Playstation 4 - Xbox 1 demos (neoGAF thread)
category: general [glöplog]
well the fact that there's a newcomer award (and actually people awarded) at evoke somehow proves the opposite of "the scene is dead"
For many people, the scene hasn't been about technical excellence for a long time. And for many, it never was. It's pretty hard to compete with huge budgets and Ph.D's in that regard in this era.
I totally agree with Preacher, hopefully the fun and the envy is still there, at least it's the case for me and I hope for some of you too :)
Quote:
That's the point. If "our audience" is just "ourselves", then there won't be any new blood coming up, as it's happening already. This can be easily seen as the average age for a scener is 30+ . As I said, you either start attracting those gamers (be it gamers or anyone else, but young people), or the scene will be "dead" (pun) in a couple generations.
Gamers aren't our audience, and they're not a good source of 'new blood'. Game makers on the other hand are able to understand what we do, and have the kind of skills needed to actually take part. So as I said, that site isn't our audience - doesn't mean there isn't a more suitable place :)
If you really want to get new people involved btw, my suggestion is this:
- show them a few amazing demos
- show them some interesting releases from your local small party too, so they know we're not all crazy elite, and there is room for beginners ;)
- instead of talking them into making a demo (unless they're really up for it), talk them into going to a party with you. Party = meet tons of real sceners, see all the cool stuff people are working on, get extremely tempted to join in :)
Oh, and show them shadertoy. People love shadertoy :D
In all honesty, I think we all got sidetracked and blind-sighted by limited size prods. Making this the golden standard for ranking "good" was perhaps not the best thing to do. When things can look and sound shitty, but "OMG, SO SMALL!", we lost our way.
Quote:
In all honesty, I think we all got sidetracked and blind-sighted by limited size prods. Making this the golden standard for ranking "good" was perhaps not the best thing to do. When things can look and sound shitty, but "OMG, SO SMALL!", we lost our way.
What? That would never happen!
Quote:
In all honesty, I think we all got sidetracked and blind-sighted by limited size prods. Making this the golden standard for ranking "good" was perhaps not the best thing to do. When things can look and sound shitty, but "OMG, SO SMALL!", we lost our way.
This. Also because in recent days I had to explain to outsiders that this or that demo is NOT 4 or 64k many times (the usual reaction was "what's the point then?" but that's another thing).
Also, the whole issue drove Smash to get all apologetic about a demo he's made. Which is the exact opposite of what should happen. We really should encourage people to do small (in scale, not in filesize), fast (in development time, not in performance :)), fun one-trick-ponies instead of driving good people away because their latest output isn't teh bestest thing evar and how could you disappoint me so hard and whinewhinewhinebitchbitchbitch. And to be honest, the smaller projects where I/we could just get one thing right always were the most fun for me (except perhaps fr-08).
Kebby nails it.
Very depressing.
Depressing? I wouldn't say so. "Sobering" is more like it. I wish more people would just arrive at this logical conclusion sooner rather than later, and start outputting more concentrated and conceptualized productions, rather than hoping and planning for "that new big one" that never happens.
Just to spam a bit: Of course there's 2ndreal64, The Product, Candytron, Debris, Rove and all that, but If I strictly judge by the perceived fun (which probably actually is fun/(work*stress)) during the process of creation, I'd go for
this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this.
(in other news, that toolbar is really helpful :)
this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this.
(in other news, that toolbar is really helpful :)
I don't know, I'd say that's the same coin but the other side - I for one like making larger-scale stuff, for me that's more fun than having one effect and then trying to milk it indefinitely. Ambitions differ.
I think the point kb made about having to apologize about a (way above average) demo is a much stronger one.
I think the point kb made about having to apologize about a (way above average) demo is a much stronger one.
Bear in mind that "people who write comments on site X" != "the entire audience of site X". Comment sections are always going to be skewed towards contrary opinions... if you see an article saying "look at this really neat next-gen tech demo", and you watch it, and your reaction is "yes, that was indeed a really neat next-gen tech demo", chances are you're not going to post a comment saying "yes, that was indeed a really neat next-gen tech demo".
How could we have lost our way by appreciating size-limited prods? That used to be the whole point of the scene - make the most of the limited resources you've got available. Even modern demos do this, f.e. smash's pc-torturing pieces - while they usually require a high-end gpu, at least they're displaying things you havent seen before in realtime.
Quote:
That used to be the whole point of the scene - make the most of the limited resources you've got available.
For certain definitions of the "scene" and "whole point" at least.
reptile: What happened to "do something you enjoy"?
Korvkiosken: nothing, do something you enjoy! When did i say otherwise :)
Ah, thank god, we're back at 'defining what the demoscene is about'!
Can I throw 'are demos art?' in the mix as well?
*buttwalks out of thread*
Can I throw 'are demos art?' in the mix as well?
*buttwalks out of thread*
demo or die :)
How often do painters apologize for their paintings? How about poets for their poems?
I could go on.
I could go on.
What I mean by that is that you either do your work for other people or you do it for yourself.
Quote:
But that's not what I said, now is it? I said that we got blind-sighted and sidetracked by them -- as in: focusing too much on them. How could we have lost our way by appreciating size-limited prods?
What kb says is very true, and has happened to me more times than I can count: you meant someone from outside of the scene, and stand idly by why they describe it to a 3rd party, and inevitably it comes down to "...and all their stuff is, like SUPER SMALL! 4 kilobytes and stuff!".
When "OMG! SMALL!" becomes the "only" metric of what matters, never mind what the visual output is, then we've reached a dead-end.
Yep, do stuff you enjoy making, don't give a fuck about anything else. Speaking of which...
*fires rubber band at butt*
Quote:
*buttwalks out of thread*
*fires rubber band at butt*
I think the internet is also a strong factor.
With people being able to watch everything they can think of (and more) on Youtube and the like its getting harder and harder to really amaze them, let alone get them to actually contribute.
Most of us have nostalgic feelings about the coolness and emotions they had with watching their first demos and while that may also be an age-thing im pretty sure it doesnt work with (most of) todays teenagers anymore.
With people being able to watch everything they can think of (and more) on Youtube and the like its getting harder and harder to really amaze them, let alone get them to actually contribute.
Most of us have nostalgic feelings about the coolness and emotions they had with watching their first demos and while that may also be an age-thing im pretty sure it doesnt work with (most of) todays teenagers anymore.
<also insert personal oppinion> would a possible demo platform on ps4 contain technical requirements from Sony? :) that would probably take the fun out of demomaking.
