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Is the demo scene dead or does it just smell that way?
category: general [glöplog]
Got a bit of inspiration from a discussion on DemoZoo. The question was if the Amiga-part of the demo scene is dying. Here are a few thoughts from me. What are yours?
To paraphrase an old saying about Rock and roll: "the (Amiga) demo scene is not dead - it just smells that way".
Most of us that used our Amigas are in the age bracket of 40-60 years of age. Few people younger than that have any relation with the Amiga to speak of. We may be the last enthuiasts for that particular brand and make of computer. It stands to reason that all eras have their dawn, day in the sun and sunset. And after their will be no flood of sin. There will be something else, that the next generation will obsess about. Maybe it will be the Ipad, the early era of predictive AI or ... why not... the Tesla will be seen as that which the geeks of the future will venerate. Has it always been this way? Yes, I think it has.
The previous generations loved their Märklin train sets, their porcelain dolls and maybe some sort of weird cooking implements from the 20s.
From my podcast from 2021, here are a few transcripts about this weird world of retro stuff we live in...
"So it's Trigger again and Lumali's revenge. dear Lumali who hurt you? I don't know but revenge is due obviously.
So when we're wrapping this thing up isn't it kind of amazing to think about the fact that we always seem to be retro nerds if you want to 20 years back in time or maybe 30 somewhere around there.In the 50s there was a very very strong retro wave towards the 20s. The roaring 20s were popular. I know this is kind of fun because roaring 20s are popular again. Why not? I mean we have a pandemic, we have an economy heading for a crash and a lot of good music. So I don't know.
But still it is pretty clear that this retrothing with Amigas, C64s and Ataris and Sinclair Spectrums and stuff. That is a wave we're surfing on. A few years from now I don't think we will be caring too much about it. I hope we will but I cannot guarantee it. And then maybe the next generation will look into our time and be really really retro nostalgic about iPads, mobile phones, smartphones and whatever TikTok is because I have no idea.I'm too old for that. anyway, so I hope you like this one and we really like to spread this retro feeling to whoever is listening."
... More thoughts from your's truly:
"Polar Chase, Fleshbrain of the Crusaders. It's some kind of Bond fight going on there, it feels like something that could accompany a Bond movie. And that's retro too isn't it? We kinda look back into a really big, like you know, knowledge base of cool stuff that has been, and we don't seem to be able to leave it. If you just think about it, what's up from now with the movies? It's all aboutthose superheroes that were all started somewhere in the golden age of animation and comics during 30s and 40s and well it continued through the silver era into today and it makes me wonder a bit why we could become this nostalgic. A friend of mine he has a number of those Star Wars figures that he bought when he was a kid. His own kids are playing around with them now and I think why are we collecting this?I can't really say. But it is what it is. And it seems like the industry like this kinda retro thing because it's guaranteed to be a success. The whole Marvel Universe thing seems to be one string of a movie success after another one. We can't get enough of them. Think about it, over 20 movies done today. To this day.and they are all more or less guaranteed cash cows and total successes. Now, there is something to retro, isn't it?"
... And also, is this thing a man's hobby? The women says "yes".
"Jeremy of Replicas in the Nick of Time spoke to my mother a few months ago and she said about this retro thing. It's a guy thing. It's a thing that only men do. That's what she said actually and I think, huh, okay? But it seems to be some kind of logic with it because if you just think about your average retro whatever like vinyl recordscassette tapes, Amigas, Ataris and whatever retro stuff you could be into, like replica guns or something. Well, there are very few women there. And that is a thing. I also spoke with a colleague and she said like, yeah, she felt the same way. She wouldn't really understand what's in this retro thing at all. I don't know why this is or if it is that.way at all, but seems to be something to it. It's a bit sad actually, I would like it very much more if more women were into stuff like this. The Amiga is kinda a female name isn't it? It means a female friend. Basically, so why not?"
To paraphrase an old saying about Rock and roll: "the (Amiga) demo scene is not dead - it just smells that way".
