The state of the demoscene: 1991 - 2011
category: general [glöplog]
I've had people randomly contact me before now to ask if i'd be interested in doing a kinnect installation, never been asked by a party if I'd like to submit a demo (not counting general invitros of course :)
If you look at some of the stuff people out there are making, it's pretty much just a demo - but interactive. Quite often it's barely interactive even, it just auto-synchs to the audio. And then gets released as a 3 minute long video with realtime visuals synched to a tune. LOTS of people are releasing stuff like this, and unless you're judging by strict demo competition rules they ARE demos.
I bet if you counted all the stuff that's basically a demo but got released outside the scene, those "the scene is dead" charts would suddenly say "praise the cube! The scene is fucking reborn!"
Go get those people involved in making a demo. And change the competition rules so they'll want to compete. We don't need a new 'interactive demo' compo, we just need one that says nothing more than "realtime and coded" that covers pretty much anything.
If you look at some of the stuff people out there are making, it's pretty much just a demo - but interactive. Quite often it's barely interactive even, it just auto-synchs to the audio. And then gets released as a 3 minute long video with realtime visuals synched to a tune. LOTS of people are releasing stuff like this, and unless you're judging by strict demo competition rules they ARE demos.
I bet if you counted all the stuff that's basically a demo but got released outside the scene, those "the scene is dead" charts would suddenly say "praise the cube! The scene is fucking reborn!"
Go get those people involved in making a demo. And change the competition rules so they'll want to compete. We don't need a new 'interactive demo' compo, we just need one that says nothing more than "realtime and coded" that covers pretty much anything.
Mr.X: "No! Let's face it the demoscene is DEAD!"
Mr.Y: "What? Didn't we just have the same discussion like 10 years ago?"
Mr.Y: "What? Didn't we just have the same discussion like 10 years ago?"
I find that pretty sad. Nobody admit that most of the prods are boring "show me your balls (literally?)" shows and the few prods who show some _real_ creative and original content get bashed for their "artistry" or other bad arguments coming from angry nerds who wants to be cool...
In the end, some people will be pushed away from the scene and well, there are many good reasons for some creative minds to go and seek some recognition "elsewhere"... and sometimes they indeed find recognition outside of the scene.
ps: Oh and please, don't bring the "they should be making something because they love it and not because they seek for recognition" ... tha's too hippycrapshit.
ps2: psonice, I think that still, people coding cube outside of the scene won't want to submit it to a party mostly because demosceners are rude persons.
In the end, some people will be pushed away from the scene and well, there are many good reasons for some creative minds to go and seek some recognition "elsewhere"... and sometimes they indeed find recognition outside of the scene.
ps: Oh and please, don't bring the "they should be making something because they love it and not because they seek for recognition" ... tha's too hippycrapshit.
ps2: psonice, I think that still, people coding cube outside of the scene won't want to submit it to a party mostly because demosceners are rude persons.
I sense the usual "economic drama" when things that have started in an organic way are put against charts, numbers, forecasts and "expectations".
The first part of the article read like an analysis of an economic branch at Bloomberg TV.
In a time, when young folks are bombarded with "ready-to-use" solutions to "be creative with", it is to be expected that the outcome of that is very generic and of course within the boundaries of that "ready-to-use-solution". Adding to this dilemma is the mindset that all that could've been done creative-wise has already been done, hence "why look any further".
When the time of the big amount of "show-offs" has come to an end, I think it's time to tell interesting stories and be creative with ideas.
When the output of audiovisual art is that big as it is today, and the ways to "consume" them is that convenient as it is today, one can't really blame the scene that creates such content for attrackting less young interested people than, say, 1989 when whole Europe was at a crossroads politically and mentally.
It takes a freakin' mouse click to gain access to a shitload of stuff that looks and sounds like your average compowinner PC demo these days, and 90% of the "consumers" (from lat. consumo: to devour [with fire] ) don't even try to challange their mind with the question:
"Whow, who the heck did they do this? I wanna do that as well, but in my own style."
Because when things become that much convenient, folks become lazy and start to "zapp-through" art instead of contemplating it.
An interesting person was talking in a lecture (no, not David Icke ;D ) about folks like Einstein and the like, and came to the conclusion: "Boy, they never would've come up with stuff like that if they have had a TV set running at home."
So, in my point of view it's not "just the demoscene" traditionalising itself to oblivion - I don't think that this is the driving factor (although it contributes). Turn off the bloody tube and in time one of the nine Muses will come into play.
