
Ask HN: Why is the demoscene more alive in Europe than N. America? - ccajas
I find demoscene code very interesting even if I can&#x27;t fully understand most of it. I like the code golfing that goes into it to create some impressive artistic demos. Now what I&#x27;ve noticed is most of the demosceners tend to come from Europe, in particular the northern regions. How did the history of computing develop in Europe that gave way to a stronger demoscene than in North America (especially as US is home to many tech capitals of the world)? That is what I&#x27;m asking to find out here.
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austincheney
I suspect it has to do with a combination of interest (passion) and
compensation.

When I first entered this industry and earned substantially less I was really
into producing open source and software demos without any hope of receiving a
financial reward for it. I wanted to simply produce cool tools, learn improved
automation techniques, and become a better developer. I believed that if I
became a much better developer I could earn much more years later and also
achieve far more interesting work. I had incentive. I still write open source
software and I still enjoy it. My personal interest in software is really the
only thing that keeps me from burning out.

Software developers make a lot of money in the US and Canada. Some areas of
software development must work much harder than other areas just to achieve
and retain employment. In my area of frontend development with JavaScript
there are a lot of jobs that pay well and you don't have to be very good to
get them. There is less incentive to really go above and beyond by writing new
technologies to do amazing things.

In Europe developers make substantially less. There is the potential to make
as much as their North American counter-parts but only if they are near the
top of their profession. The incentive to self-improve and do cool things is
absolutely there, because you have to work harder to earn that higher income.
At some point a European developer also has to perform some level of self-
reflection if the passion isn't there and realize they could be earning far
more money working less hard in a different profession.

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rl3
[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/j5wgp7/who-killed-the-
ame...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/j5wgp7/who-killed-the-american-
demoscene-synchrony-demoparty\\)

> _The threat of software copies was recognized at least as early as 1976, the
> year Bill Gates wrote his infamous “open letter to hobbyists” bemoaning the
> illegal distribution of Microsoft software, but it wasn’t until the mid-80s
> that laws were passed banning the practice. The crackdown on software piracy
> was not evenly spread throughout Europe, however. Countries like the
> Netherlands, Greece, Finland, Sweden, and Norway didn’t have strict software
> piracy laws, if they had any at all, which allowed the warez scene to
> flourish there._

This is the hypothesis I've come to believe. Demoscene has always been tightly
coupled with warez. In the United States, release groups had to go deep
underground much sooner than their euro counterparts for operational security
reasons.

If you were the feds back then, one of the ways to hunt a release group was to
find its cracktro/demo authors who tended to operate a little more openly due
to the larger demoscene. The release cells in scene groups would then cut ties
with their own demo people for this very reason. Demo authors would then feel
a lot less cool because they weren't as connected to the release elements of
their own group anymore.

As of about 20 years ago, release elements of euro groups began operating
under equally strict security regimens. I think in large part it came down to
the fact their demoscene had more time to grow roots and flourish than the
American scene.

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keiferski
As an American that has been living in Europe for 5+ years, I'd say this:
American culture, for better or worse, is fundamentally pragmatic. There is an
undercurrent of "but how does this make money/get users/impact the world?" to
basically every activity, software development included. Creating stuff just
for artistic reasons still happens (like demoscene), but it takes a backseat
to a focus on industry.

------
dangus
Europe has over twice the population of the United States, that could explain
some of it.

~~~
jones1618
Fair enough but another factor is that Europe in the 1980s was the height of
techno/rave culture and the demoscene fed off of that. Also, PCs didn't catch
on so fast and 8-bit machines (C-64s, Atari STs) and the Amiga stayed popular
in Europe longer providing an accessible, colorful flower bed from which the
demoscene bloomed.

One more factor you shouldn't discount: In the U.S., drinking age is 21 and
going for a weekend "rager" in another country over a long weekend isn't a
thing here. Once you're ensconced in university a couple of years, staying up
all night to code a bunch of spinning eye balls over a warp field holds less
allure.