Most of us that used our Amigas are in the age bracket of 40-60 years of age. Few people younger than that have any relation with the Amiga to speak of. We may be the last enthuiasts for that particular brand and make of computer. It stands to reason that all eras have their dawn, day in the sun and sunset. And after their will be no flood of sin. There will be something else, that the next generation will obsess about. Maybe it will be the Ipad, the early era of predictive AI or ... why not... the Tesla will be seen as that which the geeks of the future will venerate. Has it always been this way? Yes, I think it has.
The previous generations loved their Märklin train sets, their porcelain dolls and maybe some sort of weird cooking implements from the 20s.
From my podcast from 2021, here are a few transcripts about this weird world of retro stuff we live in...
"So it's Trigger again and Lumali's revenge. dear Lumali who hurt you? I don't know but revenge is due obviously.
So when we're wrapping this thing up isn't it kind of amazing to think about the fact that we always seem to be retro nerds if you want to 20 years back in time or maybe 30 somewhere around there.In the 50s there was a very very strong retro wave towards the 20s. The roaring 20s were popular. I know this is kind of fun because roaring 20s are popular again. Why not? I mean we have a pandemic, we have an economy heading for a crash and a lot of good music. So I don't know.
But still it is pretty clear that this retrothing with Amigas, C64s and Ataris and Sinclair Spectrums and stuff. That is a wave we're surfing on. A few years from now I don't think we will be caring too much about it. I hope we will but I cannot guarantee it. And then maybe the next generation will look into our time and be really really retro nostalgic about iPads, mobile phones, smartphones and whatever TikTok is because I have no idea.I'm too old for that. anyway, so I hope you like this one and we really like to spread this retro feeling to whoever is listening."
... More thoughts from your's truly:
"Polar Chase, Fleshbrain of the Crusaders. It's some kind of Bond fight going on there, it feels like something that could accompany a Bond movie. And that's retro too isn't it? We kinda look back into a really big, like you know, knowledge base of cool stuff that has been, and we don't seem to be able to leave it. If you just think about it, what's up from now with the movies? It's all aboutthose superheroes that were all started somewhere in the golden age of animation and comics during 30s and 40s and well it continued through the silver era into today and it makes me wonder a bit why we could become this nostalgic. A friend of mine he has a number of those Star Wars figures that he bought when he was a kid. His own kids are playing around with them now and I think why are we collecting this?I can't really say. But it is what it is. And it seems like the industry like this kinda retro thing because it's guaranteed to be a success. The whole Marvel Universe thing seems to be one string of a movie success after another one. We can't get enough of them. Think about it, over 20 movies done today. To this day.and they are all more or less guaranteed cash cows and total successes. Now, there is something to retro, isn't it?"
... And also, is this thing a man's hobby? The women says "yes".
"Jeremy of Replicas in the Nick of Time spoke to my mother a few months ago and she said about this retro thing. It's a guy thing. It's a thing that only men do. That's what she said actually and I think, huh, okay? But it seems to be some kind of logic with it because if you just think about your average retro whatever like vinyl recordscassette tapes, Amigas, Ataris and whatever retro stuff you could be into, like replica guns or something. Well, there are very few women there. And that is a thing. I also spoke with a colleague and she said like, yeah, she felt the same way. She wouldn't really understand what's in this retro thing at all. I don't know why this is or if it is that.way at all, but seems to be something to it. It's a bit sad actually, I would like it very much more if more women were into stuff like this. The Amiga is kinda a female name isn't it? It means a female friend. Basically, so why not?"
No it's not dying. Especially the amiga scene is more active lately than many years before. Just check the amount and quality of releases.
There are also multiple new demoparties around and also a new generation of young folks at demoparties.
Is the scene at it's popularity peak? I don't think so, but it's certainly not dying.
There are also multiple new demoparties around and also a new generation of young folks at demoparties.
Is the scene at it's popularity peak? I don't think so, but it's certainly not dying.
Who knows. My other hobby is playing Magic: The Gathering with oldschool/vintage cards and we're constantly getting players who barely even born when the cards we play with were printed.
My prediction is that it will stay in the margins like it is now. And that's all fine and good.
My prediction is that it will stay in the margins like it is now. And that's all fine and good.
