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With all due respect, I disagree with this statement. The demoscene was largely teenagers. Teenagers who were afforded the chance to have a personal computer t

With all due respect, I disagree with this statement. The demoscene was largely teenagers. Teenagers who were afforded the chance to have a personal computer through pervasive decent living standards, with enough free time to experiment on things for the sake of experimentation and learning. They (we) were making art and impressing each other, not looking to cash in to make mad loot. The only way I see taxes as having contributed to the development of the demo scene and the subsequent high-level tech companies founded or staffed by demoscene veterans is that a high-enough level of taxation permitted these kids fo "just play around" and make art for art's sake.

arexxbifs 7y ago
I think there's a point to the statement. A lot of them surely dreamt of working with software development, but they weren't interested in "cashing in" because it wasn't part of the overall mindset. Economic policymaking was geared at keeping old, massive manufacturing companies happy and the public sector was immense. Starting a small company in Scandinavia in the 1980s was much harder than it is today, but it was easy to find a job and very hard to get fired once you did, with unemployment kept (somewhat artificially) around 2%. I'm not interested in a debate about what society is better, but it's an interesting distinction.
- erikbye 7y ago
  > A lot of them surely dreamt of working with software development The sceners, who were mostly teenagers, most certainly did not have any ambitions working in software, at that time. At least, very few, and it would never have been the main drive. You have to understand that the whole scene was rooted in breaking copy protection. The pirate groups started making "cracktros" to include in the release of the pirated software, a visual 'demo' saying, "we cracked this software; this is who we are." The demoscene, eventually, highly intertwined with the BBS scene. Crackers, hackers, phreakers, and gfx coders were all ingredients in the same stew. It was a culture of show-offs, attempting to outdo each other. Fun and careless. There were anarchists and anti-government tendencies — a lot of illegalities and arrests.
  - arexxbifs 7y ago
    Thank you for explaining the scene to me. After all, I've only been involved with it since the 1990s. I can assure you that many of us dreamt of working with computers in some way and the fact is that many of us do, today - including a lot of those who were previously involved in illicit activites. That doesn't mean it was a driving force behind the scene, but of course people had a yearning to employ their skills by working with something they percieved as fun and exciting. (edit: spelling)
    - erikbye 7y ago
      If that's your perspective, then so be it, that was your experience with the scene, it does not match mine. Of course, I can only speak for the corner of the scene I was involved with, and perhaps I spoke in too general terms previously, but from my days, not once did I hear talk of the corporate world except if it was derisive. Most teenagers don't hold dreams of becoming white-collar slaves, joining the ranks of 9-5 drones in cubicles, especially not those in the scene. People got jobs because they grew up, because they had to. They became adults with responsibilities, and it was simply time to stop spending time on frivolous things, not because it was a goal or motivation, but because you had to make money, black hats, and gfx coders alike. As previously discussed in this thread, many sceners ended up in game dev, others became artists (music), that should tell you something about what their motivation was, and what they considered fun. The drudgery of working in a Fortune 500 doing enterprise programming was not it. Those who didn't concede to a job attempted to start their own thing.
      - arexxbifs 7y ago
        I didn't say people dreamt of becoming "white-collar slaves" or "9-5 drones". I said a lot of of sceners dreamt of working with software development - which of course includes games. The general notion was more along the lines of late-night hacking sessions to put the finishing touches on the magnificent game that would earn you fame, fortune and street cred, not writing API specifications in Word Perfect.
        7y ago
dharma1 7y ago
This. The demoscene was young people (mostly teenagers or early 20s) doing really cool stuff with computers, trying to out-do others. It was about art, international (friendly) competition with the demo parties around Europe, and doing cool shit. It was a mix of coding, graphics, and music - there wasn't a profit motive, although many people found employment (or started companies) in related industries afterwards. How a lot of the coding part was so hardcore is probably explained by not having things like Unity or Unreal back then, so everything had to be done from scratch

arexxbifs 7y ago

I think there's a point to the statement. A lot of them surely dreamt of working with software development, but they weren't interested in "cashing in" because it wasn't part of the overall mindset. Economic policymaking was geared at keeping old, massive manufacturing companies happy and the public sector was immense. Starting a small company in Scandinavia in the 1980s was much harder than it is today, but it was easy to find a job and very hard to get fired once you did, with unemployment kept (somewhat artificially) around 2%. I'm not interested in a debate about what society is better, but it's an interesting distinction.

erikbye 7y ago
> A lot of them surely dreamt of working with software development The sceners, who were mostly teenagers, most certainly did not have any ambitions working in software, at that time. At least, very few, and it would never have been the main drive. You have to understand that the whole scene was rooted in breaking copy protection. The pirate groups started making "cracktros" to include in the release of the pirated software, a visual 'demo' saying, "we cracked this software; this is who we are." The demoscene, eventually, highly intertwined with the BBS scene. Crackers, hackers, phreakers, and gfx coders were all ingredients in the same stew. It was a culture of show-offs, attempting to outdo each other. Fun and careless. There were anarchists and anti-government tendencies — a lot of illegalities and arrests.
- arexxbifs 7y ago
  Thank you for explaining the scene to me. After all, I've only been involved with it since the 1990s. I can assure you that many of us dreamt of working with computers in some way and the fact is that many of us do, today - including a lot of those who were previously involved in illicit activites. That doesn't mean it was a driving force behind the scene, but of course people had a yearning to employ their skills by working with something they percieved as fun and exciting. (edit: spelling)
  - erikbye 7y ago
    If that's your perspective, then so be it, that was your experience with the scene, it does not match mine. Of course, I can only speak for the corner of the scene I was involved with, and perhaps I spoke in too general terms previously, but from my days, not once did I hear talk of the corporate world except if it was derisive. Most teenagers don't hold dreams of becoming white-collar slaves, joining the ranks of 9-5 drones in cubicles, especially not those in the scene. People got jobs because they grew up, because they had to. They became adults with responsibilities, and it was simply time to stop spending time on frivolous things, not because it was a goal or motivation, but because you had to make money, black hats, and gfx coders alike. As previously discussed in this thread, many sceners ended up in game dev, others became artists (music), that should tell you something about what their motivation was, and what they considered fun. The drudgery of working in a Fortune 500 doing enterprise programming was not it. Those who didn't concede to a job attempted to start their own thing.
    - arexxbifs 7y ago
      I didn't say people dreamt of becoming "white-collar slaves" or "9-5 drones". I said a lot of of sceners dreamt of working with software development - which of course includes games. The general notion was more along the lines of late-night hacking sessions to put the finishing touches on the magnificent game that would earn you fame, fortune and street cred, not writing API specifications in Word Perfect.
      - 7y ago

dharma1 7y ago

This. The demoscene was young people (mostly teenagers or early 20s) doing really cool stuff with computers, trying to out-do others. It was about art, international (friendly) competition with the demo parties around Europe, and doing cool shit. It was a mix of coding, graphics, and music - there wasn't a profit motive, although many people found employment (or started companies) in related industries afterwards. How a lot of the coding part was so hardcore is probably explained by not having things like Unity or Unreal back then, so everything had to be done from scratch