pouët.net

It's true, the "original release" rule can only be kicked if the productions are not available for download after the party. I like the idea. Makes hard work more special.

yeah, having no downloads would make it a lot easier to get by with easy effects and hard work would indeed be something special and rare to be spend on a demo.

These quotes show the main reason of your ideas, I believe.
And that's why I think demoscene is not for you anymore.

The demoscene has a different point of origin than the normal moviefestivals.

I wouldn't want the 'original material only' rule to dissappear.
It's the fact that you can decide for yourself just how much of your time you want to spend on a production.
If you want to make a partyhack, go ahead, want to spend 2 years on it? please do.
Both these examples will get the respect and prize they deserve.
But spending 2 years with a lot of people on a production, and then winning every demoparty you go to for a year with it wouldn't be fair now would it?

In my opinion it's one of the best rules that currently apply.
It forces peope to be creative, and be efficient with their available time.

Just my 2 cents.

AceMan: independent from the fact that my reasons are not as simple as you make them appear: why not?

I believe you know what I have in mind because my point of view is rather typical for an oldschool scener :) For me, the prizes are nice, but they are just an addition to the fact of getting a high place in a compo. You know, I'm more happy for getting the congrats from fellow sceners than for those euros in my pocket. Maybe you have other priorities in your life now, you've released a lot of prods and earned a lot of respect over the years and the fact of getting top place isn't as exciting as it was, but I think it's not a "scene spirit" anymore.

The main thing here is that once a movie has been cut and produced, it's very expensive to produce again. So it's understandable in this context that it may be entered in various festivals.

However, by virtue of being at least partially made of executable code, and realtime rendered, a demo may be remixed many times. So it seems less of a deal to require an original work each time.

well for starters, the compos at demoparties rarely have any $$$ for prizes, so even if you were able to enter the same entry for all the compos during the year, that would just mean you'd get more pairless shoes,superballs, chocolate pudding & finger print scanners. demoscene is extremely stupid place to try to make prods for $$$.

and btw. some of the better film festivals(like sundance for example) actually DO have rules on whether the movie can have been shown in the same country or continent before. most of the film festivals are not looking for old stuff but things that are fresh.

I believe cannes does work like that, yes.

Low status festivals do not have the rule probably because they would not see any movies entered, otherwise. It's a mechanism I'm not really sure you'd like to reproduce..

Moreover, who gets to decide?

Interesting discussion, but it's already simple to think why the proposed rule doesn't have to change. I see people repeating captain obvious.

How about a newbie compo at parties? (hint, HUGi article :)

how about no compos at parties

while we're at it: how about no parties?!

in the state that i'm right now after bp, having no parties does sound tempting.

How about no sound at parties ? (or at least more silence than 5h a day)

I think the comparison to film festivals is flawed.
Demos are released for free after the first showing (as they should be!) and everyone has a chance to view them and they get as much exposure as they possibly can. No need to go to a party to see something on the bigscreen that you've already seen fifteen times at home.
Besides, the shared experience of seeing something for the first time and not knowing what is coming is 99% of what makes compos great!

About the Sizecoding for Game Compos, Microsoft already loosened the maximum size of XBOX Live Arcade games to about 1GB. That allowed classics like Alien Breed: Tower assault being born again on a new platform, for a new audience.

I reckon the more fundamental difference between demoparties and film festivals is that film festivals aren't just gatherings of lots of film-makers to share their latest work - they're a place to find investors, promoters and other business partners. (And that's one reason why releasing films across multiple festivals makes sense: your entire future could depend on that one important person seeing your film.)

Now, if I understand Leonard's intentions, this is exactly what he'd like demo parties to evolve into, instead of a closed community where you win a compo and then that's the end of the story. However, I think these proposed changes are putting the cart before the horse: changing compo rules to emulate a different community is not going to make that social change magically happen.

Films are not released to the public immediately after their first showing and this is why they must be shown in multiple festivals: people will not have seen them before because the whole structure of the film industry is archaic, restrictive and revenue based. The whole structure of the demoscene is dynamic, open and free so by one week after first showing everyone has seen your demo at home.

Also I thought the scene was about respect, not fucking prizes. Your idea seems pretty self-serving, giving the fat cats who make fat demos the ability to become fatter. Instead of whining that your massively successful production wasn't able to claim all the prizes in one year perhaps you should come up with an idea that offers the little guy even a fraction of the attention you yourself receive.

Insectecutor, well said

gasman: investors, promoters and business partners. Yes that sounds exactly like what the scene should become! The whole film festival structure is there because of BUSINESS. The scene is for PLEASURE.

actually, depending on size, a distinction between "never released before" and "fresh material" could make sense. if not a seperate compo, perhaps an honorary mention.. similar to what they do at altparty with the dynamic demo. although that hasnt really been working very nicely, people dont really do that many alternative demos.

i completly agree that competitions at different parties should be different. and demos with interaction without necessarily turning them into games == <3

im sure that even if a couple of big parties would allow what leonard is suggesting, there would still be shitloads of smaller parties stuck in the oldschool ways and you would have a free choice between wanting to visit your business suit uncle, your whacked up druggie cousin or your grandmother. diversity is always a good thing in my book. except when no one does any of the stuff you're into anymore ofcourse..

4 pages of the serious discussing of how person will release demos for making cash out of it without a single fucking...

something's wrong. i want my corny demoscene back.

ah, my bad - we have a couple. not enough tho.