Rather than being primarily linked to computers of certain time period the demoscene is related to a sort of cultural notion of hobbyist programming that emerged in the 1980s.
The programming itself is a lofty domain of human thought and praxis, something comparable to mathematics. If it isn't so popular anymore, it nevertheless certainly isn't shame to be representatives of this sort of culture.
(Possibly a wider concept such as hacking could be used instead)
From this perspective it's also more realistic that it continues to attract some younger people.
--
The concept of retro accepts the marketing related ideas of living and dead platforms and is itself adversial towards the idea of older technology being still relevant and used in a non-nostalgic sense. I would rather conceive demoscene as an example of using older technology without it being seen as retro.
The programming itself is a lofty domain of human thought and praxis, something comparable to mathematics. If it isn't so popular anymore, it nevertheless certainly isn't shame to be representatives of this sort of culture.
(Possibly a wider concept such as hacking could be used instead)
From this perspective it's also more realistic that it continues to attract some younger people.
--
The concept of retro accepts the marketing related ideas of living and dead platforms and is itself adversial towards the idea of older technology being still relevant and used in a non-nostalgic sense. I would rather conceive demoscene as an example of using older technology without it being seen as retro.
The demo scene is fine as far as I understand. I'm more talking about the Amiga part. I was at Revision 2026 and saw that we had a lot of younger people on the scene. From our Broadcast on location at Revison:
"DJ Daemon
02:46:45.016 Saga Music, isn't he awesome? He's one of the best artists right now, if you ask me. We are going on with Xyce and "Ordering pizza". It's one of those cool songs that have a cat in them. Yeah, we will understand in a few moments here. Before we're going there, I need to tell you that in a few minutes from now, we are probably going to pack our stuff up and leave over to the people of, well, Revision, the real official information. (...) and before I let you into the music again, let me just point out that there are two kind of people here in the... facilities so to speak. There are people like me, the old people, the people in their 30s, 40s and 50s and I can see a number of more young people like I would guess they are in their 20s and 30s and stuff and they're kind of the new school people. So it seems to be a really big party here with a lot of people of different things. People that remember their Amigas and people that do 3D shaders. A lot of geeks, nerds and whatever. Nice place to be if you ask me.
DJ Daemon
02:50:17.792 It's really delightful to look at the chat on Discord, the chat on the Discord forum, the Discord server of... running on Democene. They're talking about AI and not using that, which I want to say thank you for not using AI in Democene productions. This is by humans for humans and that's how it's gonna be. Anyway, somebody is finding an interesting confirmation thing that I believe you can see if you're a contributor. And it's a checkbox that says, confirm that I did not use a generative. AI in my production. yes, that's a... I don't know if you're gonna get sued for it. Seems like some kind of legal disclosure, binding, whatever. But I guess it's kind of like a code of honor. Please do not use AI when you're in the demo scene. That's my personal opinion. It's really not good for that. I am not gonna hate on AI. It has its usage and stuff, but don't use it when you're supposed to show... show how good human productions can be. And talking about human productions, here is a Lemmings clone if you want to call it that. It was for the Amiga back in the 90s. It was called Trothers and Alistair Brimble wrote the song for it. So a pretty good game, but yeah, it was a bit of a rip off as well. You're tuned to ericade.radio and stay tuned.
DJ Daemon
02:53:54.83 Alright people, it's starting! Yes it is. We are just now learning that they are announcing that in five minutes from now somewhere around you will hear the first seminar which is geared towards people that are new to the demo scene. It's gonna be really nice. Coreus here is sitting by my side hello I'm here I am here yes don your headset and keep talking."
"DJ Daemon
02:46:45.016 Saga Music, isn't he awesome? He's one of the best artists right now, if you ask me. We are going on with Xyce and "Ordering pizza". It's one of those cool songs that have a cat in them. Yeah, we will understand in a few moments here. Before we're going there, I need to tell you that in a few minutes from now, we are probably going to pack our stuff up and leave over to the people of, well, Revision, the real official information. (...) and before I let you into the music again, let me just point out that there are two kind of people here in the... facilities so to speak. There are people like me, the old people, the people in their 30s, 40s and 50s and I can see a number of more young people like I would guess they are in their 20s and 30s and stuff and they're kind of the new school people. So it seems to be a really big party here with a lot of people of different things. People that remember their Amigas and people that do 3D shaders. A lot of geeks, nerds and whatever. Nice place to be if you ask me.
