Playstation 4 - Xbox 1 demos (neoGAF thread)
category: general [glöplog]
PolarGamer? how long do you think it takes to learn to make demos to the standard to push a ps4? from scratch barely knowing how to code?
another the reason the cutting edge are all 'old' is also because it takes time to get to these standards.
i think the absolute best thing thats come out of this is that yet again a little 'remember the demoscene' comment was dropped into the online gaming press, and if some of those people either 1) reminisced for a bit and checked out pouet and some old prods they liked, and maybe watched some new ones, or 2) learned that the scene even existed or 3) actually did SOMETHING because of it like being inspired to dust of their gloves again then its a good thing..
beyond that its all more than idle speculation, its unrealistic. some "because we can" demo's will ultimately surface, but they are very unlikely to be cutting edge.
microsofts xbox 360 platform uses one of the most cross platform, best supported & documented development eco-systems and and there are only SIXTEEN prod's in total on here in 8 years, an average of 2 per year. in reality there was a big splurge at assembly '07. The ps3 has FOUR in alsmost the same time frame. some of that stuff doesn't even count properly as they're trainers, and several more are ports.
another the reason the cutting edge are all 'old' is also because it takes time to get to these standards.
i think the absolute best thing thats come out of this is that yet again a little 'remember the demoscene' comment was dropped into the online gaming press, and if some of those people either 1) reminisced for a bit and checked out pouet and some old prods they liked, and maybe watched some new ones, or 2) learned that the scene even existed or 3) actually did SOMETHING because of it like being inspired to dust of their gloves again then its a good thing..
beyond that its all more than idle speculation, its unrealistic. some "because we can" demo's will ultimately surface, but they are very unlikely to be cutting edge.
microsofts xbox 360 platform uses one of the most cross platform, best supported & documented development eco-systems and and there are only SIXTEEN prod's in total on here in 8 years, an average of 2 per year. in reality there was a big splurge at assembly '07. The ps3 has FOUR in alsmost the same time frame. some of that stuff doesn't even count properly as they're trainers, and several more are ports.
I'm sure there would be more demos for those if the environment was properly open. I've done a lot of programming both on the PS3 and Xbox360 at work and I'd love to do a demo on the Xbox360 if I could use a proper devkit, DirectX and C++ instead of XNA (the toolchain is great and the hardware really nice to program for), but Microsoft has deemed otherwise so that avenue is blocked.
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..because the compo was sponsored. And while the Xbox 360 itself might be "cross platform", it most _CERTAINLY_ is not the "best supported and documented development eco-systems" - that's a rubbish statement. The PC is by far the best supported and documented development eco-system there is, or has ever been. XNA was a clusterfuck, and being one of the people developing one of those Assembly'07 demos, I can say with utter confidence that the XNA toolchain was severely broken, and not at all fit for making demos.microsofts xbox 360 platform uses one of the most cross platform, best supported & documented development eco-systems and and there are only SIXTEEN prod's in total on here in 8 years, an average of 2 per year. in reality there was a big splurge at assembly '07.
preacher: just curious - would it be possible to write a demo on a dev kit, and release a video and the source (excluding frameworks etc. from the sdk of course)? Just wondering how strict it is :)
IANAL but I guess a video would be fine. The source itself would be rather useless without all the proprietary parts, because if you don't use them, then there's no real point of doing a demo on the hardware in any case. Without asking I'm actually not sure what could or couldn't be released, but I think my employer would say "no" to any of it anyway :)
i'm thinking in terms of "if the source is there, one day when the dev kit can be bought and the SDK leaks, it's runnable". Not that it's likely to happen without permission.
That might be sort of doable under certain conditions assuming that the xdk would be leaked and there was a devkit available to run unsigned code. However, the problematic part in it would be that the source would still be incomplete because you couldn't release the parts that contain the interesting xbox specific things like a leaderboard implementation or avatar support (hey, why not?). Without that stuff, there's not really a point in doing a demo for something that's basically just a low-powered PC (although with some nifty proprietary helper stuff and some APIs that would definitely come handy).
I think (and this can be farfetched) even if your code doesn't include anything from the XDK, it still is under the devkit licensing NDA, because it's a derivative.
well, you'd probably want to #include something from the XDK. And in that case it probably is covered. Guess the only ways are video or unofficial.
@smash
I understand. It´s probably as endemic to pouet as to the net in general. And thanks for not joining the hate train. If it seemed like i demanded something, that was not the intention.
@Logged out
I guess it´s not recognized by younger gamers and those older guys that grew up with Nintendos and such.. The art is also probably not very recognizable because the scene has shrunk a bit. I´d hope there is some way to remedy that.
I´m thinking at least a few percent saw past all the negativity in the comments and also read some of the more informative voices on Kotaku. In all the shit there was probably some positives as well and some that found interest in the scene. So that´s arguably actually a step forward, even though Smash might not think so at first and I understand that well.
