to release an app with the hilariously brand-loyal title of "American Express Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience." The jury is still out on whether this was so much a game as it was a playable advertisement, though. Remember those interactive music video CD-ROMs from the '90s? That's basically what this was, mixed with a hidden object game and a behind-the-scenes tour, as "Taylor Swift Experience" gave fans a virtual backstage pass through the set of the "Blank Space" video.
As the song plays in the background, players can wander through the mansion in which the video takes place, either following Taylor or checking out a number of Easter eggs and ancillary characters as they go about their day. Hardcore Swifties seemed to enjoy playing around on the "Blank Space" set, but have noted that it's very difficult to finish every little task in the brief window of time available (the "Experience" starts over when the song ends).
Billboard offered faint praise for the app, calling it "lightweight fun" and noting that fans of the artist would get the most out of it. Others were less impressed. In a scathing review for Macworld, writer Sarah Jacobsson Purewal hesitated to even call the app a proper game, noting, "At best, it's a series of 360-degree photographs with a couple of moving elements and some hotspots you can tap on." While not a failure, the app didn't really catch on outside of major Swift devotees, and it's no longer available on the App Store. However, some fans are still holding onto the app on their phones, preserving this bit of gamified promotion for future generations of Swifties.
The Swift Life was overrun with trolls
"The Swift Life" was developed by Glu Mobile, a company best known for celebrity-endorsed freemium apps like "Kim Kardashian: Hollywood" and "Nicki Minaj: The Empire." This gamified social media app allowed Taylor Swift fans to connect with one another — and Taylor! — in one place, networking and trading/purchasing Taylor-themed stickers called "Taymojis." Users could create custom artwork by using photos of Taylor and combining them with the Taymojis, all in the hopes of getting it noticed and shared by the musician on her personal feed. All in all, "The Swift Life" contained far fewer game-y elements than Glu Mobile's other titles, but there was still enough interactivity on the table that it should have been a surefire hit.
Unfortunately, the app was almost immediately overrun with trolls as soon as it launched, with some people using it as a platform to post homophobic and racist comments, generally creating a negative atmosphere for the people who genuinely wanted to use it. Aside from this unpleasantness, fans have also cited a confusing interface, over-protective moderators, and a general lack of the expected interaction with Taylor as their reasons for jumping ship. The app drastically trailed behind others like it in the sales charts and Taylor herself seemed to be distance herself from "The Swift Life," rarely promoting it at all.
One year after "The Swift Life" launched, it was announced that the app would be ceasing all services. The announcement cited the end of Taylor's "Reputation" Era as the reason for the closure, but a number of fans had seen the writing on the wall well before this point.
Honorable Mention: Mix Me In2 Taylor Swift
Not all of Taylor's mobile game collaborations have been panned, it should be mentioned. Released in 2010, "Mix Me In2 Taylor Swift" had a small but devoted fanbase for the brief time that it was active. Though it was nominated by Billboard for "Best Music Engagement App" in the year of its release, the app has sadly been more or less scrubbed from the internet in time years since.
"Mix Me In2" games allowed fans to remix some of their favorite tunes and even record their own vocal parts, creating unique arrangements and duets with beloved artists. This version even incorporated animated versions of Taylor and her band, which could be rearranged on the stage or taken out to change up the rhythm of each song. Even Taylor seemed to get a kick out of this app, as a video from around the time of the app's launch shows her playing around with different drum patterns and admiring her virtual bandmates on the iPad.
For a time, a dedicated blog even worked to catalogue some of the fan creations mixed through the "Mix Me In2" app. This one didn't so much flop as it faded into obscurity following the closure of the developer. Those who played it back in the day still look back on it fondly, though some have expressed sadness at discovering all of their songs are no longer available. Those who still have the dead app loaded on their old devices have taken to showing it off like an unearthed treasure.
Your MP3 player posts are impressive so I have resorted to my biggest gun: the Mix Me In2 Taylor Swift app running on a 1st gen iPod Touch
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u/LLCoolD in
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