If the problem is not the party, what is it then?
Trace just wrote a post about the lack of productions in the spanish scene and the main reason for it (in his opinion): the absence of competitivity. I can agree partially on this. But not in all.
Yes, part of the reasons of why do we produce is competition. Take a look at Astharoth/TLOTB or RGBA. They may look arrogant (as some people say), but they keep releasing stuff just because they want to demonstrate they can do it and they can improve with each new production. (I am afraid this reason is the most typical in the case of coders.)
There are more reasons for producing. There's the desire to create, to express yourself using a computer (call it your digital canvas, or your virtual musical instrument… whatever metaphor you prefer more). These are reasons which can be listened from the musicians and graphicians, I think. I personally am more inclined to say that's the cause of my demoscene works, and not the competition. Call it the art of demoscene, if you want.
Finally there's also the will to have fun. The desire of enjoying the demoscene as a pure humourous hobby and have a very good time with it, even if you produce something which is a see-once-delete-immediately production that only you can understand (and laugh at).
A quick look at any spanish party results will reinforce my home-made theory: most of the sceners in Spain are coders which love to fuss around their favourite compiler during the year without any time or resource constraints and occasionally release some party coded entry because they feel that stress as part of the game. Otherwise they simply don't get compelled to finish whatever they are doing during months and it never gets released.
(On the other hand, the few non-coders usually tend to release at least something on every party they attend, even if it's not the most astonishing work they have ever produced)
I presume trace's idea for the charts may encourage those happy coders to produce… until a certain degree, of course. Because there's also another problem which affects every kind of scener and it is the lack of time, as Merlucin points quite accurately in the first comment to trace's post. Let's face it, the scene is getting adult. While some years ago we could spend a whole day doing stuff with Impulse Tracker, or leaving the homework for tomorrow, today we can't do it anymore. SiN already wrote about this on one Becanne issue. You can't simply ignore your employer for a day because you need to finish a demo for the upcoming party, and you also want to sleep and do what human nature asks you for…
So what is left? Is there any solution? YES! If there are a certain number of people which can't produce more, but you want more productions, then just add more people to the mix! The scene needs fresh blood.
And it's about where to recruit new people when trace and me disagree sometimes. We both have the same feeling of lack of support by big media, like for example when famous computer magazines in Spain used to publish demoscene specials which came accompanied by a CD containing all the releases from the party (back to the time when Internet was absolutely unknown to the general public). Then, while I think maybe it's better to show the demoscene to more specialized audiences, like part of more projects like for example xplsv's or plexiq's ones, he thinks the best is to recruit new people in parties. Hence his support for this past ifparty.
I must recognize he's right, but if the organizers don't manage to get people into their party and show them the beauty of scene, they have lost the whole point. And I am afraid that's happening terribly often here. Maybe the tomorrow's generation of sceners can be today's generation of gamers, if you want to call it like that. But you need to catch their attention, however it is needed.
It's not enough with advertising your party in your favourite scene portal. Because if someone reads it they are already on the scene. It's not new people! I strongly believe we need to get out of our shell and show the demoscene to more people. Get it published in printed media, generalist newspapers, even TV. Yes, humble yourselves, you are not the only ones which use computers in this world. You are not a privileged species de per se.
Of course, when showing demoscene to new people, you will find lots of detestable people which you will regret once and once again to yourself of having got in touch with them and even introduced them to your scene world. They are some of the most feared elements in the scene: the lamers. You will also find lots of ignorance and people which is not interested in your ideas at all. Luckily these ones dissappear as quickly as they arrived.
But at the end, thanks to not being so egoistic and sharing the knowledge that for some reason you hold in your head, you maybe will be able to catch some new people which will enrich [y]our scene with their own points of view.
And I think that's what really matters at the end.
Oh and the charts? We were talking about them I think… weren't we? 8-| Yes please. I would love to be on top of some categories! It looks as if it will be funny. Let's get the competition started!
Astharoth
20060328
Wtf! why i'm appearing constatly on your blog¿? :P
Btw, i agree with your comment, in the past i do some experiments trying to convert one Quake 3 mapper / gammer to scener 3d artist.. results was not bad at all.
There are a lot of ppl with good capabilities on the "gamer world".. iex: i was running a hl2 deathmatch server .. well, i found some good artists for banners / design,etc,etc.. from gamer world!
In the other hand, everyone needs to get her own motivation to do demos.. mine changes every production.. my last was cos i was happy , i was on my own world i did try to show it to all.
The loser was a strange time in my life,etc,etc
My attempt on my first prods (95/96 years) was for beating some ass.. was for do the best.
Now i only do prods cos i can do that, cos i want to show to the world that i'm alive, cos i wanna spread my little vision of my little interior world.
Can sound romantic, can sound arrogant… but i only wanna say "Spread yourself, be happy, do things, improve your life, share with the others" … it's a good spirit btw.
Cheers to all.
octal
20060328
I agree with you in the need of fresh blood on the scene, thinking in this i programmed with people from the Fine Arts Faculty here in Valencia a pre-party demoshow open to everyone, it wasn't exactly a success because we didn't announced it on time, but the people who came seemed pretty interested and surprised by the demoscene and the posibilities they saw.
I plan to do some more demoshows during the year in the university in the centers i think there is more "potential", i mean graphic design, fine arts, computer science, and announcing them in the whole campus, i think it's easier to find people there than in mass media.