That's my two cents on the whole issue
The first part of the article read like an analysis of an economic branch at Bloomberg TV.
In a time, when young folks are bombarded with "ready-to-use" solutions to "be creative with", it is to be expected that the outcome of that is very generic and of course within the boundaries of that "ready-to-use-solution". Adding to this dilemma is the mindset that all that could've been done creative-wise has already been done, hence "why look any further".
When the time of the big amount of "show-offs" has come to an end, I think it's time to tell interesting stories and be creative with ideas.
When the output of audiovisual art is that big as it is today, and the ways to "consume" them is that convenient as it is today, one can't really blame the scene that creates such content for attrackting less young interested people than, say, 1989 when whole Europe was at a crossroads politically and mentally.
It takes a freakin' mouse click to gain access to a shitload of stuff that looks and sounds like your average compowinner PC demo these days, and 90% of the "consumers" (from lat. consumo: to devour [with fire] ) don't even try to challange their mind with the question:
"Whow, who the heck did they do this? I wanna do that as well, but in my own style."
Because when things become that much convenient, folks become lazy and start to "zapp-through" art instead of contemplating it.
An interesting person was talking in a lecture (no, not David Icke ;D ) about folks like Einstein and the like, and came to the conclusion: "Boy, they never would've come up with stuff like that if they have had a TV set running at home."
So, in my point of view it's not "just the demoscene" traditionalising itself to oblivion - I don't think that this is the driving factor (although it contributes). Turn off the bloody tube and in time one of the nine Muses will come into play.
That's my two cents on the whole issue
Smash: I remember 16 sec (sixteen seconds) demo compo experiment at Abstract in 2004 in Poland few years ago and Bonzaj/Plastic presented a demo here that was later developed further into 195/50
(come on, its pouet... http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=13816 ). But now I see this was the only one of three entries..
(come on, its pouet... http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=13816 ). But now I see this was the only one of three entries..
Quote:
Whow, who the heck did they do this?
Who ? I meant of course HOW, HOW did they do it *DO'H*
Quote:
Totally.all we can do, and all we ever could do, is make cool stuff and try and pitch it at the right audience.
Quote:
I meant that it's not statistically relevant, because it isn't. Read my post again.im not sure what you mean by that its not being relevant at all.
Quote:
Actually, that was the idea behind the Mozilla Single Effect Demo-category -- to make it managable and easy to get started. That, plus that most "web demos" tends to be just one effect or scene. I'd be more than happy to give this a try at Solskogen this summer to see if we get any interesting entries.ok, here's one idea. Limit a democompo time limit to 2 minutes to encourage smaller productions and make the idea of making a demo less daunting.
Wasn't it also the idea behind the 30s demo "compo" from Intel ?
p01: it might have been, but clearly all of the demoteams decided to chuck a lot of content in there anyway :) Limiting to "one scene/effect" seems more sensible than "you have 30 seconds".
p01: because if I had 30 seconds to show off my demo, I'd try to stick as much content in there as possible, to overload the competition :) With "one scene/effect", I'd most likely try to polish and tweak and pick one single good idea instead.. way more manageable.
True. On both accounts. :p
What the demoscene is missing is a comprehensive plattform which integrates all aspects of it. Parties, Releases, News, Tutorials, Pictures, Videos AND the possibility to present yourself and your work. Something like Deviantart for the scene and scene-affine people (and those who want to join in and don't know where to start). Many hackerspace- or art-communities have better portals and outside representation of themselves than the demoscene has.
All we have are a couple of visually and in terms of functionality outdated (sorry, scene.org and bitfellas) portals where NONE of the above is explained. No wonder we don't get new blood. And believe me, I've done my share of presentations over the last 18 months to try to convince people and potential sponsors that the demoscene is a great community. Most of the time I had to direct them to Wikipedia because (sadly) no demoscene portal has that amount of information as Wikipedia does. But I couldn't show any of our biggest platforms because people just don't get what we are based on them (in addition from the "no eye-candy" part as said above).
The displayhack.org approach is good but not broad enough. If we want to attract new people, we need to consolidate most of the demoscene-information in ONE comprehensive portal with all the relevant information.
Of course, this is no easy (if not impossible) task because some of the people active here are stupid trolls who'll destroy a newcomers ambition and interest before the person has been informed about what it's all about.
There's a lot of talk about "we should", "one might", "why not do this" etc. So - if anyone is interested to build a demoscene portal from scratch (with integration/migration of all the good stuff we have so far), contact me and we can start working on a broader concept. Call it Pouet 2.0 or whatever - I'm all up for it.
