Text from CSDb - Quantify Me
| Description: | Article text |
| Text: |
CSDB QUANTIFY ME
(spacebar to read)
By Mr.Mouse/XeNTaX
The Commodore C64 Scene Database (CSDb)
is the principal archive of all
Commodore 64 software that the
C64-scene produced, since 1982. Set up
by No Name in 2001, it has since
collected and archived 88309 titles
(31-07-2010), created by 16364 sceners
that were active in 5728 groups around
the globe. From the start, the CSDb has
grown to be the most important place
where C64-sceners still gather to show
off their new releases, discuss coding,
music and what have you. Having joined
the scene in 1988 myself I have never
experienced a more rewarding community.
Since I am a scientist by heart, I
thought it might be interesting to do a
little analyses of the data gathered at
the CSDb thus far. Currently, I am
targeting just the superficial data. At
this page I will show some of the
results.
TOTAL NUMBER OF RELEASES
Discussion
First off, let us start with
calculating the total releases per
year, and show the total number of
releases after ~28 years of scene
activity. Note: CSDb has a substantial
number of missing Release Date values
(N=11884), along with 4711
deleted/empty rows in it's database.
Therefore, the per-year data is based
on 76425 entries. Also, the CSDb
currently lists 88380 instead of the
afore mentioned 88309. This discrepancy
could be explained by a number of
non-software releases that my analysis
did not take into consideration.
Finally, of these 76425 entries, 3986
entries did not have any group
specified.
http://www.xentax.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/releasesperyea..
COPY+PASTE TO YOUR BROWSER :P
Discussion
As you can see in Figure 1, there is a
dramatic increase from 1985 on, while
the first releases started to appear
already in 1982. The scene reached it's
peak year in 1988 with 8405 titles that
averages to about 23 releases per day!
After that golden year there were two
strong years still, but from 1990 on
the scene more or less crashed to a
bottom plateau of around 1000 releases
per year, with a steady 10-year average
of 2.7 releases per day from 1999 -
2009. Overall, the rise and fall took
~12 years (from 1985 to 1997), with a
Golden Age that started in 1987 and
lasted until the end of 1990. Of
course, there is a limitation to this
figure. As said, some 11.000 releases
are unaccounted for in terms of Year of
Release.
Continued
The figure might change a bit. For
instance, from 2001 on, it is quite
clear when a new release came about,
since CSDb started. However, especially
in the early years of the scene, people
forgot to put a date in a new release.
Therefore, those early years might have
different numbers once those 11.000
have been sorted out. This, on the
other hand, is mere speculation, and we
won't know the full details until most
of the unknowns have been filled in
there.
Well, before we continue to look in
more detail into the different types of
software released, let's get a global
overview of the products released
during the last 28 years (Table 1).
http://www.xentax.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/table1_validmi..
Discussion
As shown in Table 1, the missing
Release Dates total up to 13,46% of all
releases. This is statistically rather
unacceptable and effort should be made
into dating those.
Cracks, One-File Demos, and Demos
Let's look at the historical data on
the number of released Cracks, One-File
Demos and Demos (multi-part assumed).
Figure 2 shows the number of releases
per year.
http://www.xentax.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/releasesperyea..
Discussion
A number of observations can be made
from this figure. Cracks emerged
practically immediately after the
machine came to the market. Between
1983 and 1984 there was a steep
increase, and again between 1986 and
1987. In 1987 a plateau phase began, no
doubt caused by a thriving game
industry at its max, that lasted to and
including 1992. During these 6 years,
an average of 3929 cracks were released
by the scene per year (total of 23578).
As we know, from then on publishers
dropped the C64 as platform, hence the
crash in the number of cracks released.
Still, from 1999 - 2009 each year an
average of 165 cracks (1816 in total)
were released at a steady level, but
the nature of most of these 'cracks' is
questionable. To compare, in 1991 alone
the scene released 4240 cracks.
Continued
Switching to demos, one can see the
first one-file demos truly appear in
1985 (44 in total), and booming to
~1000 in 1986 and rocketing further to
2500 per year in both 1987 and 1988.
Interestingly, multi-part demos started
to come a year later than one-file
demos, in 1986, and grew steadily until
1989 where a steep increase is visible,
neatly coinciding with a sharp decrease
in the number of one-file demos. The
maximum number of multi-part demos
releases was 559 in 1990. Looking at
1999-2009, the scene released an
average of 46 multi-part demos and 52
one-file demos per year. In other
words, once a week.
Graphics and Music
Stand-alone music and graphics releases
are an important part of the scene
today and have always been (Figure 3).
http://www.xentax.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/releasesperyea..
Discussion
C64 Music releases really kicked off
from 1986 with 346 stand-alone tunes
released, up to a peek in 1989 with 543
zax. The few years after matched the
crash in one-file demos when from 1990
to 1992 rock bottom was hit with only
83 music releases in 1992. From then
on, both the graphic releases and music
releases follow a wave-like path, and
the number of graphic releases largely
follows the trail of the music
releases.