So how to make the scene more visible? I don´t know if guys here even want that though. But sending in cool prods to mainstream sites is doable (I succeeded on my first try!).
@Canopy
Good point. And now I´m actually expected to make a demo, inspired by this thread it seems. Interesting. I´ll have to fire up Red Sector Demomaker and fix my Amiga then ;)
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PolarGamer: well, it's pouet - everyone has an opinion and everyone's an asshole.
Don't take it personally, but there's a problem that's endemic to pouet: it's slowly morphed over the years from a scene/community website where the majority of people were actively involved in making things that contributed to that scene, into a website where the vast majority of people are not contributing anything much at all - but still have the same enlarged sense of entitlement as if they were an active peer member of the community.
It happens so often that someone voices an opinion on something or asks for / demands something they themselves have no desire to ever put any work into, that it wears thin on the people who are putting effort into doing things.
I understand. It´s probably as endemic to pouet as to the net in general. And thanks for not joining the hate train. If it seemed like i demanded something, that was not the intention.
@Logged out
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kotaku's comments showed that reception of the "art of demoscene" is still not really recognized by gamers. which goes back to the point. leave the consoles for gaming. game developers might just demo game graphics on it. sceners demoing on it is just a lil too small achievement in that territory. imo.
I guess it´s not recognized by younger gamers and those older guys that grew up with Nintendos and such.. The art is also probably not very recognizable because the scene has shrunk a bit. I´d hope there is some way to remedy that.
I´m thinking at least a few percent saw past all the negativity in the comments and also read some of the more informative voices on Kotaku. In all the shit there was probably some positives as well and some that found interest in the scene. So that´s arguably actually a step forward, even though Smash might not think so at first and I understand that well.
So how to make the scene more visible? I don´t know if guys here even want that though. But sending in cool prods to mainstream sites is doable (I succeeded on my first try!).
@Canopy
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PolarGamer? how long do you think it takes to learn to make demos to the standard to push a ps4? from scratch barely knowing how to code?
another the reason the cutting edge are all 'old' is also because it takes time to get to these standards.
Good point. And now I´m actually expected to make a demo, inspired by this thread it seems. Interesting. I´ll have to fire up Red Sector Demomaker and fix my Amiga then ;)
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well, you'd probably want to #include something from the XDK
Yeah, to make it build and actually start, for instance...
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kotaku's comments showed that reception of the "art of demoscene" is still not really recognized by gamers.
Not really. More than anything else, it shows that when you create a post called "It's Just A Cool-Looking Racing Game ..." and post it in "Next-Gen" on a gaming website -- SHOCK AND AWE -- people think you're talking about a game, and understand even less.
Yeah. That was not helpful for those just skimming posts.
I had only have a quick look through Kotaku's comments... I've now spent a few minutes reading in detail and they are absolutely priceless.
Guess now that gaming is a billion dollar thing and the things game developers do in realtime are amazing, the demoscene has just lost the appeal (I've thought so for quite some time, but Kotaku's comments just hit the nail on this).
When I "joined" (if you can "join") the demoscene, back in 1992/93, I did it because the shit that came out of my computer was the most advanced and impressive stuff you could see... now, there's stuff like this everywhere, and that's why most average releases are "poor" (quoting smash).
I can still appreciate the technical effort (specially on the coding and music part, which is what I've done) going on a demo, and that's the only reason I still watch demos.
Is the demoscene dead (let's bring back the old flamewars!)? Absolutely not... but the appeal to new people is just diminished to tiny limits. Unless something big and revolutionary happens (and that's probably mean a shift from what you call a "demo" these days), give it a couple of generations and it will be... or it'll be just some residue for those 8-bit oldskool junkies doing stuff on low-end platforms... coming to the post discussion: PS4 or XBox One? What for? Is anyone (even those 5 or 6 outstanding groups these days) going to do anything that is impressive or appealing to anyone other than current sceners on these platforms? I highly doubt so.
Guess now that gaming is a billion dollar thing and the things game developers do in realtime are amazing, the demoscene has just lost the appeal (I've thought so for quite some time, but Kotaku's comments just hit the nail on this).
When I "joined" (if you can "join") the demoscene, back in 1992/93, I did it because the shit that came out of my computer was the most advanced and impressive stuff you could see... now, there's stuff like this everywhere, and that's why most average releases are "poor" (quoting smash).
I can still appreciate the technical effort (specially on the coding and music part, which is what I've done) going on a demo, and that's the only reason I still watch demos.
