The state of the demoscene: 1991 - 2011
category: general [glöplog]
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you know what they say about too many cooks. How would you plan such a demo?
Well, anthology demos do exist (e.g. the Singles Collection series on C64). The pride of authorship and the diverse production methods on the PC makes something like this rather unlikely still. Unless everyone wants to do After Effects or Unreal Engine demos. ;)
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Maybe Demoscene is nowadays TOO much rivalry...
I'd argue that there is almost NO rivalry to speak of. Pride of Authorship™ is not rivalry.
but sometimes the focus is shifted into finishing the demo before the deadline, instead of the focus on the demo itself, which is a bad thing imho. it will most of the time ruin the overall demo. there are enough demoparties nowadays to release a demo on.
6. Deadlines are good because they force you to say "it's f*cking DONE! HERE!"
meditational music whilst observing my picture http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8ZnCT14nRc
regarding the rivalry... release-wise i'd say the scene's been rather competition-centric for a good while now. all the major releases are released at major parties. making a good demo is so much work these days that you want some kind of compensation for it, and even if you don't, it's become such a habit anyway that these days you have to have a reason not to release at a party :) (a reason such as the inexistence of suitable compos for e.g. music disks or tools). the death of the swapping/trading culture might also have played a part in the necessity to redefine "releasing" something.
there's no proper rivalry anymore though. most likely because we're not kids anymore. membership in a top group isn't something to strive for anymore, everyone can release and be equally accepted. fuckings are done for shits and giggles, not for genuine hatred towards a rival squad of geeks. and the overall evolution of the scene has rendered scene charts useless in people's minds - it's difficult enough to try and rank contemporary productions with different artistic goals and merits, and it's impossible to rank them reasonably against everything that's been released in the past.
(broad generalizations and personal opinions, but that goes without saying)
there's no proper rivalry anymore though. most likely because we're not kids anymore. membership in a top group isn't something to strive for anymore, everyone can release and be equally accepted. fuckings are done for shits and giggles, not for genuine hatred towards a rival squad of geeks. and the overall evolution of the scene has rendered scene charts useless in people's minds - it's difficult enough to try and rank contemporary productions with different artistic goals and merits, and it's impossible to rank them reasonably against everything that's been released in the past.
(broad generalizations and personal opinions, but that goes without saying)
fuck you reed :)
psonice: i just talk about a demo (demoscene) project... in past, demos didn't need managers. Just enough people which have fun together and they did a demo with multiparts.
finaly it was just an idea to think about having fun with coding demos and not to think much about: "who's the best... can i beat the last fairlight or farbrausch demo?" ...
thats not important...
finaly it was just an idea to think about having fun with coding demos and not to think much about: "who's the best... can i beat the last fairlight or farbrausch demo?" ...
thats not important...
re: reed
I suspect the rivalry also died off because it seems (and I know I'm relatively new) like anyone serious seems to have the primary goals of a) producing b) keeping the scene alive and proselytizing for it or c) both. It strikes me that it likely isn't just about not being fifteen anymore. And yeah, the scene seems pretty wide open, once you meet people who can encourage you, and there seem to be a lot of those, really awesome welcoming people.
Just a guess.
I suspect the rivalry also died off because it seems (and I know I'm relatively new) like anyone serious seems to have the primary goals of a) producing b) keeping the scene alive and proselytizing for it or c) both. It strikes me that it likely isn't just about not being fifteen anymore. And yeah, the scene seems pretty wide open, once you meet people who can encourage you, and there seem to be a lot of those, really awesome welcoming people.
Just a guess.
re - general comments
also, the party feeling is electric. I may have gotten interested just watching demos in a living room way back when, but Assembly sealed my fate. anyone who naysays deadlines think on that, on what it must feel like to see your work on the bigscreen.
also, the party feeling is electric. I may have gotten interested just watching demos in a living room way back when, but Assembly sealed my fate. anyone who naysays deadlines think on that, on what it must feel like to see your work on the bigscreen.
I grew bored and didn't read all the comments so hopefully I'm not repeating someone elses words.
Lack of new blood is the major reason why amount of demoscene releases is decreasing. Young people have time to make demos, time to learn new things rapidly, joy of discovery, desire to become part of the community. After couple of years most fade away or become hangarounds, few continue to be active, then new people come and look up to them and so the circle of demoscene continues ... except that it doesn't anymore. New people don't enter the demoscene, "younger" demosceners are about 30, and many of them have too much other life to do more than one production per year if even that.
In the old days - people saw cool cracktros and wanted to know what's that all about. Nowadays the cracktros are lame and depressingly boring if they are at all. Trackers brought many people to demoscene, but other software has replaced them and even trackers are not developed by demosceners anymore. Most BBS's had at least some sort of demoscene activity and you could just find it by accident, but nobody finds about pouet by accident. Most computer came with programming language and every computer user knew how to draw a pixel with basic... and so on.
Nowadays kids surf facebook and download crappy free to play games for iPad and there is no way they are going to find demoscene that way :)
Lack of new blood is the major reason why amount of demoscene releases is decreasing. Young people have time to make demos, time to learn new things rapidly, joy of discovery, desire to become part of the community. After couple of years most fade away or become hangarounds, few continue to be active, then new people come and look up to them and so the circle of demoscene continues ... except that it doesn't anymore. New people don't enter the demoscene, "younger" demosceners are about 30, and many of them have too much other life to do more than one production per year if even that.
In the old days - people saw cool cracktros and wanted to know what's that all about. Nowadays the cracktros are lame and depressingly boring if they are at all. Trackers brought many people to demoscene, but other software has replaced them and even trackers are not developed by demosceners anymore. Most BBS's had at least some sort of demoscene activity and you could just find it by accident, but nobody finds about pouet by accident. Most computer came with programming language and every computer user knew how to draw a pixel with basic... and so on.
