pouët.net

Were the mics off or is it still possible to get a proper recording of the compostudio?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS6H07DTqnE

I'd like to give a bit of feedback about a number of things that made me uncomfortable with this years' Assembly. I really liked the party, I liked the compos and releases, scenelounge was fantastic (even better than last year) and everything went really well.

However, the first thing when I walked into the party place was an army recruitment point. I seriously considered walking right out again.
The same goes for the (multiple?) advertising places of churches. And the opening speech by a right-wing politician.

I know assembly is an all-encompassing digital festival, and as a commercial event, it happily accepts contributions from everybody who is interested in digital culture, but I simply have big ethical issues with this. When I release a production at assembly, I am putting my own hard work into increasing the appeal of an event that promotes army recruitment. And I am not OK with that.

Now, I'm not sure what to do about that. I can't expect Assembly to change whom they accept as exhibitors based on my own ethical concerns. Also, simply not going means that I'll miss a great party.

I guess I should make a demo about it next time (then it'll be up to Assembly to show or disqualify it).

@urs: agree 100% on the army stuff, made me really uncomfortable too. The best way to counter this stuff in my opinion is to lambast it in productions ;D

Sampo Terho kinda made sense being the sports minister and Assembly being the premier eSports event, and he didn't present anything related to their particular brand of politics, so I'm neutral about his appearance.

Extremely same.

expect a sudden drop in release quantity next year due to the blind drunk sceners who accidentally conscripted

The army stuff felt strange for me too, and I agree that it probably should not have been there, but I'd like to be more moderate about Terho's presence.

We participated in an event focusing on digital culture, where the sports & culture minister of Finland happened to hold a speech, where he specifically did not push any agenda. I can't see how this crossed any line, quite the opposite, and it is rather telling, that had the culture minister originated from any other party, no-one would have had any problem with their presence.

I really wish that we, as a culture, could avoid participating in the creation of this divisive and hostile society that everyone seems to be heading into. Scorning people because they are from the wrong clique is precisely what gives right-wing movements their power in the first place.

I didn't have a problem with the army being present. It was definitely a surprise, but they do go to all kinds of events so why not Assembly.

Just to note the existence of a different reaction. I do understand how it could be uncomfortable.

tv2 stream from yle was ok!

First of all, Finland has defence forces, not an army :) And they were recruiting it-specialists, nowadays the wars are not fought in the forests... For us finns it was not that shocking too see them, though I personally would have not picked that location for their vehicle.

Hey, everybody can think of a reason to boycott Assembly. Now it's even owned by a publicly traded SWEDISH company (that I used to work for for 15 years). I'm a Christian and I play piano in church, so if you make demos, you're supporting a very questionable person's hobby. Hesburger is omnipresent at Assembly and in Finland in general so I guess a vegan person might find that a reason to not come. NAH! :) But making fun of serious things aside, it's great that we can have a place where people can safely come together and speak about their feelings. Boozembly is one of the highlights of every summer. Thanks Urs for being there and making prods.

Visy,

Although not a coder myself I did see your talk, via the stream, on coding for 8-bit systems.

Many thanks for that ! It was interesting too, certainly not boring at all. It takes some guts to do something like that, so, once again, congratulations for doing so.

Yzi,

It is interesting, being a Christian and also being involved with the demoscene, which is also my position. Though I will stress that I have not been offended at all by pretty much *any * production that I have seen over my years within the scene. Well, almost. The only one I can think of right now was the infamous prod released by Crimson Jihad at Mekka 2002 - the one featuring footage from the events of 9/11 in New York City - though I recall most sceners at the same time who were there found that entry particularly unsettling ...

In general though, it was entertaining once again to see the livestream broadcast. Franky and Truck did an amazing job with the compos. True, it was a pain when the demo compo kept getting delayed, but this and other compos had some fantastic entries within them, probably the best Assembly party for some years to have so much good material released. Congratulations go to everyone involved with all of these.

Guess I should get my ass back over to Assembly at some point in the next years. First and so far only time I attended was back in 2003.

I think the presence of the church is a good thing at events like ASM. Sometimes (especially if you're prone to anxiety) you need quiet space and/or someone to talk to, and in my experience they've always provided that. No questions asked about faith or anything else.

The army, however... blegh.

Everyone has the right to believe in exactly what they want. The church did not impose on anyone, nor did the defence forces (NOT army, Finland does not have one).

225% what Warma, msqrt and b0n said. I hope this divisive nightmare ends as soon as possible.

I think it is a good thing to discuss how things should be presented (if they should at all) at venues at Assembly. Cyber security as is is indeed a good thing to promote. Do Finnish defense force need to bring a tank inside the hall to promote that...

Things can be improved and in order to do that things need to be discussed. It is really good and important that people tell if something makes them uncomfortable at the venue. That's the only way we can improve and take these things better into account next years. So thank you for bringing this up!

I thought I'd chime in a bit here.

First of all, I think the minister gave a very good speech and it showed lots of respect also to the demoscene and all that Assembly represents. Getting someone from the cabinet to come and see the event is a good thing - especially someone who has understanding of the culture(s) Assembly represents. When mr Terho was initially chosen as minister of culture and sports, we saw nazi remarks and the gloom for all culture in Finland. By listening to what he said, I'd say quite the opposite.