The idea of looking for fresh blood in the parties, well, it may be possible in big "encounters" like the Euskal or the next inercia (or whatever it is called now) but in a small party like ifparty (or even bcn party) i'd say everyone there has came for a reason, or 'cause they have been lured there by some scener (stage7 i'm thinking of you ;) ) and the idea behind the demoshows in the campus is luring new people into the demoscene.
And looking for new sceners in the gamers "scene", i mean, not just people who plays, but peoples who creates new content, well, it's a good idea, there are not much differences, if you can interest them in some form of creation without interactivity, i think this is the hard part.
The Scene is dead, long live the Scene :)
sole
20060328
Casually small parties like ifparty or bcnparty are the best place to get introduced to the demoscene. There the people is approachable, they can meet the others, talk and ask questions, not like they could do in a superbig one like euskal party without feeling ashamed…
That's why I think they are a very good starting point. You just need to attract people there, by doing demoshows during the year, organising little beer meetings, you know.
trace
20060328
no no no no no no no no!
When I was a a newbie in all that there was no demoshows, the people wasn't all the day and night looking for new blood. We just need an automated way (so we just can concentrate producing) to show to the people all these great things we do, and why join the demoscene is that cool.
It just needs to feel cool.
octal
20060328
Yeah, it's better to know the scene in a small demoparty, of course, what i meant was that it's hard to find new people in a small demoparty, if you don't take them there.
trace, any ideas of automated ways? if i can script a scener atractor, it would be a great thing. The thing is, cool or not, if it doesn't reach people, noone can feel the coolness. Besides, doing a demoshow isn't a great deal, it's just talking to some people and selecting some demos, and there's the reward of watching great demos in a big screen with a good sound system :)
I plan to do a demoshow about the next bp so i can see all the cool demos in the big screen :)
sergeeo
20060328
IMHO the problem is: sceners are no longer teens with plenty of free time. A big part of demosceners today are above twenty five years old and they have lots of things to do.
Charlie_Grind
20060329
Wenas Sole, he mirado varias veces tu blog y el de mucha peña de la escena desde un tiempo a esta parte, creo que no necesito presentarme, ya que si hablamos en plata, para los que bicheeis por el blog de ayame ya os sonaré de algo; si no ya me conocereis mas adelante. El caso es que llevo siguiendo el mundo scener desde hace relativamente poco ( ni un año llevo ), pero lo conozco de hace bastante ( ya trackeaba en los primeros 90), y tengo en casa mas módulos,Pcmania y mas revistas de la época que pelos tengo en el sobaco, asi como música para callar muchas bocas ;). Me apasiona la escena por como la percibo: " un movimiento artistico, una demostración de destreza con tu máquina ysobre todo de creatividad". Sino he asistido nunca a una party ha sido por desconocimiento, tambien porque vivo en el sur de España y quizás estoy un poco aislado de las partys, porque nisiquiera he dispuesto de internet hasta hace 5 o 6 años y principalmente porque me he dedicado a lo que se dedica la gente de a pié: a currar y a estudiar. Presentaciones y explicaciones a parte, he tenido la suerte de encontrarme un mundo nuevo en la escena, en el cual puedo exponer la música que produzco ( siempre que no tengais prejuicios en dejar entrar " fresh blood en la escena )…el caso es que vengo de un mundo ( el de la música) y me encuentro con lo mismo, en algunos post, blogs y foros de internet sobre demoscene : Dogmatismo, prejuicios, posturas de alguna peña que se creen amos del cotarro, gente que ve amenazado su "mundo scener" cuando ven a gente nueva, etc…aunque esas cosas ya a una edad las ve uno normal sabiendo la naturaleza de la gente, aparte que es increible lo que me la sudan…
En fin, he hecho mi primera incursión en el mundo scener animado por Ayame, ya que me insistió en que presentara algo en la IFparty06 y me decidí. Tambien me veo con la destreza suficiente para competir en cualquier categoría de música en las partys; eso sí, " competir por competir" y que la esencia sea esa, lo veo una gilipollez tremenda, porque si ese es el rollo.. !! todos a competir con mierdas!! y pista, aunque tambien dicen que el arte es subjetivo y esto es " un movimiento artistico"…o no lo es??, en fin…no soy coder, tampoco se lo que es un "lamer", porque chupar culos no me vá y tambien creo que cada uno es libre de asistir a su primera party cuando le de la gana ( o aqui hacen falta cursillos de introduccion?? )
En fin Sole, si quereis " fresh blood", yo tengo varios litros :) a la vez que productividad e interés por la escena ( el mismo que me ha llevado a tu blog), si tambien se habla de producciones "cool" creo que no hay que ser pesimistas, siempre hay gente que tiene cosas que decir y mostrar y si no se les da una oportunidad pues pasará lo que pasa en los circulos cerrados: " que se vician y huelen mal". Nada mas que decir Sole, saludos y larga vida a la escena :)
jon
20060401
Primero y que no se me olvide, me sorprende que a estas alturas se considere a los gamers una especie de tullidos y nos sorprendamos por que sepan hacer cosas interesantes…
Por otro lado y al grano, lo de la pérdida de interés por la demoscene, creo que viene dado por la edad, los compromisos y las propias inquietudes de cada uno, generalmente, pero tambien viene por malos rollos. Esto viene a que influye tanto lo personal como lo ajeno a la persona y propio del entorno "social"…
Y yo personalmente creo que no hay modo de atraer a gente a la demoscene, salvo el propio interés personal de esa misma gente. Esto parece un problema que se quiere solucionar como las fuerzas armadas, en plan de "Ven y alistate!" y no creo que funcione así la cosa…
pd: perdonadme no escribirlo en inglés pero es que quería escribirlo rápido…