All we have are a couple of visually and in terms of functionality outdated (sorry, scene.org and bitfellas) portals where NONE of the above is explained. No wonder we don't get new blood. And believe me, I've done my share of presentations over the last 18 months to try to convince people and potential sponsors that the demoscene is a great community. Most of the time I had to direct them to Wikipedia because (sadly) no demoscene portal has that amount of information as Wikipedia does. But I couldn't show any of our biggest platforms because people just don't get what we are based on them (in addition from the "no eye-candy" part as said above).
The displayhack.org approach is good but not broad enough. If we want to attract new people, we need to consolidate most of the demoscene-information in ONE comprehensive portal with all the relevant information.
Of course, this is no easy (if not impossible) task because some of the people active here are stupid trolls who'll destroy a newcomers ambition and interest before the person has been informed about what it's all about.
There's a lot of talk about "we should", "one might", "why not do this" etc. So - if anyone is interested to build a demoscene portal from scratch (with integration/migration of all the good stuff we have so far), contact me and we can start working on a broader concept. Call it Pouet 2.0 or whatever - I'm all up for it.
Gloom: I guess my opinion comes down to that we can't really enforce a strict set of rules as to what constitutes demoscene activity any longer -- we have to think broader and accept and welcome change. That's not to say we can't keep going with everything we still enjoy, but that we'll ALSO have to allow new forms of demoscene activity, and not shun those who practice it into the cold.
This is why new compos are important . ..
smash: if you want to know why those people arent joining the scene anymore, its cos demos just arent interesting enough to them.
Ok, then who's interested in what *is* going on. The solution to the problem you're positing is to make more impressive demos, but then we run into a chicken-egg problem, as far as I see . . . Why not embrace the nostalgic people too?
Garg: that all said, the internet is a whole new audience for that; when i went to notacon a few years back, everyone knew of lft, and barely anyone has heard of fairlight.
so yes, perhaps some people started running for an audience that isn't there while leaving the interested behind.
Smash: ok, here's one idea. Limit a democompo time limit to 2 minutes to encourage smaller productions and make the idea of making a demo less daunting.
Then people will just try to cram as many effects as possible into 2 minutes. This is like 4K - more daunting. Limiting effects AS WELL AS time limit is necessary, I think. Perhaps even more fastcompos . . . they do seem to encourage people to get off their butts, even if the results aren't going to get more people into the scene. But for breaking in newcomers . . . the Montréal party I ran was bigger this year than last year, with more people actually producing something. I do think the fast compo was part of that, not just it getting known.
oh, and Gloom said the same thing:
it might have been, but clearly all of the demoteams decided to chuck a lot of content in there anyway :) Limiting to "one scene/effect" seems more sensible than "you have 30 seconds".
okkie: the scene now attracts way more nostalgics and hackers and less people interested into doing general "creative things" on computers
And usually that annoys me, but if doing easier kind of prods can be a gateway drug to doing real demos . . .
psionice: bet if you counted all the stuff that's basically a demo but got released outside the scene, those "the scene is dead" charts would suddenly say "praise the cube! The scene is fucking reborn!" Go get those people involved in making a demo. And change the competition rules so they'll want to compete. We don't need a new 'interactive demo' compo, we just need one that says nothing more than "realtime and coded" that covers pretty much anything.
Yes, this is why I am trying to work on courting artists and makers. I am allergic to pretension, but I want sh*t to HAPPEN.
re d0DgE: Because when things become that much convenient, folks become lazy and start to "zapp-through" art instead of contemplating it.
I think folks do need to think about the artistic side, but I also think that tools which make creating easier can allow folks to focus on their content . . .
re gloom: on web demos
Yes! Creating stuff for the web is so much easier -- and fairly platform-agnostic as long as you have a modern machine, which is helpful in terms of dissemination
re D.Fox
What the demoscene is missing is a comprehensive plattform which integrates all aspects of it.
YES! I usually send people to a ton of sites at once. We need a site that gives, at least imo:
an explanation of what the scene is
links to watch scene productions ON THE WEB
links to download scene prods and see party results as on pouet, so likely linking to pouet
links to current parties, so likely linking to demoparty.net
What am I leaving out?
This is why new compos are important . ..
smash: if you want to know why those people arent joining the scene anymore, its cos demos just arent interesting enough to them.
Ok, then who's interested in what *is* going on. The solution to the problem you're positing is to make more impressive demos, but then we run into a chicken-egg problem, as far as I see . . . Why not embrace the nostalgic people too?
