Games and Demos

Written by Odex

I have noticed that people in the scene complain that games nowadays are much better than demos (in a technical sense). So what? I think that people simply have to face the truth that you cannot make better demos than the games are anymore. Game companies normally hire about 10-30 people to make a game, they work on the game for couple of years, eight hours a day and so on... Compare this to making a demo: Normally about five people work on the demo, in their own free time and only for couple of months.

People say that everyone in the scene should finally start to use 3d cards, mp3 files and other things like that. I don't really see it that way. Why should we even try to beat the games? I think that it's much more important to concentrate on design, demos are an art after all.

Of course new things have to always come but if we make demos to be more like games is it a good thing? Do you really want to watch another boring 3d-demo? Demos produced nowadays need more and more CPU power. Come on, some people still make fantastic demos with C64 and Amiga and you cannot even make as good demos with the latest PCs and with the latest 3d-cards? What's the point of making demos to be better and better in a technical way if the design sucks? When's the last time you have seen totally new effects in demos? People have to be more creative if we want demos to be better - no 3d cards etc. can do it for us. Of course it's also important that a demo is technically good, but in my opinion the design is more important.

I hope that you've understood what I'm trying to say with this article. Critisism is always welcome and if you have a completely different point of view, then share your thoughts with us. This is the first article that I have ever written so if you are only going to say that this article sucks and stuff like that don't waste your time, please.

- Odex/Cycla/Aalto