Placings in demoscene intro, demo, 4K-intro and oldskool competitions at European (and one US) demoparties — productions esaruoho composed the music for, as Lackluster / Distance, 1998–2019. Twenty-two competition placings, five of them international 1st-place wins. Each production lives in the full pouet-linked productions list.
| Year | Production | Event | Country | Placing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | "Zebrain" (bC! × TPOLM) | Demosplash | USA | 1st |
| 2015 | "Recede" (TDA) | Assembly | Finland | 3rd |
| 2002 | "Space Travel" (INF) | Underscore | — | 3rd |
| 2001 | "lackluster: 13/10/99" | Assembly | Finland | 4th |
| 2001 | "5am" (The Digital Artists) | Escape | — | 4th |
| 2000 | "h3o breather" | Elevator | Finland | 6th |
| 2000 | "kosmos7" | Trax | Norway | 1st |
| 2000 | "07/10/99" | Trax | Norway | 1st |
| 2000 | "different engine" | Demobit | Czech Republic | 2nd |
| 2000 | "lost vegas" | Ambience | Netherlands | 3rd |
| 2000 | "pluxity" | Takeover | Netherlands | 1st |
| 2000 | "sequences" | Assembly | Finland | 3rd |
| 1999 | "catch22" | The Gathering | Norway | 4th |
| 1999 | "encode\\decode" | The Gathering | Norway | 5th |
| 1999 | "bring it back" | Arf | France | 1st |
| 1999 | "clinique" | Icing | Sweden | 2nd |
| 1999 | "dolph" | Remedy | Sweden | 2nd |
| 1999 | "singularity" | Fiasko | Czech Republic | 5th |
| 1999 | "hiatus" | LTP | France | 3rd |
| 1999 | "autoseks" | Distance | Norway | 2nd |
| 1998 | "minimal" | Demobit | Slovakia | 4th |
| 1998 | "sin(x)" | The Gathering | Norway | 3rd |
Zebrain also won Outstanding Technical Achievement at The Meteoriks 2019.
The Finnish Heritage Agency (Museovirasto) added the Finnish demoscene to the national intangible cultural heritage list in 2020 — the first form of digital culture so recognised, with similar recognition following in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Poland. That recognition was granted to the scene as a cultural form, not to any individual practitioner. Esa's placings above sit inside that recognised tradition.