Is the demoscene dead (let's bring back the old flamewars!)? Absolutely not... but the appeal to new people is just diminished to tiny limits. Unless something big and revolutionary happens (and that's probably mean a shift from what you call a "demo" these days), give it a couple of generations and it will be... or it'll be just some residue for those 8-bit oldskool junkies doing stuff on low-end platforms... coming to the post discussion: PS4 or XBox One? What for? Is anyone (even those 5 or 6 outstanding groups these days) going to do anything that is impressive or appealing to anyone other than current sceners on these platforms? I highly doubt so.
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Yeah. That was not helpful for those just skimming posts.
No, it was not helpful for the target audiences of that site, nor for your own cause (whatever that might truly be).
"My cause" was outlined in the first post of this thread. Well, my official cause. It's obviously more sinister than that. Unfortunately I am not an editor of Kotaku, so all illuminati symbols did not make the final story.
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Is the demoscene dead (let's bring back the old flamewars!)? Absolutely not...
The demoscene is as alive as its creative output and its own response to that output. By that standard, it certainly isn't healthy.
I think the scene has its own version of Godwin's Law, let's call it Pouet's Law: The longer a discussion continues (and no matter what it was originally about), the more likely it is to turn into a "OMG, scene is dead" dispute. :)
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I think the scene has its own version of Godwin's Law, let's call it Pouet's Law: The longer a discussion continues (and no matter what it was originally about), the more likely it is to turn into a "OMG, scene is dead" dispute. :)
Godwin's law implies the discussion ends (when someone mentions the scene is dead :-)). I really hope it doesn't end... there are good and valuable points of view on this one.
We have our own term for ending discussions, it's called "pouetizing" :-D
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The demoscene is as alive as its creative output and its own response to that output. By that standard, it certainly isn't healthy.
Its _own_ response is not bad... the problem (or, what I tried to target as the problem), is the outside's response (in this case: Kotaku's comments, but that's just a mere example).
I disagree. Just look at the flack Smash is taking for something that's an insane technical achievement and overall a very solid piece of work.
"Expected more.."
"Boring.."
"Meh, I don't like this boom-boom music.."
He pretty much nails it with this quote:
"Expected more.."
"Boring.."
"Meh, I don't like this boom-boom music.."
He pretty much nails it with this quote:
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Don't take it personally, but there's a problem that's endemic to pouet: it's slowly morphed over the years from a scene/community website where the majority of people were actively involved in making things that contributed to that scene, into a website where the vast majority of people are not contributing anything much at all - but still have the same enlarged sense of entitlement as if they were an active peer member of the community.
It happens so often that someone voices an opinion on something or asks for / demands something they themselves have no desire to ever put any work into, that it wears thin on the people who are putting effort into doing things.
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I disagree. Just look at the flack Smash is taking for something that's an insane technical achievement and overall a very solid piece of work.
Or maybe they just expected more, found the demo boring and didn't like that boob-boom music. Is there really a need to sugarcoat comments, especially when the product is made by one of the "big ones".
I understand what you mean, but I'd say that, for example in Apocalypse When, that's a minority. Most see the excellence on its technical parts... I myself have commented finding it "lacking as a demo", but did comment on the excellence of its parts (the code and the music), and if I browse through the comments on that demo, most go along those lines.
In general, as full of trolling as pouet might be, most sceners (at least those who are not -just- trolling around) can see the effort and appreciate it IMO.
In general, as full of trolling as pouet might be, most sceners (at least those who are not -just- trolling around) can see the effort and appreciate it IMO.
The whole point of commenting is to give your opinion on the prod - both good and bad. It's generally a mix of praise and feedback - which is good. There are a few idiots, but ignore them and the pouet comments are actually pretty decent.
Comments from outside the scene? If it's a site full of gamers used to the visuals produced by a whole team of people like smash and a large number of artists? Especially when gamers as a rule have minimal knowledge of how these things actually get made, and therefore can't appreciate the parts that make the demo special...
Well, they're not our audience, so honestly, who gives a fuck? It's depressing to read, but I think that comes from the ignorance displayed, not the negative comments.
Comments from outside the scene? If it's a site full of gamers used to the visuals produced by a whole team of people like smash and a large number of artists? Especially when gamers as a rule have minimal knowledge of how these things actually get made, and therefore can't appreciate the parts that make the demo special...
Well, they're not our audience, so honestly, who gives a fuck? It's depressing to read, but I think that comes from the ignorance displayed, not the negative comments.
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Well, they're not our audience, so honestly, who gives a fuck? It's depressing to read, but I think that comes from the ignorance displayed, not the negative comments.
That's the point. If "our audience" is just "ourselves", then there won't be any new blood coming up, as it's happening already. This can be easily seen as the average age for a scener is 30+ . As I said, you either start attracting those gamers (be it gamers or anyone else, but young people), or the scene will be "dead" (pun) in a couple generations.
If technical excellence can't attract the new blood, the scene will have to find something that does, and morph what we call demos nowadays to that new thing.