[CSDb] - User Forums - Speculations on the growth/decline of the C64 scene

Welcome to our latest new user Harvey ! (Registered 2024-11-25)

You are not logged in - nap

CSDb User Forums

Forums > CSDb Discussions > Speculations on the growth/decline of the C64 scene

2017-03-27 13:54

Frantic

Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 1646

Speculations on the growth/decline of the C64 scene

According to CSDb the peak of the C64 scene, in terms of number of releases, was 1988. In 1988 more than 20000 releases were released. After that, there was a decline in the number of releases each year until year 2000. This is not very surprising.

Then a new phase began and there was a fairly steady number of releases each year between 2000 and 2010, with about 9001200 releases per year. During this period the trend was rather going sideways than clearly going up or down.

From 2010 to 2013 the number of releases went upward again, peaking in 2013 with almost double the amount of releases (2073) compared to the average during 20002010. After 2013 there has once more been a decline in the number of releases each year.

Any ideas what the reasons would be for this upsurge in the number of releases from 2010 to 2013? Was there indeed more productivity (caused by what? Internet/CSDb, or even codebase64 to some extent?), or is it rather an effect of people starting to release standalone pictures/tunes a lot more? ..or did the sons/daughters of the average C64 scener get a bit older around this time so that the average C64 scener got a bit more time at their disposal around this time? ...or is this when almost everybody had finally switched to cross development (including perhaps also cross platform editors like GoatTracker and Timanthes/Project One)?

What would be the reason for a declining number of releases each year from 2013 and up to now? Is the scene finally dying? Was 20102013 the final death rattle in terms of possibly being the last period when the number of C64 releases increased each year?

I know I could get at least a few more answers by looking closer at information that I would be able to extract from CSDb myself, but I felt like hearing some opinions from others so that's why I started a thread. Of course I am also aware that the sheer number of releases may not even be very interesting in itself, since the health of the scene may be better judged by the quality of the releases.

... 10 posts hidden. Click here to view all posts....

2018-02-09 21:21

hedning

Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 4723

Quote: There were only 37 demos in 2017, clearly a declining pattern. The scene's days are numbered!

And if you include onefilers?

2018-02-09 21:50

hedning

Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 4723

Onefile demos:

2000 - 54
2001 - 53
2002 - 61
2003 - 62
2004 - 63
2005 - 42
2006 - 73
2007 - 102
2008 - 89
2009 - 64
2010 - 81
2011 - 120
2012 - 148
2013 - 131
2014 - 119
2015 - 143
2016 - 107
2017 - 102

And then we have cracks:

2000 - 211
2001 - 183
2002 - 187
2003 - 218
2004 - 233
2005 - 168
2006 - 234
2007 - 185
2008 - 207
2009 - 149
2010 - 62
2011 - 268
2012 - 437
2013 - 293
2014 - 315
2015 - 331
2016 - 340
2017 - 362

Draw your own conclusions. :) My conclusion is that the C64 scene is kicking ass. And of course that G*P came back for real in 2011, and kickstarted a lot of old dragons. ;)

Previous - 1 | 2 - Next

Refresh

Subscribe to this thread: