They exist to move you, just as any other art form moves you. But demos are built by programmers, artists, and composers who live and breathe technology. A screenshot from Lost Vegas by threestate showing a spherical harmonics effect. Demos are created by young programmers and artists who are mostly located in Western Europe. They gather at hundreds of demo parties a year, where competitions for demos are held.
Demos are computer graphics hobby work.
Working on real-time, cool looking, computer graphics projects gains members experience that is perfect for the game industry. Many members of the demo scene have followed their passion straight into the computer game industry. There they continue to work on real-time computer graphics and sound. Saxon Druce, from Australia, believes he was hired to his first game job because of his experience coding demos. However, he mentions that, at the time I did it for 'the love of the code', not because I planned to get into the games industry.