Autumn 2025

The demo scene was recently proclaimed a UNESCO Living Cultural Heritage in Sweden, following several other European nations. As a scener, I’m not quite sure how I feel about that. It’s amusing on some level, there’s maybe even a bit of pride involved, but also fear that it might bring unwanted attention to a Good Thing, because Good Things are always at risk of spoiling when receiving too much attention. Then again, such worries are probably unfounded. Despite being a living cultural heritage, the demo scene is – all things considered – slowly approaching its demise.

The Scene Isn’t Dead

The scene – incorporating the cracking scene of the 1980s and early 1990s – has been declared dead several times over since the late 1980s. Some claimed the Amiga would kill it, others that the PC would destroy its soul or that the Internet would rob it of its essence. This is to be expected: In a subculture – which is what the scene is – there’s typically going to be elders lamenting the changing of the old ways, and newcomers eager to bring their own ideas into the mix.

Except… That last part might no longer apply to the scene. Examine photos from a late 1980s rave party and they’ll show a bunch of young people partying hard. Fast forward in time and look at photos from a 2025 rave party, and the concept remains basically the same, but there’s now a different bunch of young people partying hard. When performing the same experiment on the scene, there’s close to zero teenagers among 2025 demo party attendants. Look closer and it becomes evident that many of the 2025 attendants are in fact the very same persons as the teenagers and twenty-somethings appearing in party photos from 1989.

Some subcultures are regularly replenished or revived, whereas others are not. The scene seems to fall distinctly into the latter category: With few exceptions, most active sceners – even those who create demos for modern gaming PCs – belong to the home computer generation, meaning people who remember the heydays of Commodore, Atari, Amiga and MS-DOS.

High Effort, Low Reward

Like most subcultures, the scene grew out of a mix of unique circumstances at a very particular point in time; specifically, the advent of affordable but primitive home computers, lack of accessible digital mass communication, and limited cultural precedent.

I believe that all subcultures need a bit of gatekeeping in order to retain their original soul – the more accessible they are, the easier it is to turn them into exploitable markets. Punks, hippies and mods have all been removed from their original context, ground through a mainstream cultural filter, and repurposed for consumerism: A convenient way of selling brand apparel to identity-seeking middle class youth hungry for something, anything, ostensibly genuine.

The scene, on the other hand, is a perfect example of a subculture that’s hard to repackage for sale: It lacks apparent external traits, such as a particular fashion, a specific style of music and – especially considering how common computers are today – any uniquely defining equipment.

Combined with its shadier activities – cracking games, software piracy, postage fraud and phreaking – the scene was always on the introverted side. Decidedly anti-commercial and without tangible and marketable artifacts, corporate interest was and is usually limited to a few sponsors at really large demo parties, and using the scene as a recruitment pool for game developers. Apart from the time and effort required to build scene skills, computers and other traditionally geeky hobbies were decidedly low status in the schoolyard pecking order during the formative years of scene culture. Hence, there was very little potential reward in pretending to be someone who hunkered down in front of a CRT all weekend, trying to move a sprite across the screen. And, let’s be frank, it never did attract very many girls.

Thus, unlike other skill-based subcultures with a bigger mainstream appeal and a more pronounced aesthetic – such as skateboarding – the effort required to be accepted by the in-group and the low potential of reward from the out-group, means the scene has never interested posers in any significant numbers. It simply never became cool, and, consequently, still remains well out of view from establishment actors. I happen to like it that way.

Still Not Mainstream

There are regular discussions on the scene about how to attract new talent, because newcomers are nowadays few and far between. I believe the effort to get listed as a living cultural heritage is, in some way, part of a desire to rejuvenate the scene and keep the culture alive. Time will tell if it’s successful – I have serious doubts.

It’s not that it’s hard to get accepted on the scene, especially not these days. Talk of lamers and elites is now just self-referential irony, and the cracking scene is much farther removed from demo making than ever before. The mystery of what a demo actually is has been well documented, not least on Wikipedia, and examples are prevalent on easy access platforms like Youtube. To partake, all that’s required is (preferably) going to a demo party, talking to people, and bringing something to the table. Congratulations – you are now a scener!