Garg: that all said, the internet is a whole new audience for that; when i went to notacon a few years back, everyone knew of lft, and barely anyone has heard of fairlight.
so yes, perhaps some people started running for an audience that isn't there while leaving the interested behind.
Smash: ok, here's one idea. Limit a democompo time limit to 2 minutes to encourage smaller productions and make the idea of making a demo less daunting.
Then people will just try to cram as many effects as possible into 2 minutes. This is like 4K - more daunting. Limiting effects AS WELL AS time limit is necessary, I think. Perhaps even more fastcompos . . . they do seem to encourage people to get off their butts, even if the results aren't going to get more people into the scene. But for breaking in newcomers . . . the Montréal party I ran was bigger this year than last year, with more people actually producing something. I do think the fast compo was part of that, not just it getting known.
oh, and Gloom said the same thing:
it might have been, but clearly all of the demoteams decided to chuck a lot of content in there anyway :) Limiting to "one scene/effect" seems more sensible than "you have 30 seconds".
okkie: the scene now attracts way more nostalgics and hackers and less people interested into doing general "creative things" on computers
And usually that annoys me, but if doing easier kind of prods can be a gateway drug to doing real demos . . .
psionice: bet if you counted all the stuff that's basically a demo but got released outside the scene, those "the scene is dead" charts would suddenly say "praise the cube! The scene is fucking reborn!" Go get those people involved in making a demo. And change the competition rules so they'll want to compete. We don't need a new 'interactive demo' compo, we just need one that says nothing more than "realtime and coded" that covers pretty much anything.
Yes, this is why I am trying to work on courting artists and makers. I am allergic to pretension, but I want sh*t to HAPPEN.
re d0DgE: Because when things become that much convenient, folks become lazy and start to "zapp-through" art instead of contemplating it.
I think folks do need to think about the artistic side, but I also think that tools which make creating easier can allow folks to focus on their content . . .
re gloom: on web demos
Yes! Creating stuff for the web is so much easier -- and fairly platform-agnostic as long as you have a modern machine, which is helpful in terms of dissemination
re D.Fox
What the demoscene is missing is a comprehensive plattform which integrates all aspects of it.
YES! I usually send people to a ton of sites at once. We need a site that gives, at least imo:
an explanation of what the scene is
links to watch scene productions ON THE WEB
links to download scene prods and see party results as on pouet, so likely linking to pouet
links to current parties, so likely linking to demoparty.net
What am I leaving out?
might not be right but.. one idea would be to make something like this..
the boxes might be wrong and all that, but really. i wasnt in the patience for making something. i just wonder if something like this would be informative for the newcomer. if he/she could then click on these boxes and read about what platforms.. types of intros there are. also specifics. just an idea about the connections between the different types of things that are part of demoparty/demoscene etc. prods that are all that.
d.fox: maybe that would be a good idea. if you need any help, research etc. contact me. i didnt find any contact address on you. im so bored not being active at all. not always in the mood of coding..
the boxes might be wrong and all that, but really. i wasnt in the patience for making something. i just wonder if something like this would be informative for the newcomer. if he/she could then click on these boxes and read about what platforms.. types of intros there are. also specifics. just an idea about the connections between the different types of things that are part of demoparty/demoscene etc. prods that are all that.
d.fox: maybe that would be a good idea. if you need any help, research etc. contact me. i didnt find any contact address on you. im so bored not being active at all. not always in the mood of coding..
cracktros aka loaders of course. man, dont need all right the first time! :D
they were called CRACK INTROS back in the days! ;)
not just to D.Fox, but anyone who need research really.. i would like to be part of making an comprehensive guide. of course by collecting all sorts of info, ruling out the not so important parts and keep the most interresting ones. would be a nice thing, but not something i would do all alone.
also my 2 cent to this walls of text (oh noes, again):
i think a big difference between the scene 10-15 years ago and now it that its not that fascinating anymore. the WOW-factor got lost somewhere on the way.
this is partly the fault of sceners sticking to their "old ways" but i think the much bigger impact comes from the internet. theres so much "cool stuff" on yt, google exists, links are being send back and forth constantly... the general computer-ethusiastic person is too saturated with "cool stuff" to pay attetion in detail to almost anything anymore.
i know quite a few people who like to watch demos and enjoy it when i show them some but none of them would visit pouet.net on their own and browse through them, let alone think about participating in their creation.
the wow-factor mechanic that worked back then just doesnt anymore and i dont know if its even possible to change that or if you would have to close down the internet for it to happen again, no matter how much you try to come up with cool productions.