The moving average of the music
releases of this time period (Figure 4)
suggests that the popularity of the C64
music chip is increasing, last year
(2009) we saw a moving average of 217
tunes and actual number of 236 zax
released. That last number is still 43%
of the number of tunes in 1989, and
284% of that from 1992.
Continued
The wave-like pattern would suggest to
match the occurance of scene-events,
such as demo parties, and perhaps the
rise of CSDb itself from 2001 offered a
new and fast platform to show off new
tunes and graphics, encouraging sceners
to step up creation of new work.
http://www.xentax.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/releasesperyea..
GRAPHICS COLLECTIONS AND MUSIC
COLLECTIONS
Discussion
Coming to the Graphics Collections and
Music Collections, these follow their
own routine apparently (Figure 5).
http://www.xentax.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/releasesperyea..
Continued
From 1984 with 3 releases, the number
of music collections shot to 84 in
1986,thereafter increasing to a peek in
1993 with 112 music collections
released. Only in 1996 did the number
fall to 87, matching that of 1986. This
11 year period of a steady high number
of music collections released is quite
extraordinary. It did soon after
collapse to 15 in 2000.
Then, from 2001 there was briefly a
renewed interest in releasing
collections (possibly caused by the
start of CSDb), but it lasted only 5
years and ended in 2005. Since then it
has been steadily decreasing to 14 last
year (2009).
Continued
Comparing this to the number of
stand-alone tunes released since 1993
it is obvious that the internet and
CSDb has made it unnecessary to create
collections, when the audience can get
and listen to each tune only seconds
after the musician finishes it.
Graphics Collections never reached
sky-high numbers of releases. While the
first listed was in 1984, and while it
seemed to follow the trail of music
collections in 1987, interest dropped
in 1988 after which there was a much
slower increase.
In 1995. something sparked a sudden
strong surge of Graphic Collection
releases that lasted for two years
(peek of 82 in 1996) until things fell
back to 22 releases in 1998. From 2001
on, the number of releases decreased to
around 7 per year.
DISKMAGS
Discussion
Diskmags are just that: magazines on
disks. And these scene magazines kept
sceners informed of what was going on
elsewhere. People, parties, release
reviews, editorials, voting, charts,
addies and what have you: everything
was published. Of course, also sceners
like the gossip, so many Diskmags were
launched by various groups. Brutal
Recall, Addybook, Script, Vandalism,
Smash, Style and many, many more. The
advent of Diskmags and releases per
year surely shows an interesting
pattern (Figure 6).
http://www.xentax.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/releasesperyea..
Further discussion
CSDb lists the first Diskmag released
in 1986, with one added each year until
1989 when things seriously kicked off.
In 1988 there were 3, in 1989 there
were 89, in 1990 there were 297 and the
sky-high value of 459 Diskmags released
in 1991. In 1991, one could read 1.3
Diskmag per day, ~9 Diskmags per week,
~40 a month! Sadly, I would say, we
probably did not have time to read them
all. But if we wanted, we could have
read a new Diskmag each day in 1991.
From 1991 on however, the overkill in
Diskmags resulted in the obligatory
crash in 1992 back to the level of
1990. From 1992, with 274 Diskmags
released, things halved to 133 releases
in 1997 (5 year period). Again, a drop
to 45 in 1999 and after 7 years the
numbers are going down again to about 6
per year currently.
TOOLS OF THE TRADE
Discussion
The scene always created her own tools
to help create new stuff. Figure 7
lists the tools released per year.
http://www.xentax.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/releasesperyea..
Further discussion of Tools
We can be brief here. From 1983 on
tools were released a plenty with the
Golden Age (1987-1990) having the most
tools released per year, with a maximum
in 1989 (343 tools) and dropping to
1985 level in 1992. During the Golden
Age, you could get almost a new tool
each day. Something sparked a sudden
increase in 1994-1995, but from then on
things went downhill to a steady
average of about 32 tools per year from
1999-2009.
GROUPS
Discussions of Groups
Sceners united into Groups, and each
year new groups would form and sceners
could be a member of multiple groups.
Figure 8 shows the number of unique and
newly formed groups each year.
http://www.xentax.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/groups.jpg
Discussions of Groups
Note that the figure shows the year
when first a new group name emerged
attached to a release. From 1982 with 4
Groups listed (although there is
probably one faulty entry there with a
screw up regarding Plutonium Crackers),
to 1983 with 76 groups (and
individuals, some sceners were their
own 'group' as well, like 1103) in 1984
all the way up to 800 new groups in
1987, the maximum number of
Groups/Entities formed per year.
Imagine that in 1987 2 Groups were
formed each day around the globe. Per
1992 146 Groups were set-up and the
number thereafter decreased to the
bottom of 24 in 1999.
Further discussion
Between 1999 and 2009, an average of 48
new Groups per year are formed.
|
<-- Back
|
|
|
