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{subhead} "The Demo Scene on trial" reply{def}{p}
Article by Chris Seward
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Your probably all wondering why I'm replying to an article that
never featured in this magazine. Many of you, especially many of the
people reading who are involved in the 'scene' will be wondering
what this article is all about and what exactly am I replying to.
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The past experience I have had shows that most 'sceners' are not
in the United Kingdom, although some are but the majority live
else where in Europe. This will cause some confusion over what
exactly I am on about, please let me explain. I'm sure no matter what
country you are living in you can not of failed to miss the recent
hype of the launch of the new glossy magazine which is published
in major newsagents around the UK, the title of this fine magazine
is AmigActive ({link http://www.amigactive.com}http://www.amigactive.com{end}) which is published monthly and to
my knowledge is only currently available in the UK. Now up to issue
3 with issue 4 due for release any time soon people have got used to
the way in which the magazine is written and how it goes about presenting
itself. Overall I think this is good for the Amiga market but in issue
2 there was an article written by Tony Horgan that really got to me.
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Yes. This article was titled "The Demo Scene on trial". Now I think it
is rather strange that Tony Horgan should write about a topic which
he obviously knows little or nothing about which is shown in the
page write up of the Demo Scene. He does attempt to back up his so
called experience by stating "'But Tony', you cry 'I seem to remember
you were involved in a production of a demo a few years ago" So his
whole experience of the demo scene is judged by one of his failed
productions. I think the article is more of a sour grapes type judgement
in that he was not able to break into the scene and in turn made him
never become popular in the eyes of the real sceners.
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Now of course I don't claim to be any kind of expert and many of the
sceners who read this may totally disagree with me about the points I
am going to make but in my 10 years of Amiga experience I have been
interested in watching demos for most of them aswell as talking to alot
of sceners who make these demos that continue to amaze me.
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The article has a 'Case for the Defence' showing the good points and
a 'Case for the Prosecution' which shows some 'bad' points. The bad
points section is by far the largest with many incorrect statements and
again showing the sour grapes attitude to the demo scene.
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The first part of the article absolutely annoys me by the fact that
Tony Horgan makes out that the coders of demos are young kids. If they
are or they aren't does this really matter? what matters is the people
who are making these demos are some of the most clever computer users
to grace this planet, they are the ones who can make these effects and
push the hardware to the limit, the age of them whether they are 12 or
52 is totally irrelevant. I suspect a hint of jealousy in Tony Horgans
tone which suggests that these 'kids' as he calls them are producing
effects which Tony Horgan can never even hope to achieve in his whole
life time.
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Next up we see him say "they even start to communicate in a different
dialect". Wrong, wrong, wrong. I think Tony Horgan should have done
some research before making assumptions about what the demo scene is
and how they talk. The demo scene is NOT 80's America where 'cool' is
used everywhere and they certainly do not speak in 'l33t' tones as
this has never been associated with the demo scene. I think Tony Horgan
watched the film Hackers (1995) and then thought that these sceners
where "l33t c0d3rZ w!v c00l d3wdZ att!tud3Z" but infact this is classed
as elite speak and from what I have seen is rarely to never used in
this way. Infact it is normally the demo coders who make jokes about
that kind of talk. I think Tony Horgan is mixing the Warez scene with
the Demo scene.
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The next comment made by Tony Horgan suggests that all demo sceners
are pirates with an indirect comment of "Sadly, the "sceners" all seem
to have keyboards with faulty Caps Lock switches, making their text
appear curiously similar to that style favoured by software pirates.
What an unfortunate coincidence." This comment is totally uncalled for,
of course you will get some people in the scene who are pirates, just
like you will get some non-sceners who are pirates. How exactly does
Tony Horgan think that games are released pirated before originally,
I think that some publishers have a few pirates inside, don't blame it
all on demo sceners Tony.
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Overall I am quite annoyed by the comments made by Tony Horgan, I
think it gives a bad impression to those who have not already experienced
the true pleasures of some most fantastic demos ever made out there. Lastly
I would like to state that alot of sceners also use c64's and some are
using them only, no Amiga, no PC, does Tony Horgan now want to put
down that group of people.
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Mr. Tony Horgan seems to miss a simple fact that although people may
beable to create better effects on a PC that would should all move to
the PC? If he is saying that then he must also think that the PC
can produce better games and utilities due to its processing power,
so why are we still using our Amigas, get real.
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Next time someone decides to put down one group of Amiga users i'd
like to ask them to take a look at themselves and what they are
personally doing for the community. At the moment I think these demo
coders are doing alot more than Tony Horgan. So instead of putting
other peoples efforts down, lets see some of your own.
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Now any of you that are sceners might not agree with me but if you'd
like to put your comments across on any issue then write in for next
issue, I, as would many readers like to hear your points of view.
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email : {bold}letters@aio.co.uk{nobold}