If measured in number of active participants, the scene peaked somewhere during the early 1990s, when parties like Assembly, The Party and The Gathering attracted visitors in the thousands. Since then, attendance has dwindled, and has proven hard to increase again despite various outreach initiatives.

Kill All Audio and Lights

During the latter half of the 1990s, big demo parties started attracting people almost exclusively interested in playing networked games at scale, effectively visiting parties to use the digital infrastructure they provided. In theory, this could have been an opportunity for the scene to grow, gaining a natural venue for showcasing itself to a new audience apparently interested in computers. In reality, few gamers made the leap, and subcultural differences instead created friction. Sceners were annoyed by gamers disturbing the demo competitions with loud music and other disruptive behavior, and ticket prices went up due to increased demand. Some events were completely taken over by gamers: Dreamhack started as a small demo party and is now a global LAN party franchise. Eventually, sceners simply retreated to other venues, in a natural and uneventful split.

There are still hybrid events, but the biggest, most popular and influential parties are once again exclusive to the scene – not by actively banning a certain category of visitors, but by simply organizing and marketing scene events in a way that makes them inherently uninteresting for the average LAN party visitor.

Arguably successful hybrids, such as what Assembly has transformed into, has more or less compartmentalized the scene in order to protect it from the otherwise completely dominating and highly commercialized mix of e-sports, cosplay and live music acts. During the 1990s, many big parties offered cash prizes, and Assembly is as far as I know the last one that still does. In an outreach effort, they’ve also introduced a compo segment specifically for beginner sceners and this does seem to attract a number of first releases each year. A positive sign, though I personally feel a bit squeamish about keeping money in the mix: the vast majority of productions released, even during the peak party years, were never created for winning money, but because it was fun.

Why Grow?

For most sceners, the scene was a part of their formative teenage years. Lasting friendships, life-long skills and creative exploration is the stuff of fond memories, and our pursuits are still a source of much joy. It’s only natural to want to share this positive experience with others. Some seem to think the scene could still be a potential talent pool, lamenting the lack of new scene recruits for low level programming jobs and game development. And, of course, it might be comforting to see a cultural legacy carried on: a validation of your own life choices. However, as heartwarming as it is to see new, younger talents appear on the scene, the slow trickle appears to be well below meaningful replacement levels: we’re very far from the hundreds or even thousands of youngsters that once hiked across Europe to fill giant convention centers.

What makes rejuvenation hard is that many of the things that once gave the scene its special allure are simply gone. There are no longer home computers offering a fixed hardware platform for exploring, sharing and creating on equal footing. Spreading digital creations is cheap and easy on an Internet taken for granted. Affordable yet immensely powerful computers have opened up entirely new creative avenues, unhindered by the technical limitations that once upon a time forced the essence of demos to become what it is. And, of course, the scene is no longer new and exciting, but filled with middle-aged grown-ups.

Degrowth

The scene grew organically through devoted and creative people, hell-bent on doing their own thing without the involvement of clueless adults, corporate incentives or detailed career prospects. It was and remains, first and foremost, about challenging yourself and sharing a passion. It’s not the scene’s responsibility to supply the software industry with capable developers, and it’s certainly not the responsibility of today’s teenagers to fill the ranks of a peculiar hacker niche – one based on unwritten rules thought up four decades ago by a bunch of old fogeys who are, to a large extent, still farting around with MS-DOS, 6510 CPUs and blitter chips.

There are other venues today where kids can experiment, learn and build a social context around their activities – probably ones where clueless adults can be kept at arm’s length. If they want to join the scene, let them – but above all, let them find their own thing, invent their own creative ways, and let them enjoy doing so.

As for me, I’m fine with the seemingly unavoidable, generational death of the scene. I crave no subcultural legacy, no future audience for my present creative pursuits. I’m just happy to be left alone in my narrow little niche, enjoying it with like-minded individuals, far from the scrutiny of commercial interests and other potential threats to our Good Thing.

And if a significant number of kids do, in fact, eventually pick up the scene torch? Well, I just hope they’ll have fun, too.