Nowadays kids surf facebook and download crappy free to play games for iPad and there is no way they are going to find demoscene that way :)
And demosceners make the crosspromotion systems for both facebook and iPad cancer. Conclusion: Demosceners are killing the demoscene!
good point sauli... but maybe sceners need facebook and iPad etc to inspire younge people getting creative :)
Don't complain about "most demosceners being 30". Either recruit more, or if you have kids, get your kids into it.
When your daughter learns to code, that will help her get into a good university.
When your daughter learns to code, that will help her get into a good university.
My daughter will all teach you about .it > .xm
In few years.
In few years.
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and even trackers are not developed by demosceners anymore
hey, sauli, wait a minute :D at least saga musix and me try to hold up the candle these days
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but other software has replaced them
d'oh. that's probably true. 'realtime' music replay has long since been replaced by pre-calculated, streamed music in most 'demoscene' prods.
@knl: way to go!
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I'd rather argue that lack of new people is the symptom, not the cause. The problem lies in identifying WHY new people (and I don't mean young, just NEW) aren't interested in creating demos themselves.Lack of new blood is the major reason why amount of demoscene releases is decreasing.
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'realtime' music replay has long since been replaced by pre-calculated, streamed music in most 'demoscene' prods.
Yep. Because as a musician you can do so much more when you have everything you want at your disposal, it's sounding better AND will probably take up way less space. Completely natural development if you ask me...
and
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Nowadays kids surf facebook and download crappy free to play games for iPad and there is no way they are going to find demoscene that way :)
That's not even true. In the 80s most people only used their C64s and Amigas for playing games. The nerdy and creative types have always been few and far between if you count in the general population and I wouldn't think there are less of them nowadays than there were back then. It's just that back then you had to code to get something cool out of a computer, and nowadays there are so, SO many possibilities to live your creativity and do something awesome digitally without even knowing the slightest thing about how the fuck that computer thing is working. And that's not a bad thing, even if it means that our beloved subculture is lacking fresh blood.
Smash got it right in this regard - we have to turn that self imposed limitation into a strength. The hard part is getting all that knowledge and having the amounts of creativity it takes to play that strength. But now and then it's possible. :)
heyo kebby, let me rephrase your argument:
to
:) I know, gfx take up a bit more bandwidth but with codecs like we have nowadays and (in my opinion, insane demo-size limits) my argument becomes more and more reasonable, does not it ?
(in other news, we should have pizza again!) (eventuell sogar mit mett :) )
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Yep. Because as a musician you can do so much more when you have everything you want at your disposal, it's sounding better AND will probably take up way less space. Completely natural development if you ask me...
to
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Yep. Because as a graphics artist you can do so much more when you have everything you want at your disposal, it's looking better AND will probably take up way less space. Completely natural development if you ask me...
:) I know, gfx take up a bit more bandwidth but with codecs like we have nowadays and (in my opinion, insane demo-size limits) my argument becomes more and more reasonable, does not it ?
(in other news, we should have pizza again!) (eventuell sogar mit mett :) )
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I'd rather argue that lack of new people is the symptom, not the cause. The problem lies in identifying WHY new people (and I don't mean young, just NEW) aren't interested in creating demos themselves.
This was about decrease of amount of demos released and lack of new people is cause to that.
My analysis to reasons of lack of new people was after that in the same psot :)
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That's not even true. In the 80s most people only used their C64s and Amigas for playing games. The nerdy and creative types have always been few and far between if you count in the general population and I wouldn't think there are less of them nowadays than there were back then. It's just that back then you had to code to get something cool out of a computer, and nowadays there are so, SO many possibilities to live your creativity and do something awesome digitally without even knowing the slightest thing about how the fuck that computer thing is working. And that's not a bad thing, even if it means that our beloved subculture is lacking fresh blood.
I was just exaggerating, but there was word of truth in it anyway. Percentage of people using computers is decreasing rapidly.
But I agree (and also pointed out some of them) about the possibilities that don't involve demoscene any way. I know many people who have/had creative computer hobbies, but didn't even know about demoscene. Hobbyist game programmers, hobbyist game developers using 3rd party engines, musicians, 3d artists, 2d artists, special fx/video editing people and so on. Funny thing is that most of them are niche people so that makes demoscene like niche subculture incide niche :)
damn, I really hope we had edit button.
PERCENTAGE OF PEPOLE USING COMPUTERS FOR CREATIVE THINGS IS DECREASING RAPIDLY.
PERCENTAGE OF PEPOLE USING COMPUTERS FOR CREATIVE THINGS IS DECREASING RAPIDLY.
darn. i wrote a long text and presed the darn backspace button. happens all the time :S
kind of a summary of what i wrote:
first i wrote about the demoscene culture.
next thing i wrote about 3d-cards against cpu based rendering.
the last was about highschool and college etc.. (meaning you probably dont learn alot of assembler. its probably all gone). this was in context with oldschool-platforms. for example for newcomers wanting to code a demo in a oldschool-platform they probably havent heard of assembly before, just java and those scripting languages..
last part. passion for demos is the key. or passion for coding and cooperating between other members in the demoscene or demogroup.
first i wrote about the demoscene culture.
next thing i wrote about 3d-cards against cpu based rendering.
the last was about highschool and college etc.. (meaning you probably dont learn alot of assembler. its probably all gone). this was in context with oldschool-platforms. for example for newcomers wanting to code a demo in a oldschool-platform they probably havent heard of assembly before, just java and those scripting languages..
last part. passion for demos is the key. or passion for coding and cooperating between other members in the demoscene or demogroup.
of course when demotools came out, you didnt have to code. but you would always be limited by the features of the demotool.