Quake meets Chimera

By Maija "DiamonDie" Haavisto

The Party is dead. This is something people seem to cherish and rejoice. I just wonder how they benefit from the death of what used to be one of the legendary demoparties. I was never able to attend The Party, but I doubt its death has any value to anyone. If it wasn't for TUM in Germany, I think The Party could have been recovered. Apparently people weren't interested.

More and more demoparties have turned into game fests. Dreamhack sprouted a separate gamer edition held in the summer, but apparently the main event also collects mostly gamers. The Gathering has a bunch of competitions with good prizes, which has led it to become a money-making event - demomakers submit their productions and then leave for Breakpoint, which starts a few days later. Some find Assembly to be a gaming party nowadays, even though gamers have been a part of the event since early the 90s. Assembly is more like a mainstream event with people coming from all over Finland just to meet friends they know through the Internet.

While sceners have figured out how to make money off gamers, LAN parties have also started to attract sceners, especially in Finland. LANs are very popular here, despite the increasing popularity and decreasing prices of broadband connections. The biggest gamer-only LAN MindTrek sold out 648 tickets for the hefty prize of 35 euros apiece. They had no demo competitions, though there was a retro gaming compo.

Game parties with scene competitions have been plenty in Finland during the last couple of years. There has been at least Icecube, Convo and several editions of Lamerfest and Lanzor. In 2005 we'll see a new party called Zenecs in Helsinki and Bitparty in Lapland. Swedes have Dreamhack twice a year and claim it's the biggest computer party in the world - they have more computer places than Assembly but the total attendance count is lower. Swedes also have Birdie, Krangparty and the other big party Remedy.

I haven't been to many combination parties, but Icecube in 2003 turned out to be an enjoyable summer weekend. Despite the majority of the 200 visitors being gamers, the atmosphere was friendly and the quality in the competitions was great - probably the best in any Finnish party that year besides Assembly. Especially the graphics compo was a surprise, delivering a dozen quality entries when there were only about 30-40 sceners present. The gamers acted very considerate towards the scene competitions - everyone shut down their monitors without any further hassle or complaints, like happens at Assembly.

Sometimes problems arise when non-sceners decide to have a party with scene compos. There were many sceners in Lamerfest 2002 and they even had an ANSI compo there. In 2003 hardly any sceners were present, because the time coincided with Simulaatio 2. In November 2004 Lamerfest was held for the sixth time and many people travelled there from a distance. We knew it wouldn't be a demoparty, but at least there were compos, with the grand prize in the demo compo being 100 euros (the prize in the Counter-Strike compo was 250 euros).

Unfortunately Lamerfest didn't turn out that good this year. The organizers spotted some of the sceners drinking beer near the party place, so most sceners, even those who hadn't consumed any alcohol, were banned from the event just minutes after it had started. Only a few sceners got in. I was supposed to go there on Saturday, but cancelled my plans when I heard of this and had a friend submit my entries. Kewlers and Kooma had their demos disqualified due to not being present during the compo, while I was awarded the first prize in the graphics compo without setting my foot in at the party. The organizers never admitted any mistakes were made.

It's quite obvious why these parties merge. Demoparties can get more visitors by allowing gamers in and gamers are generally willing to pay much bigger entry fees. It's also easier to get sponsors for mainstream events. Many bigger LAN parties boast huge lists of sponsors from Cisco to Siemens, while demoparties are often lucky to get one motherboard from the local computer store as a compo prize. It's more interesting why game parties want to invite sceners - especially if the general attitude towards them is hostile, like at Lamerfest. Some game parties are actually held by sceners who notice the chance to make decent money.

Parties are starting to divide, especially in Sweden. Birdie and Dreamhack celebrate two events a year, of the winter one is intended for sceners and the other for a more mainstream audience. For many years I've heard suggestions of doing the same to Assembly, usually the idea has been to have a big gaming LAN shortly after or before Assembly, so that the gamers would go there. I imagine many of the gamers would attend both events - or alternatively, the Hartwall Areena would be half empty and the prizes much smaller.

Combined parties offer opportunities for both sceners and gamers. Many sceners like to play games and a big number of gamers also enjoy watching demos - this is something we all know, but tend to forget. The scenes are in no way exclusive. Productions for demoscene competitions are also made by people who aren't in the scene. The winner of the Lamerfest democompo was made by a non-scener. Music and graphics compos also regularly attract non-sceners and the wild/short film compo at Assembly is just infamous for its humorous homevideo entries mostly made by gamers.

Variety is something that should stay. It's great to visit a party with only demosceners. Bigger parties like Breakpoint are definitely needed, but smaller gatherings are also gaining popularity again. The current Finnish trend includes one-platform parties, invite-only parties and group anniversary celebrations held. When you know everyone who's present, the atmosphere is obviously different. Still, I wouldn't mind having more demoparties in Finland, even if it meant sharing a sweaty sportshall with gamers. The scene might be dead, but we are not telling them.