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All players of My Free Zoo will receive an extraordinary log-in bonus
Bamberg, December 19th 2013. German developer and publisher of free-to-play browser games Upjers is delighted about 8 million registered players in My Free Zoo. This highly positive number confirms the developer team’s efforts to implement new content into the game on a weekly basis. By way of thanks for their loyalty, all players of My Free Zoo (www.myfreezoo.com) will receive a unique log-in present.
My Free Zoo is celebrating its 8 millionth registered player. This success is due to enthusiastic zoo directors all the world over, and of course to the hardworking developers of My Free Zoo. Since its release not even two years ago, more than 100 animals have been added to the zoo simulator. Among these are several extraordinary specimen, such as the white lion or the Western Crowned Pigeon.
Almost weekly, new animals and new features are implemented into the game. Besides the possibility to breed animals, organizations have been introduced to the game. In these organizations, the players can help out their fellow organization members in their virtual zoos as veterinarians, mechanics, shippers and as environmental officers.
Upjers would like to say thanks to all 8 million players in My Free Zoo. That’s why all of them will receive a unique log-in present with their next log-in into the game. In accordance with this cold season, every player who logs into the game up until January 9th will receive an Ice Castle.
My Free Zoo can be played for free on https://en.upjers.com/my-free-zoo.
For those without a key to Hearthstone’s closed Beta are probably frantically waiting right now for the game’s open Beta stage to begin. At Blizzcon it was announced that it would probably begin sometime this month. If you’re one of these people, you’re probably going to be mildly disappointed by the latest update on the game’s open Beta…
“We hoped to get the game into a state where it’s ready for open beta this month, but we’re just not quite there yet” Jason Chayes says in his update to Blizzard’s Hearthstone news page. He states that the latest patch to the game (which made Freeze a little less powerful by bumping up the cost of many spells with the effect) involved some code changes which might yet break the game and that Blizzard would rather make sure the game is as bug-free as possible rather than rushing it out before year’s end to meet the expectation.
If you signed up with the opt-in on the site though, there is good news: Blizzard is now in the process of sending EVERYONE who opted-in keys for Closed Beta, at least if you signed up before the 16th of this month. The closing date for opting-in has been set now as the 7th of January with the company planning to make sure everyone who signs up by that date will get access to the closed Beta at some time before the gates are opened. People sent their keys who don’t claim them will also have their accounts flagged to get access during the first few weeks of January too.
So the game’s open stage has been pushed back, but if you opted-in… go check your e-mails now. And don’t forget the spam folder!
First remembers classic NES Titles… then screws with them.
With Nostalgia being the “in” thing this decade – seriously, how many retro-inspired remakes, new games, sequels or complete re-releases of 80/90’s-Era Games have there BEEN since 2010? – it’s no surprise many turn to the NES for new game ideas. It’s also a commonly held belief – rightly or wrongly – that old-skool games offered much tougher or more cerebral challenges than games of today. So chalk one up to Nintendo for announcing the NES Remix game collection, available on Wii U eShop right now.
As the title suggests, NES Remix is a new game collection from Nintendo for the Wii U that takes 16 classic Nintendo games — from Super Mario Bros. to The Legend of Zelda – to offer you fresh challenges from each. At the start, the games are the typical NES titles with appropriate challenges to match – get a hole in one on Golf, for example; or ten 1-Up’s in a row by jumping off a single Koopa in Super Mario Bros. However, the game also offers a series of “Altered” challenges, which is where the fun really begins. Imagine for example, rather than having Mario rescue the woman kidnapped by Donkey Kong in Donkey Kong, you played as Link instead? Or what about Excitebike in the dark? There’s even whole Super Mario Bros. levels to complete with their own twists – turning the worlds icy, flipping it right-to-left…
As you complete each challenge, you’ll get the option to brag about it on the MiiVerse. But beyond this, you can also share level clear times to compete with friends and the larger community of Wii U players, injecting a large dose of competitiveness into the mix. Challenges can come from original or altered versions of Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Donkey Kong 3, Excitebike, Super Mario Bros., Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Clu Clu Land, Wrecking Crew, Pinball, Urban Champion, Baseball, Tennis, Ice Climber, Golf and Balloon Fight, for a total of 16 classic NES titles to challenge through.
NES Remix is available now on the Wii U eShop for $15 plus tax, though it may just be in America for now – we’ll stay tuned for further details.