that doesnt mean the scene is doomed to die, tho. it just means the form, amount and places of outreach and advertising have to change and increase if you want to attract more (and possibly creative) people.
theres no ideal solution i could come up with, i just say the scene needs to move towards the people and not blame the people because they are not moving towards the scene anymore.
the question is if the scene wants to open up in that sort of way.
i have a feeling many sceners (especially the oldschool ones) are proud to be part of an "underground, elite movement" and would rather see it slowly die than seeing it become something hip and mainstream with a lot of screaming kids around.
i think a big difference between the scene 10-15 years ago and now it that its not that fascinating anymore. the WOW-factor got lost somewhere on the way.
this is partly the fault of sceners sticking to their "old ways" but i think the much bigger impact comes from the internet. theres so much "cool stuff" on yt, google exists, links are being send back and forth constantly... the general computer-ethusiastic person is too saturated with "cool stuff" to pay attetion in detail to almost anything anymore.
i know quite a few people who like to watch demos and enjoy it when i show them some but none of them would visit pouet.net on their own and browse through them, let alone think about participating in their creation.
the wow-factor mechanic that worked back then just doesnt anymore and i dont know if its even possible to change that or if you would have to close down the internet for it to happen again, no matter how much you try to come up with cool productions.
that doesnt mean the scene is doomed to die, tho. it just means the form, amount and places of outreach and advertising have to change and increase if you want to attract more (and possibly creative) people.
theres no ideal solution i could come up with, i just say the scene needs to move towards the people and not blame the people because they are not moving towards the scene anymore.
the question is if the scene wants to open up in that sort of way.
i have a feeling many sceners (especially the oldschool ones) are proud to be part of an "underground, elite movement" and would rather see it slowly die than seeing it become something hip and mainstream with a lot of screaming kids around.
A little less conversation, a little more action.
How many 2000+ words 'scene is old/dead/needs-arbitrary-thing-x' essays do we really need. :)
How many 2000+ words 'scene is old/dead/needs-arbitrary-thing-x' essays do we really need. :)
Quote:
attracting the mainstream gave us a diversity of people interested- artsts, designers, musicians - which in turn added a more design-lead touch to demos, making them appeal to the mainstream even more. that diversity was a _good thing_.
nowadays, it seems the balance has shifted much more in favour of a freakshow of more random platforms - oldschool, homebuilt, tiny intros (4k), tiny tiny intros (128 bytes).. where to be interested in the results you basically have to be a hacker (or a nostalgic). which means the people joining the scene tend to be .. hackers (or nostalgics).
the funny thing is... surely there are artists elsewhere who know about the demoscene and maybe even like some of the productions, but i'd imagine most of them really don't see the point. they've got tools to (pre)render their stuff - why do it the hard way? what's so great about realtime? so there, another scene dilemma that comes up every now and then, let's dwell on that for a bit :)
Quote:
I know several people that actually "left" the demoscene because they felt it was strangling in it's 'must stay the same' way and wasn't open enough for the stuff they were doing
well sure, i'm not too keen on clinging onto ages-old conceptions of what a demo must have or what it must look like (e.g. all the cubes, balls and spacey things etc), but since for many demogroups it's still the coder who either does every damn thing or at least puts it all together, it's just inherently easier in terms of the workflow to do thousands of cubes and make it look impressive than doing something that actually is impressive :) plus of course there's also the nostalgia/retro factor, and the commonly-accepted notion that you just can't have video in your demo, oh no.
Quote:
i think a big difference between the scene 10-15 years ago and now it that its not that fascinating anymore. the WOW-factor got lost somewhere on the way.
as a great man once said, "anything less than the best is a felony"
Quote:
theres so much "cool stuff" on yt, google exists, links are being send back and forth constantly... the general computer-ethusiastic person is too saturated with "cool stuff" to pay attetion in detail to almost anything anymore.
introducing (or re-introducing, every year) the demoscene to general computer-enthusiastic people is kind of what assembly organizing are doing. the thing is, there are people who release at assembly every year and who aren't sceners per se, but they tend to think of it as "releasing at assembly", not "releasing in the demoscene". they don't go to any other parties or anything.
D.Fox: What you're describing sounds a lot like what we're aiming to do with Demozoo - or at least, there's enough overlap that anyone interested in working on such a site should definitely talk to us...
(and yes, I really need to do something with that Partymeister export you gave me. Let's catch up at Datastorm :-) )
(and yes, I really need to do something with that Partymeister export you gave me. Let's catch up at Datastorm :-) )
gasman: ok :)