Last year was the most profitable year to date for the mobile versions of “Minecraft,” according to a report from Sensor Tower.
“Minecraft” on the App Store and on the Google Play store pulled in $110 million through both purchase price of the app as well as in-app purchases. This is a 7% growth from the year prior, in which “Minecraft” for mobile generated almost $103 million in revenue.
The big spenders for “Minecraft” are US players, who generated 48% of the total revenue. This is not too surprising, considering the popularity of “Minecraft” on all platforms with young US consumers. In the first quarter of 2018 alone, Sensor Tower estimates that the mobile game generated about $30 million worldwide.
The runner up countries in spending in “Minecraft” are Great Britain (6.6% or $7.3 million in revenue) and Japan (5% or $5.5 million in revenue).
Since its release on mobile devices in 2014, “Minecraft” has grossed almost half a billion dollars worldwide, according to Sensor Tower.
The sandbox game is popular on other platforms as well, including PC and Xbox One. Last October, Microsoft pulled support for “Minecraft” for Apple TV, reasoning that it needed to reallocate resources to provide more support for platforms most popular with “Minecraft” players.
Though the game is still, clearly, going strong, it did experience its first decline in game playtime among players ages 6 to 12 in 2018, according to market research firm Interpret.
One Piece’s Thousand Sunny is one of the more iconic bits of imagery from the entire series as the Straw Hats have set sailed on many different seas on their ship. But it definitely would not be out of place sailing through space.
Kingdom Hearts III allows fans to customize special ships in the game to sail to the different Disney worlds, and one fan brought in a little One Piece love by recreating the Thousand Sunny. You can check out a video clip of it below.
Reddit user OharaLibrarianArtur shared their efforts to recreate the Thousand Sunny, and the short clip above shows it flying through space. Not only have they recreated the Jolly Roger complete with the Straw Hat’s specialized skull and crossbones emblem, but they have even recreated the specialized lion face on the front of the ship. With as many wild places the Straw Hats have gone with their ships throughout the series, it’s not hard to imagine how well it would fare in space.
Unfortunately, there’s no tutorial or part list to show how this Thousand Sunny came together in game, so fans are now left to their own devices if they want to recreate the ship themselves. Perhaps they can build the first ship, the Going Merry instead? Either way, this probably was quite a time sink of an effort. Kingdom Hearts IIIis now currently available for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. You can read ComicBook.com’s spoiler-free review here.
Here’s an excerpt, “With its blend of old and new, Kingdom Hearts III feels almost immediately like a classic. While this particular franchise entry has been a long time coming, its updated mechanics and rendering means Kingdom Hearts has never looked better. In truth, this sentimental sequel manages to realize a truth set forth in the very first game: starting a new journey may not be so hard once you realize every path you’ve taken converges underneath the same sky, and all of those roads easily meet at and within Kingdom Hearts III.”
Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has since been collected into over 80 volumes, and has been a critical and commercial success worldwide with many of the volumes breaking printing records in Japan. The manga has even set a Guinness World Record for the most copies published for the same comic book by a single author, and is the best-selling manga series worldwide with over 430 million copies sold. The series still ranked number one in manga sales in 2018, which surprised fans of major new entries.
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Pokemon Go‘s creators have agreed to a proposed comprehensive settlement that could remove or change a number of gyms and Poke Stops.
Back in 2016, annoyed homeowners and businesses sued Niantic after complaining about trespassing and nuisances related to Pokemon Go, which swept the entire world into a frenzy. Complaints ranged from players trespassing onto private property to capture certain Pokemon to players ignoring park hours of operations or causing damage due to high traffic volume.
The lawsuit has lingered for nearly three years, but the Hollywood Reporter has said that Niantic has agreed to a proposed settlement to resolve most of the related issues. As a result of the settlement, Niantic is proposing extensive reforms to handling complaints from property owners who don’t want Pokemon Go players on their property.
Under the proposed settlement, owners of single family homes will now have “right of removal” of any gym or Poke Stop within 40 meters of their property. In addition, Pokemon Go has agreed to respond to complaints or demands to remove a Poke Stop/gym from businesses or commercial property owners within 15 days. The game will also add a mechanism to the game to better honor the hours of operations of parks (which likely means that gyms will shut down overnight and Pokemon spawns will cease when the park is closed) and maintain a database of complaints to better manage where Pokemon spawn.
The lawsuit could potentially change Pokemon Go, which relies on public places to play the game. Although players don’t necessarily have to be adjacent to a gym or Poke Stop location to interact with it, this could lead to major changes as to where Poke Stops and gyms are placed.
The proposed settlement has not been approved by the judge of the case, nor has Niantic agreed to any payments for either the law firm involved or the named plaintiffs of the case.