DJ Daemon
02:50:17.792 It's really delightful to look at the chat on Discord, the chat on the Discord forum, the Discord server of... running on Democene. They're talking about AI and not using that, which I want to say thank you for not using AI in Democene productions. This is by humans for humans and that's how it's gonna be. Anyway, somebody is finding an interesting confirmation thing that I believe you can see if you're a contributor. And it's a checkbox that says, confirm that I did not use a generative. AI in my production. yes, that's a... I don't know if you're gonna get sued for it. Seems like some kind of legal disclosure, binding, whatever. But I guess it's kind of like a code of honor. Please do not use AI when you're in the demo scene. That's my personal opinion. It's really not good for that. I am not gonna hate on AI. It has its usage and stuff, but don't use it when you're supposed to show... show how good human productions can be. And talking about human productions, here is a Lemmings clone if you want to call it that. It was for the Amiga back in the 90s. It was called Trothers and Alistair Brimble wrote the song for it. So a pretty good game, but yeah, it was a bit of a rip off as well. You're tuned to ericade.radio and stay tuned.
DJ Daemon
02:53:54.83 Alright people, it's starting! Yes it is. We are just now learning that they are announcing that in five minutes from now somewhere around you will hear the first seminar which is geared towards people that are new to the demo scene. It's gonna be really nice. Coreus here is sitting by my side hello I'm here I am here yes don your headset and keep talking."
My point that the scene may not be dying, but when we go, we take our Amigas, Spectrums, Ataris and C64s with us.
The rest may get to keep their OpenAIs, ChatGPTs and AI-enabled copies of Windows 11. We certainly would not want to take them away from anyone :) They will be the treasured memories of generations to come.
-- TTFN, DJ Daemon
The rest may get to keep their OpenAIs, ChatGPTs and AI-enabled copies of Windows 11. We certainly would not want to take them away from anyone :) They will be the treasured memories of generations to come.
-- TTFN, DJ Daemon
I also feel “retro” is a nasty term. A horrible term.
It seems to me there is a lot of fascination/involvement from younger generations in general tracker music, and as a consequence also Amiga MODs.
It seems to me there is a lot of fascination/involvement from younger generations in general tracker music, and as a consequence also Amiga MODs.
tldr; yes.
whether or not the scene is dead or dying isn't really interesting compared to the question of what you're doing about preventing such a hypothetical scenario.
new/young people being uninterested is also only true if you're willingly looking the other way.
I just think you're either not looking or willingly ignoring what *is* happening for the sake of some kind of numbers game based on the status quo of what was happening 3 decades ago.
I would recommending opening your eyes and not basing your conclusions on a handful of highly anecdotal outsider observations.
this is frankly insulting to anyone in the scene (or any of the hobbies you mentioned) who isn't male.
I've been here for 20 years, and "young people and girls aren't into this" was being repeated constantly back then too, but the number of people in the scene who are younger than me seems to be steady, if not increasing, as is the number of women (or people of non-male gender in general) too, but I'm also not really sure what gender has to do with the scene dying, other than that it (and adjecent hobbies) historically being unwelcome against anyone who isn't male, intentionally or not.
new/young people being uninterested is also only true if you're willingly looking the other way.
I just think you're either not looking or willingly ignoring what *is* happening for the sake of some kind of numbers game based on the status quo of what was happening 3 decades ago.
Quote:
... And also, is this thing a man's hobby? The women says "yes".
"[...]my mother a few months ago [...] said about this retro thing. It's a guy thing. It's a thing that only men do. [...] it seems to be some kind of logic with it because if you just think about your average retro [...] whatever retro stuff you could be into, [...] there are very few women there. [...] a colleague [...] said [...] she felt the same way. She wouldn't really understand what's in this retro thing at all.
I would recommending opening your eyes and not basing your conclusions on a handful of highly anecdotal outsider observations.
