Tag: creators
Plants Vs Zombies creator’s new game is about stacking wombat poo
Knowing that wombats’ dump is little stackable cubes was one of the fun facts I learned at school (it was either a rhetorical proof for or against the existence of God; I forget which). This knowledge comes in handy for understanding the game Hardhat Wombat, coming from George Fan (of Plants Vs. Zombies fame), with Andy Hull (of programmer on Spelunky fame). Out later this year, it’s a combination puzzle-platformer and conscruction game in which you play a wombat, wearing a hard hat, who constructs increasingly complex things out of his own feces. That is no way to make a skyscraper, wombat.
Square Enix turns Dragon Quest creator’s classic visual novel into an odd “AI Tech Preview”
In the summer of 1983, publisher-that-was Enix released a murder mystery visual novel called The Portopia Serial Murder Case. Designed by Dragon Quest’s creator Yuji Horii, it never saw a release outside of Japan – until now. Square Enix are re-releasing the classic on Steam in two days, calling it an “AI tech preview,” and tacking on “natural language processing” technology, in perhaps the oddest port I’ve seen so far.
Snapchat is expanding its revenue sharing program to entice creators
Snap, once happy to let creators take a backseat to users’ friends and family, is making a new push to bring more creators onto its platform. The app is expanding its revenue sharing program and adding new public-facing features to help creators get started and get discovered in the app.
Snapchat first introduced mid-roll ads as a way for some of its Snap Stars to earn money from their Stories last year. Now, the company says that creators with at least 50,000 followers, 25 million monthly views and at least 10 Stories posts a month “may be eligible” to participate in the revenue-sharing arrangement. Presumably, the company is still reserving the right to greenlight individual users into the program, but the metrics at least give budding creators a target to shoot for.
The program isn’t the only way creators can earn money from Snap, but sharing in ad revenue has long been top creators’ preferred way to get paid as it tends to be the most reliable. The company also has a music-focused creator fund and pays users for popular Spotlight content.
For those who aren’t yet getting views in the millions, Snap is also adding new public-facing profiles and Stories, which will be available to any user over the age of 18. The changes allow users to share both private “friend” content and publicly viewable Stories from the same account, along with analytics and other metrics. As Snap notes, this gives users a pathway to becoming a more prolific creator even if they aren’t yet eligible to become a Snap Star. Users can also save Stories posts and specific snaps to their public profile, the first time the app has enabled non-ephemeral snaps and Stories.
The features are also one of the most notable ways that Snap has blurred the lines between public content and friend content. The company has long bragged about its origins as a messaging app for “real friends” and said that disappearing messages reduce the kinds of social pressure often associated with its rivals. But those constraints aren’t necessarily conducive to successful — or well paid — creators. Now Snap is trying to find a ways to make both possible.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/snapchat-is-expanding-its-revenue-sharing-program-to-entice-creators-173023251.html?src=rss
Do voxels still have a place in the new age of modding and community creators?
It’s a very interesting time for the tech that powers your favourite games. The industry is pushing forward on several fronts: AI, the metaverse, community content creation initiatives and, yes, even blockchain. It’s easy to get the impression that we’re on the precipice of a big new leap forward.
But where does that leave those who bet on the big cube roulette table that is voxel tech? We’ve seen some incredibly slick developments in that particularly geometric space over the past few generations; be it in gorgeous ray traced lighting, or jaw-dropping physics sandboxes. I spoke to Dennis Dawson and Marcus Gustafsson from Tuxedo Labs (best known for Teardown) about what place voxels have in an industry running forward at such a pace, and what we can expect from Tuxedo Labs in the future, too.
“We weren’t really ready to move on from Teardown. It’s still increasing in daily users – so we decided to hold off on a new game and keep working on Teardown,” states Dawson, CEO at Tuxedo Labs. Teardown, a game that blew many away back when it released in 2020, continues to have a growing audience of casual players and creators alike even today. The pair say they considered moving onto a new game following the Art Vandal update in 2022, taking their adventures with voxel games “to the next step”, but instead decided to stick with Teardown thanks to its active, and growing, player base.
Instagram creators’ Artifact app is starting to look more like Reddit
Artifact, the news aggregation app from the creators of Instagram, now has some social features following its latest update. Users can now create profiles and comment on any article in the app.
Taking a cue from Reddit, Artifact will let you upvote and downvote other users’ comments, which will factor into commenters’ reputation scores and help to moderate discussions. The app is also using artificial intelligence for moderation.
Artifact says the reputation score “represents the earned trust from the community and will help you weigh people’s opinions and help us filter out bad behavior.” The goal, according to a blog post, is to foster a positive community in which everyone feels encouraged to take part. The app will let you know when your comments get upvotes or downvotes. You’ll also be notified when your contacts comment on things they read.
You’ll need a profile, which is optional, to comment on articles. Profiles can include your photo and bio (adding both will apparently boost your reputation). You’ll need to provide a verified phone number to create one. A phone number is also needed if you want to move to a different device and retain your Artifact history and preferences.
Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger unveiled Artifact back in January. It uses AI to curate news and present you with things it reckons you’ll want to read. “We have a strong and growing community and sometimes the most important voices are never interviewed or quoted,” Systrom wrote in an Artifact comment. “These discussions give everyone a chance to participate and have a voice.”
In a bit of a coincidence, Artifact is gaining true social components on the same day that Substack is rolling out its Twitter-esque Notes feature. In a sense, the two relative upstarts are trying to take on established social media platforms at their own game.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/instagram-creators-artifact-app-is-starting-to-look-more-like-reddit-200546113.html?src=rss
Billboard 200: Tyler, the Creator’s ‘Call Me If You Get Lost’ SURGES 134 Spots Back Into The Top 10
Tyler, the Creator is making huge chart moves, because his ‘Call Me If You Get Lost’ album has made a return to the top 10.
Full story below…
Taking to press, Billboard announced that ‘Call Me’ surged from #137-#3 on this week’s chart. This is due to the release of the deluxe edition of the album,
The post Billboard 200: Tyler, the Creator’s ‘Call Me If You Get Lost’ SURGES 134 Spots Back Into The Top 10 appeared first on ..::That Grape Juice.net::.. – Thirsty?.
Daily Crunch: Patreon rival Fanfix projects paying creators $50M by end of 2023
Hello, friends, and welcome to Daily Crunch, bringing you the most important startup, tech and venture capital news in a single package.
Daily Crunch: Patreon rival Fanfix projects paying creators $50M by end of 2023 by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch
Konami has opened a new “creators first” studio in Osaka and raises its staff’s salary
Silent Hill developer and pachinko machine producer Konami has opened up a new studio in Osaka, Japan.
The developer and Yu-Gi-Oh publisher just recently celebrated its 50th establishment anniversary last month, and in a press release last week it announced that it has just opened up another studio, Konami Osaka Studio (thanks, GamesRadar). According to the press release, Konami Osaka Studio is a “developmental relocation of the existing studio and comes with the concept of ‘Creators First,'” explaining that it is “characterised by a well-developed environment where creators can demonstrate their full potential.”
The press release didn’t explain what it means by “Creators First” outside of that, and whether it means internally or externally, so we’ll have to wait and see what comes from that. It did also note that Konami’s “next-generation [Research & Development] centre, ‘Konami Creative Front Tokyo Bay,’ is in the process of construction,” so it sounds like the company is going all in on its future after quite a few quiet years. There’s also a positive point for employees, as Konami has “substantially,” raised its base-salary. Always good to hear devs are getting paid more!