Hasbro has announced that they are partnering up with Blizzard Entertainment to release a series of action figures and other toys based on the popular hero shooter Overwatch.
Nine Overwatch heroes are getting turned into figures, which will be available Spring 2019. Lucio, Sombra, Tracer, Reinhardt, Anna, Soldier 76, Pharah, Mercy and Reaper are the first heroes you’ll be able to buy and add to your toy collection. The action figures will stand 6 inches tall and will feature props and articulation, letting you pose them however you desire.
Mercy and PharahPhoto: HasbroSoldier 76 & AnnaPhoto: HasbroReinhardtPhoto: HasbroReaperPhoto: HasbroADVERTISEMENTYou can go to the next slide after 1 secondContinueLucioPhoto: HasbroSombraPhoto: HasbroTracerPhoto: Hasbro 1 / 7
Some of the figures will be sold individually for $23 each, while Pharah & Mercy and Soldier 76 & Anna will be sold in double packs that will, according to Gamestop, each cost $50.
Reinhardt is a slightly wider and more complex figure and will cost $50 by himself. Though he does come with a pretty awesome and large shield.
Hasbro also revealed they will be releasing an Overwatch themed Monopoly board game and some blasters based on Lucio’s weapons he uses in Overwatch. The blasters will cost $10 and the themed Monopoly set will cost $50.
According to Polygon, Hasbro has said all of the figures and other toys will be available at most major toy retailers nationwide.
Minecraft’s latest snapshot update, 19w07a, changed the way paintings work which has allowed some crafty players to create in-game TVs. The new update, which also added adorable foxes into the game, breaks paintings into multiple textures. Before this update, paintings in Minecraft were created using a single texture. This new change has allowed modders to create working in-game TVs and computer monitors.
Reddit user Hopeabandoner created a monitor allowing him to watch a pixelated Minecraft YouTube video while playing Minecraft. I believe the kids call this “meta”.Outstream Video
The best looking in-game TV in Minecraft I’ve seen so far belongs to user destruc7i0n. Using multiple painting frames they were able to play a high quality copy of the Gravity Falls intro. One user commented “Better picture quality than my TV.”GIF: destruc7i0n (Reddit)
While this new trick is cool, it does take up a lot of resources to pull off. One video made up of 30 frames could take up over 100 MB of space. Too many of these bigger files on servers could cause performance issues.
Maybe in the future, if Minecraft has better optimized this feature, we could see some servers or worlds create short in-game videos explaining rules and guidelines to new players.
Or folks will just set up a bunch of TVs playing Bee Movie.
Xbox LIVE active users have jumped past 60 million thanks to strong holiday sales, subscriptions, and engagement strategies, Microsoft confirms in its latest Q2’19 earnings report. Xbox LIVE adoption has been relatively flat throughout the last few quarters, but subscribers and active users have spiked thanks to a successful holiday season. Microsoft saw 64 million monthly active users on Xbox LIVE in the three-month FYQ3’19 quarter, up about 8.5% year-over-year and nearly 13% quarter-over-quarter. It’s worth noting that Xbox LIVE bridges multiple devices and these numbers reflect platforms like Xbox consoles, Windows 10 PCs, and mobiles. This is all according to plan as Xbox LIVE now serves as the connective tissue between various hardware platforms. (Continued below) Xbox Game Pass is a big driver of Xbox LIVE engagement and overall gaming revenue, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella confirms in the quarterly earnings call. “Xbox Live monthly active users reached a record 64 million, with the highest number of mobile and PC users to-date. Xbox Game Pass subscribers and Mixer engagement also hit new all-time highs. And Minecraft, which continues to be one of the most popular and durable gaming franchises in the industry, delivered record revenue as we expanded into new platforms, geographies and segments like Education,” Nadella said in the FYQ3’19 call. Microsoft is poised to pull in more Xbox LIVE users and active paying subscribers. The company has ambitious new service plans including its Project xCloud, which streams games to mobiles, PCs, and consoles, as well as new initiatives like engagement-driven Xbox Rewards. Mixer continues to do exceptionally well and gleans revenues from advertisements and monetization, and Microsoft will expand Xbox Game Pass’ lineup with new titles over time. There’s even rumblings Game Pass could launch on PC sometime soon. I’d personally like more visibility into these numbers. It’d be neat to see how much Microsoft is earning from Xbox LIVE active subscribers as well as more info on how it organically folds into other services like Mixer and Game Pass. I’d also like to know how many Xbox LIVE subscribers Microsoft is able to keep versus those they lose as subscriptions lapse. Microsoft is typically coy when it comes to exact figures (it stopped reporting Xbox One console sales ages ago) and it’s honestly a shame. The company is doing interesting things and these figures could give us more insight on its complex, multi-faceted ecosystem strategy.