Quote:
I don't know why this is or if it is that.way at all, but seems to be something to it. It's a bit sad actually, I would like it very much more if more women were into stuff like this. The Amiga is kinda a female name isn't it? It means a female friend. Basically, so why not?"
this is frankly insulting to anyone in the scene (or any of the hobbies you mentioned) who isn't male.
I've been here for 20 years, and "young people and girls aren't into this" was being repeated constantly back then too, but the number of people in the scene who are younger than me seems to be steady, if not increasing, as is the number of women (or people of non-male gender in general) too, but I'm also not really sure what gender has to do with the scene dying, other than that it (and adjecent hobbies) historically being unwelcome against anyone who isn't male, intentionally or not.
OK, I gotta say this. It’s irrelevant, but the original poster unintentionally pushed it into this territory which always rouses spirits. Understandable. It’s a delicate topic.
1) So, the scene body being disproportionally male is “highly anecdotal”? OK.
2) In my experience, the thing that is offputing the most to newcomers is not the amount of mostly benign old guys whose vocabulary is a little rusty compared to the newest PollCorr standard. It’s the amount of juvenile noise that the longtime and heavy demoparty circuit goers produce in the shape of constant in-jokes, shoutouts, phrases understandable only to themselves and such. This is also connected to the formation of seemingly inpenetrable inner circle (jerk) that rebutts any critique of anything that any of the members do or say. That’s what makes this scene more hermetic and offputing to newcomers than it needs to be imho.
1) So, the scene body being disproportionally male is “highly anecdotal”? OK.
2) In my experience, the thing that is offputing the most to newcomers is not the amount of mostly benign old guys whose vocabulary is a little rusty compared to the newest PollCorr standard. It’s the amount of juvenile noise that the longtime and heavy demoparty circuit goers produce in the shape of constant in-jokes, shoutouts, phrases understandable only to themselves and such. This is also connected to the formation of seemingly inpenetrable inner circle (jerk) that rebutts any critique of anything that any of the members do or say. That’s what makes this scene more hermetic and offputing to newcomers than it needs to be imho.
Retro scene is growing, PC demo scene I guess it's growing but not as impressive anymore.
C64/Amiga definitely growing. Some new demos are doing things beyond what's done before. Same with other 8bits when attracting more people.
I only saw with recent DOS demos renaissance, that the first attempts weren't as good or fast as the 90s classics, but that's because we have forgotten how they used to make things so fast and so well. But might improve as well if more are involved.
I guess in long decades from now nobody will remember. Young people won't even know what an Amiga is. People will vibe code and the nostalgic people will write code by hand like that's an impressive feat.
C64/Amiga definitely growing. Some new demos are doing things beyond what's done before. Same with other 8bits when attracting more people.
I only saw with recent DOS demos renaissance, that the first attempts weren't as good or fast as the 90s classics, but that's because we have forgotten how they used to make things so fast and so well. But might improve as well if more are involved.
I guess in long decades from now nobody will remember. Young people won't even know what an Amiga is. People will vibe code and the nostalgic people will write code by hand like that's an impressive feat.
a part of the demoscene will still exist, it's very natural for some humans to gather and "do stuff together" on some "medium" with some "manifesto".
I was personally very attracted to the idea of pluridisciplinary and "groups" from the start and never too much attracted by the whole "coders only" scenes and I guess I'm not alone in that case (a polite way of saying I know other people in the scene who also were attracted by the same culture).
I was personally very attracted to the idea of pluridisciplinary and "groups" from the start and never too much attracted by the whole "coders only" scenes and I guess I'm not alone in that case (a polite way of saying I know other people in the scene who also were attracted by the same culture).
Some of my all-time favourite Amiga productions have actually been released within the last couple of years: Goon Royale, Hologon, Transhuman/Pachinkoland, Eon, Emperor of the North Pole, Interparallactic, Zener Drive, Plnx, Gagrakacka Mind Zones, Inside the Machine...
2026 has been great so far. A few of the releases are already classics: Beacon of Hope, Second Nature and 64k-Silhouette.
There are so many talented people active on the Amiga scene today that it's amazing. My only wish is that there were more AGA demos.
