20060327 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!
