The (Digital) Future Was Calling!
Rather than walls, the crackers of the 1980s covered software and computer games with lettering and graphics – they were the graffiti artists of the digital world. In their new book "Das digitale Graffiti", René Bauer and Dr Beat Suter, design lecturers and researchers at ZHdK’s GameLab, explore the crack and demo scene of the time and its significance for game design and digitalisation in Switzerland.
In the 1980s, personal and home computers made it possible for individuals to produce their own digital texts and music, create graphics, and play or develop games. With the introduction of graphic user interfaces (GUIs), a wider audience could also express themselves visually in the digital realm. “A distinct visual culture emerged – almost a counterstatement to Swiss Style or flat design,” the authors write.
The so-called crackers saw themselves as the future. Through their cracks, demos and games, they “liberated” software and computer games, turning them into digital walls. An active cracking, demo and game design scene also emerged in Switzerland. Its young, experimental members operated under pseudonyms such as “Swiss Cracking Association” or “Brainstorm” and added so-called crack intros to newly released computer games. When an illegally copied game was launched, lettering, graphics or animations would appear – a digital signature through which individual crackers or crews made a name for themselves within the scene. The cracked games were copied onto floppy disks and circulated.
Like physical graffiti tags, these crack intros, or “cracktros”, were expressions of belonging and reputation. Yet while a tag remained visible in public space, a crack was tied to the relevance of a particular game. Whenever a new game was released, the scene had to spring into action again, “If a group hadn’t cracked the latest games, it ceased to exist.” Maintaining a presence in the digital world required constant renewal – much like on social media today.
As technology advanced, independent “demos” gradually emerged. These were presented at self-organised events and distributed on floppy disks, independently of the games themselves. Digital “diskmags” followed, featuring curated collections of texts and software. The copying and circulation of this digital content indirectly helped preserve games from the home computer era, keeping them accessible to this day.
Despite the many parallels between the cracking- / demo and graffiti scenes, there was little interaction between these subcultures at the time. Unlike graffiti artists, the demo scene was largely unconcerned with sociopolitical issues. Its members regarded the “digital realm as the technology of the future and distanced themselves from all analogue cultural contexts, at least ideologically,” the authors observe.
Drawing on interviews and numerous visual examples, René Bauer and Beat Suter explore how graffiti was appropriated in the digital realm and how the protagonists of this digital community – despite their limited reach – influenced game design culture and digitalisation in Switzerland.
Examining the scene of the time also raises questions about how digital culture is perceived today: “While digital communication technologies have long become part of everyday life and remain rooted in the physical world, games, purely virtual worlds and game art still struggle to gain cultural recognition. This distinction dates back to the 1980s, when gaming culture began developing its own visual language and game mechanics.”
Das digitale Graffiti
The book is part of the research project Confoederatio Ludens – A Swiss History of Digital Games, Play and Game Design 1968–2000 (CH-Ludens). CH-Ludens explores the history of digital games and game design in Switzerland, examining the role games and their subcultures played in the digitalisation of Swiss society.
An extensive archive of games and game design, together with the project’s Hypotheses blog, provides access to historical games, developers, studios and other sources.
CH-Ludens is a joint project involving Zurich University of the Arts, Bern University of the Arts, and the Universities of Bern and Lausanne. It is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
The Authors
René Bauer heads the Master’s programme in Game Design at ZHdK. His research and teaching focus on game engine development, game studies and cultural studies. As a game designer and developer, he also works on his own game projects and explores the intersection of games and art. He is a member of the art collective Ludic Society.
Dr. Beat Suter is a lecturer in Game Design and co-head of ZHdK’s GameLab. He is a co-founder of AND-OR, an art collective specialising in game art and net art, and president of the gameZfestival. He is also an editor and author of publications on game design, games and digital culture.