But maybe it's some kind of terminal lucidity? ;) A dramatic surge of energy before finally passing away? I hope not!
2026 has been great so far. A few of the releases are already classics: Beacon of Hope, Second Nature and 64k-Silhouette.
There are so many talented people active on the Amiga scene today that it's amazing. My only wish is that there were more AGA demos.
But maybe it's some kind of terminal lucidity? ;) A dramatic surge of energy before finally passing away? I hope not!
This again? :)
The scene isn't being rejuvenated in any meaningful sense. Just look at a few photos or videos from early 90s parties: literally thousands of people in their late teens and early twenties. Look at a few photos from a recent party and you'll see basically the very same people, except much fewer of them and now in their forties and fifties.
Newcomers should be welcomed, but let's not pretend that the scene isn't extremely tightly tied to a specific generational cohort.
The scene isn't being rejuvenated in any meaningful sense. Just look at a few photos or videos from early 90s parties: literally thousands of people in their late teens and early twenties. Look at a few photos from a recent party and you'll see basically the very same people, except much fewer of them and now in their forties and fifties.
Newcomers should be welcomed, but let's not pretend that the scene isn't extremely tightly tied to a specific generational cohort.
I wouldn't blame demoscene doing anything wrong to attract fresh blood. It's just times have changed. It's just not a novelty anymore. The only hope is some kind of retro-mania, which can and probably will happen. It's not the same thing though.
From my point of view, fk plasmas and tunnels, fk size limits, we need something new...new formula even, or just become a living fossil and chill.
From my point of view, fk plasmas and tunnels, fk size limits, we need something new...new formula even, or just become a living fossil and chill.
Last person to ever release a demo wins!
It always smelled funny, so its not that
Quote:
I wouldn't blame demoscene doing anything wrong to attract fresh blood. It's just times have changed.
Well, the demoscene has been extremely unwilling to interact with that fresh blood at all. The mantra has always been: Everything is on our terms, or GTFO. No wonder the fresh blood went elsewhere.
I find it amusing how anyone can look at the number of released prods and claim that the C64/Amiga scene is “definitely growing”, though. The picture is, at the very best, unclear. The PC scene, on the other hand, is clearly shrinking, at least if you consider number of prods any kind of reasonable proxy for activity.
Quote:
So, the scene body being disproportionally male is “highly anecdotal”? OK.
Reading comprehension really is at an all time low because that is not what I said, but I'll throw you a bone:
The anecdotal part is someone's mom and a colleague, outsiders to any of the hobbies and communities mentioned, saying that said hobbies are for men and/or do not understand why women would be into them.
FWIW, i've noticed more newcomers at recent parties than in previous years... combined.
They won't make up for the net loss, but they're incoming.
They won't make up for the net loss, but they're incoming.
@lynn:
I get it. I thought we were just going to disregard the “all those communities” generalization and what people’s moms think about them, and stick to the scene environment. I didn’t think that crazy wide generalization warranted ANY answer. So I wondered if for some crazy reason you felt it’s inappropriate to state the fact that the scene body is predominantly male.
I think you even unintentionally widened the overly wide paintbrush the author of OP used by failing to mention “retro” in this answer of yours to me. I don’t think they meant “these hobbies are for men” but “men are more into retro hobbies” in a somewhat strange way.
I get it. I thought we were just going to disregard the “all those communities” generalization and what people’s moms think about them, and stick to the scene environment. I didn’t think that crazy wide generalization warranted ANY answer. So I wondered if for some crazy reason you felt it’s inappropriate to state the fact that the scene body is predominantly male.
I think you even unintentionally widened the overly wide paintbrush the author of OP used by failing to mention “retro” in this answer of yours to me. I don’t think they meant “these hobbies are for men” but “men are more into retro hobbies” in a somewhat strange way.