Redstone has always been one of the trickiest elements of the game of Minecraft, there’s a reason people who are good with it are known as ‘redstone wizards’ and there’s recently been a redstone handbook released physically. However there’s being good with redstone… and then there’s being insanely talented with the stuff.
Player ItsJustJumby has achieved the latter with his impressive build: an actual working 3D printer made in Vanilla Minecraft. No mods, no alterations, just the vanilla game. The device makes use of 846 repeaters, 1124 hoppers, 9181 comparators, 10,539 pieces of redstone dust, and 20,103 command blocks and uses your typical standard chest as a blueprint for each individual layer.
Once the button is pressed it takes around a minute and a decent amount of lag before the creeper model is finished. While not perfect it is never the less, bloody impressive. I admire Jumby’s patience!
So, after about a week of the ‘Content ID Wave’ causing claims to spread like weeds across the accounts of many a gaming Youtuber and plenty of content owners having to hold their hands up and say “It’s not us guys! We don’t have a clue what’s happening!”, Google has finally sent out a reply to the general Youtube population.
And oh boy do I have some words to say about it…
Hi from YouTube,
You might have heard about, or been impacted by an increase in copyright claims made on videos over the past week. We’re getting in touch to explain what’s happening and how you can get back to creating and monetizing great videos.
What’s happening
Content ID is YouTube’s system for scanning videos for copyrighted content and giving content owners choices on what they want us to do with them. Last week, we expanded the system to scan more channels, including those affiliated with a multi-channel network (“MCN”). As a result, some channels, including many gaming channels, saw claims appear against their videos from audio or video copyright holders.
Understanding Content ID claims
Keep in mind one video may contain multiple copyrighted works, any of which could potentially result in a claim. For example a record label may own music playing in the video (even in the background), a music distributor may own a game’s soundtrack, or a game publisher may own in-game cinematic content.
Also, online rights are often resold to companies like music labels and aggregators. While you might not recognize the owner, this doesn’t necessarily mean their claims are invalid.
Deciding what to do
When a claim is made, you’ll see what’s been claimed, who’s claimed it, what type of claim it is (audio or video), and you can play back the part of your video that it matched. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to act on Content ID claims, and you can find out all your next steps, dispute options, and other troubleshooting resources here.
If you’re creating videos with content from other people, remember that rights ownership can be complicated and different owners have different policies. Be aware of music. Many games allow you to turn off background music, while leaving sound effects enabled. And if you’re looking for music you can freely use (and monetize!), check out our Audio Library.
Whether gaming, music or comedy is your passion, know that we love what you do. We’ve worked hard to design Content ID and other tools to give everyone — from individual creators to media companies — the opportunity to make great videos and earn money. As YouTube grows, we want to make sure we’re providing the right product features to ensure that everyone continues to thrive.
Sincerely,
The YouTube team
Now I’m glad that Google has finally acknowledged that something is going on. That a minor state of havoc has been created…
But this message solves nothing. They don’t even admit that there is a problem, instead taking a passive “Not our problem” approach. The message is somewhat patronising in tone, at least it sounds that way to me, and while it’s not exactly scolding in nature, it’s clear that Google is not on the side of the creators that helped make the site what it is today. The sentence “While you might not recognize the owner, this doesn’t necessarily mean their claims are invalid” especially just feels like a slap to the face of someone who spent hours trying to make a good video and is now finding themselves dealing with having their hard work making money for someone else.
Game developers have (mostly) come out in support of those who make the gaming review videos for Youtube, and removing claims from the videos of those creators who have taken up the offer to e-mail the developers to get them removed is just putting a greater load of work onto companies who could be working on the games. The Youtubers themselves are now having to shoulder the burden of how they deal with the claims, with some channels electing to remove videos, hide them or in a few cases, leave Youtube for good. Of course, a good deal of the claims are related to music and while certain developers have been leaning on the music companies they use for their games’ music, the music industry has a reputation for being inflexible about issues relating to copyrights and don’t seem to be showing the same support as the game developers are to the Youtubers right now.
Unfortunately, what this message seems to confirm more than anything else is that Google has decided that it won’t help its user base, leaving them and the developers shouldering a burden that came out of nowhere and has caused disruption to what is a large section of its website.
Stay tuned for more articles as this story continues to develop.
