History
In the 1980s, a lot of personal computer games were released for early equipment like the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Atari ST and Commodore Amiga, including Copy protection to prevent unauthorised copies. Some cracker groups started to release those games with the protection removed.
Initially, small demos were shown before the actual game, including music, animations and marquees with greetings which should represent the releasing group. The quality of these demos was quickly considered as a figurehead of the group. Intros increased in quality, often touching the limits of the computer's abilities. The cracker groups started a severe competition for being the first in releasing cracked copies of games.
At that moment, levering out copy protection decreased in importance for some artists inside the scene. They felt that programming ambitious Intros was more challenging. While publishers improved their copy protections, the quality of Intros increased as well. Often, the fame of well-known groups was based on their spectacular Intros.
The introduction of 16-bit and 32-bit computer systems like the Amiga and the Atari ST resulted in a new distribution of work inside the groups, since the hardware allowed new possibilities. The creation of Intros was divided in programming, music and graphics. Intros were often spread on Disk magazines.
At the end of the 1980s, pirate copies increasingly became an issue for the software industry. The development of games for certain platforms was stopped entirely due to insuffient profit, some claimed that the cracker scene being responsible for the doom of the Amiga platform. Some Amiga games were released by crackers before they were released commercially. Authorities started to apply pressure on individuals and whole groups in the scene.
This led to the release of stand-alone demos computer art without the illegal distribution of computer games. With the increasing use of the Internet, the separation was complete. Cracked copies of computer games were available online for the masses with the crack attached. Often, greetings were only attached in a text file, while the demoscene separately distributed their work.
Read more about this topic: Demo (computer Programming)
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