Then the question of the Finnish defence forces being there. I think it was a great fit. The service in Finland is mandatory and they came to address the audience they wanted to talk to. There are alternatives to the "run in the woods guns blazing" stuff and this is what they wanted to promote, the cyber unit. They have roles and jobs for civilians and for the mandatory service men and women too. They had a cool agenda and we got a TON of positive feedback about them being there.

Besides Rimina, that was not a tank. Far from it. Pasi is a crew transport vehicle and it surely did catch attention. That was initially my idea to bring it. They wished to bring the more advanced version with all cool computers in it, but it would have required certain clearances even to look inside, so no dice.

The church has been at Assembly for years. They do not try to recruit you or convert you. Their agenda is to offer someone to talk to if you are feeling lonely, have problems in your life etc. If you would have gone to their booth, you would have noticed that they work with a lot of various youth programmes which try to help. And what I have heard, they have reached out to young kids who they have been able to help. That is a super awesome thing. The church in Finland does a lot of good and help people, so its not all about religion.

The worrysome feeling I got after reading this thread was that it seems there are people who do not see anything but the generalistic front or idealogy of some institutions. And if you don't like our defence forces or church, then all that comes under them is bad.

If someone decides not to go to Assembly because the defence forces are there, well, its their call. If someone wants to flame us because we have the church at Assembly, go ahead. But I feel all these institutions have a role in our society and they are ALL needed. I am not a member of the church but donate to some of their causes regularly, as they do good. It's not about believing in Jesus. I am totally fine with folks who do. Or are pacifists. Or who hate my opinions. I hope these folks would have the tolerance too and can look a bit deeper too.

Don't be too divisive.

Thanks

Pehu
AsmOrg

Hi Pehu,

thanks again for a great party. I really liked the improved scene lounge. One thing I missed this year was extra voting slots for the demo compo, having to vote only for the top 3 when there are SO many good entries is very painful. In the past on such occasions the voting was changed to allow casting 4 or 5 votes, I was hoping that to be the case again but alas...

As a foreigner, I'm clueless about the left/right leaning of your politicians, and I didn't even realize there was a church booth somewhere. The army thing was somewhat weird, but I gathered they were looking for IT people, so I guessed their target demographic was more "adult coder" than "17 year old Counterstrike gamer", which would have been more exploitative. Still not my cup of tea, but I'm not blaming Assembly for anything.

Thanks Seven for feedback.

I think Rimina can be your contact on how to evolve the voting. She has done wonderful job with the compoteam and getting it into speed :)

And for scene lounge, there is plenty of feedback on various channels, please let us know how you see and experienced it. We will definately make the version 3.0 next year.

Pehu

The voting will be changed for next year. We were planning to use the new system already this year but it wasn't quite possible yet. The new voting mechanism will be such where you can give 1-5 stars to each prod. So you can rate every prod in the compo, not just select top-3 or top-5 of the compo.

My experience:

First of all a big thanks to rimina and co. for organizing the compos, flawlessly. You can tell that these guys enjoyed being part of the process and know their stuff.
The schedule was tight but running mostly on time, apart from the demo compo, which was delayed because of the extremely *unlucky* (for us) inability to choose a winner team. Well, not much you can do about it - maybe next time make it best of 5 instead of 6 :-))


Nevertheless, it's good for me to see that the vibe is still there, the boozembly hills still attract people (and beers) and that there is a growing interest from outside Assembly to cover this (TV and other Finnish media).
Finally, kudos to Truck and co. for the tireless work on the microphone.

we are dealing with certain political tendencies over whole europe, even over the whole world.
the army needs to recruit young and stupid enough people - otherwise they would have to rely on drones and automated weapons/personnel entirely at some point in the future.

complaining about the army and religious institutions beeing present at assembly is one point, accepting reality the other point.

yeah, make more demos about that!

i was a bit worried one or two times when i noticed walking through some clouds of toxic/unknown chemical rich air coming from new and now used hardware.
maybe a solution for this would be heating up the hardware (using it) before assembly for some days, so that the fumes can go somewhere alse than in the air that is breathed by mainly young people.

for me it was new, but very nice to see that helsinki actually can offer an excellent drinking water quality. it was nice to have best finnish water all the time.

A foreigner might not realize it, but most of the gamer boys you saw in the main hall were either going to, or had already done their military service. And most of the middle-aged farts at Boozembly had done it as well, having various military ranks and training.

I'm finally behind real computer again, so I can tell yall I loved Asm and Bzm and the scenelounge was great, mad props for the people working hard! It sucked the lights were already put up during the Orange demo in the compo though, but I understand with the CS match being delayed and all.

The demo compo studio in Finnish was also a bit of bummer for us foreigners, but I get that it's a Finnish party, sallgood!

Had an absolute incredible weeked and will definitely be back next year! Love me some goddamn perkele in the morning!

THANK YOU TO ANYONE WHO PARTICIPATED IN COMPOS AND THOSE WHO KEEP MAKING ASM WHAT IT IS YEAR AFTER YEAR. (+ special love to bzm orgas)

It's always a joy to organize in the end, all this makes it worthwhile.