Demoscene has been dead for almost 40 years if you haven't noticed
They used to not be retro. When the scene was big in 90s PCs, that was the peak hw, so people did the best with the top notch hardware at the time. It's just mythological like look what people did at the time with limited hardware by today's standards. Same with Amiga. It's just that if you loved the technical only the retro scenes have a reason to be pushing it, people even outside of scene (like retro gamedev) they are attracted to what would this hardware do if it was programmed better today. Even normie gamers are impressed by such. Although they see it in a mythological way (e.g. stories about that guy who wrote 100% a video game in assembly like it's black magic)
Let's just have fun and continue doing what we enjoy doing and not spend too much time pondering the future of this hobby. I like to think of us as akin to HAM radio amateurs. (But we're of course much cooler than those nerds.)
My 2c as a "young" person: required monetary investment, available hardware and tooling is a nonnegligible factor here. I don't think "there's no enthousiasm about technical/retro/... stuff (especially from women)" is true at all, if you look at how vibrant game modding, speedrunning/TAS, or emulator development communities can be (or, for the more art-focussed side of things, BOTB).
After a quick lookup, an Amiga 500/600 would cost several hundred euros (€300-€500) while a SNES or Megadrive is less than €100 (to maybe €130 at most). Many similar-ish handhelds (like the GBA, or DS/3DS in backwards-compatible GBA mode) are cheaper, and are so common you either already have one, or you can get one for free or below-market from someone in your extended family.
A second issue is tooling. FS-UAE is quite mid and annoying to use (I don't run Windows so I don't know if WinUAE is any better), but for consoles there are many competing emulators out there, several with extensive debugging features. And thanks to active speedrunning communities, custom ROM development scenes, emulator development communities, and so on, it's quite easy to get into writing code for these consoles yourself. (And no, to preempt this criticism: it's not about Tiktok or whatever. There's plenty of young people writing long explainers, giving hours-long lectures, or writing forum threads about obscure hardware details. I'm pretty sure most people in this thread are under 30) There's not that much material available about the Amiga one could stumble upon.
(On a similar note, many newcomers to the scene actually run Linux instead of Windows, and would hence like to make Linux prods. But because the tooling for it is less mature and less discoverable (I've seen so many people stumble upon the tools I wrote only after their second or third prod, it's weird) than the packers/softsynths/... available for Windows, they'll get discouraged by the large amount of work there is to be done, and leave.)
And thanks to there being multiple but related scenes looking into these consoles, there isn't really much place for some sort of "purity culture" to develop. Unlike some people, nobody really bats an eye if something is developed on a much more powerful machine, and tested mainly on an emulator. (Though "it doesn't work on real hardware" is of course still seen as a grave bug.)
And finally, actually attending a party can be a big step if they are all far away and/or travelling costs a lot.
After a quick lookup, an Amiga 500/600 would cost several hundred euros (€300-€500) while a SNES or Megadrive is less than €100 (to maybe €130 at most). Many similar-ish handhelds (like the GBA, or DS/3DS in backwards-compatible GBA mode) are cheaper, and are so common you either already have one, or you can get one for free or below-market from someone in your extended family.
A second issue is tooling. FS-UAE is quite mid and annoying to use (I don't run Windows so I don't know if WinUAE is any better), but for consoles there are many competing emulators out there, several with extensive debugging features. And thanks to active speedrunning communities, custom ROM development scenes, emulator development communities, and so on, it's quite easy to get into writing code for these consoles yourself. (And no, to preempt this criticism: it's not about Tiktok or whatever. There's plenty of young people writing long explainers, giving hours-long lectures, or writing forum threads about obscure hardware details. I'm pretty sure most people in this thread are under 30) There's not that much material available about the Amiga one could stumble upon.
(On a similar note, many newcomers to the scene actually run Linux instead of Windows, and would hence like to make Linux prods. But because the tooling for it is less mature and less discoverable (I've seen so many people stumble upon the tools I wrote only after their second or third prod, it's weird) than the packers/softsynths/... available for Windows, they'll get discouraged by the large amount of work there is to be done, and leave.)
And thanks to there being multiple but related scenes looking into these consoles, there isn't really much place for some sort of "purity culture" to develop. Unlike some people, nobody really bats an eye if something is developed on a much more powerful machine, and tested mainly on an emulator. (Though "it doesn't work on real hardware" is of course still seen as a grave bug.)
And finally, actually attending a party can be a big step if they are all far away and/or travelling costs a lot.
