In a bid to get more people paying attention to adverts run on their site, Google are now implementing a new ad option for videos on Youtube – six-second bumper ads.

The ads, which are made to compliment the shorter videos people watch through smartphones, are meant to be unskippable. However as they’re so short, it’s not as if this is going to annoy a lot of people, even those who use Adblockers to block all adverts online.

“We like to think of Bumper ads as little haikus of video ads — and we’re excited to see what the creative community will do with them,” YouTube’s Zach Lupei wrote in a blog post.

The move is made because research is pointing to the fact that an awful lot of people are now watching their videos primarily on their phones – 50 percent of 18 to 49-year-olds in fact. Since a lot of those are music videos too, they’re perfect for music companies to use to push new releases to the right audiences.

The new ads will be enabled from the beginning of next month, and will be an additional advertising option alongside the ones already available on the video-sharing site.

After a few weeks in which The Division seemed to be spawning new and interesting bugs as fast as they could be fixed, Ubisoft have decided to implement not only new methods of detection against cheating but also slightly harsher penalities for those caught at it.

“We have already caught more cheaters in the last few days than we had in total during the previous weeks. As a result, we will be handing out the biggest wave of suspensions and bans to date over the course of the next few days.” Ubisoft wrote in an update on the subject.

Previously first time offenses would gain cheaters a three day suspension from the game, but now Ubisoft have decided to up that to fourteen days – possibly due to the Falcon Lost exploit that led to cheaters purposefully bypassing parts of the mission to repeatedly gain access to high-end loot that was supposed to be available only once a week. Second offenses remain unchanged though, with the cheater than being permanently banned from the game.

Ubisoft also took time to address concerns from the community that they could be caught out if they happened to stumble into a cheat rather than aiming to exploit it, by clarifying what they considered a “bug exploit”.

“Should new bugs be discovered, we will quickly confirm if these are considered exploits. All known exploits will be clearly listed in a public forum thread and across our various communication platforms. We want all players to be informed. This will ensure that those caught after an exploit was confirmed are aware of the consequences and actions that can be taken against them. Sanctions will be implemented for players who repeatedly abuse exploits and will vary depending on the severity of the abuse, as well as the history of the player. Possible sanctions include character rollbacks, account suspensions and permanent bans. Those who encounter bugs during the normal course of play have absolutely nothing to worry about.”

Apparently two waves of bans have already hit the game, and no doubt as time goes on more people will find themselves separated from loot they might have gotten through means they knew weren’t legit. Let’s just hope that the processes don’t catch anyone innocent in the net, if a new bug comes along.

Over a year since it was first teased, we still don’t know what it looks like, plays like, or even what its final name will be – and Nintendo don’t plan to spill the beans until later this year. But now, thanks to a Tweet by Nintendo of America (based on information discreetly hidden in Nintendo of Japan’s annual financial report), we DO finally have one piece of concrete information about the upcoming Nintendo “NX” console – it’s launch date:

The next generation of #Nintendo is coming March 2017! #NX pic.twitter.com/u4KFIRJedw

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) 27 April 2016

March 2017. Just under a year away from the date of this article’s publication. For Nintendo, however, the launch likely can’t come soon enough. The Wii U has failed to resonate with players, with the GamePad being seen as a gimmick and games such as Splatoon and Bayonetta not doing enough to pull people on side; and the console’s lack of power compared to the XBox One and PS4 has seen its third-party support dwindle into near-nothingness. That Nintendo has taken a hit for the console’s failure was apparent in the annual fiscal report, revealing that Nintendo as a whole made 45.3 billion yen less in the last 12 months than the previous financial year, though this still equates to 504.5 billion yen or roughly £3.116 billion British Pounds.

Importantly, however, Nintendo’s operating income came in at 32.8 billion yen last year, an increase of 8 billion yen. The company predicts that its move towards smartphones, combined with the launch of the NX, will pay off in the next year and aim to hit 45 billion yen in operating income by the end of the 2016/17 financial year.

Of course, Nintendo may also have another ace in the sleeve to get people back on-side – a dynamite launch title. Nintendo also announced today, in a separate announcement to the fans, that the long-awaited Zelda Wii U title has once again been delayed to 2017, for “further quality testing”; and that the game will now launch simultaneously for both the Wii U and the NX – meaning that a new Zelda title may well be a launch title for the next console as well as a swansong for the current generation, paralleling the launch of Twilight Princess for Wii and GameCube ten years ago. 2017 may well be an interesting year for Nintendo fans.

In a move that shouldn’t really surprise anyone, gaming’s biggest eSports league has seen fit to ban a team because of their sponsor.

Team YP are a high-profile team mainly known for the sponsor that gave them their name – they’re sponsored by adult site YouPorn. The Electronic Sports League/ESL has banned the team for going against its rules that team sponsors must not be “known for… adult/mature themes and products”, a ruling that includes the team’s sponsor site.

To be fair to the team, they have tried to work with the ESL, shortening the name down to Team YP, keeping their online presences safe for work, and even offering to remove all outward references to their sponsor and even go as far to outright change their team’s name if the ESL wanted them to. However, the ESL has decided that the team cannot compete in their leagues as long as they are sponsored by YouPorn.

“Advertising pornography is not legal in the markets we operate in, and the vast majority of partners we’re working with have strict ‘no drugs, no alcohol, no pornography’ rules that we’ve contractually taken on board,” an ESL spokesperson told Eurogamer.

“These aren’t new rules but ones that have been in our rulebooks for a long time. We have spoken to Team YP manager earlier this year, and in that conversation we’ve explained the situation and rules in detail and offered to look for potential alternatives in a bigger group. At the same time, we’re consulting with our legal teams about this. We will inform the team and the management as soon as we have any updates.”

Team YP are understandably disappointed in the decision that was made, as it will have a big effect on their ability to compete professionally.

As a situation this is a tricky one to fall completely on either side of. Team YP have done their best to be open to suggestions on how they can satisfy the ESL short of losing their sponsor, but the ESL are within their rights to ban the team as the YouPorn sponsorship is against their rules.

2016’s not been a good year so far as far as the death tally for famous faces, and now gaming has been hit with the curse too.

While the name ‘Jory Prum’ might not be as recognisable to many people, you’re probably going to be familiar with his work. Among other things Prum provided voice over, music and orchestral scores for over a hundred games, including LucasArts’ Knights of the Old Republic, Double Fine’s Broken Age and Brütal Legend, and Telltale’s The Walking Dead. More recently he worked on the Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango remasters, using the original audio score for the latter to record a new orchestral score. That’s quite the legacy to leave behind.

The news was broken over the weekend by Double Fine found Tim Schafer, after the news spread that Prum had been involved in a serious motorcycle accident at just 41. Schafer said that those who knew him were “stunned and deeply saddened” at the news.

While music is only one part of what makes games great, you can’t help but deny that the loss of someone who provided the scores for several of the great games of the last few decades will be felt by the industry and especially those people in the studios he worked for.