Clean energy growth has reversed after a twenty-year trend upwards.

“Clean energy growth failed to increase year-over-year for the first time in nearly 20 years, a landmark report revealed this week. The finding puts the possibility of achieving the planet’s climate change goals into jeopardy, as annual growth currently stands at just a fraction what is ultimately needed.”

The first son of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry has been revealed to the world.

“Today, the world got its first look at Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, son of Meghan Markle, actress, philanthropist, the Duchess of Sussex, and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex. The young lad is 7th in line for the throne, and while the Sussexes have decided to not give him any formal titles, once his grandfather becomes King of England, he’ll be formally a prince.”

Uber drivers have protested the company’s policies on the eve of Uber’s IPO.

“Just days ahead of Silicon Valley’s most hyped mega-IPO, a group of a several hundred Uber drivers gathered in front of the company’s San Francisco headquarters and took over the street in a protest demanding fair pay, benefits, and greater transparency from the rideshare giant.”

Minecraft Classic has launched to celebrate the company’s ten-year anniversary.

“Video games are regularly patched, tweaked, and modified to the point where the original experience is lost for better or worse. For Minecraft $26.95 at Amazon, that original experience is being resurrected to help celebrate the game’s 10th anniversary. Posting on the Minecraft website, Tom Stone, creative communications assistant at developer Mojang AB, announced the launch of Minecraft Classic. It’s the original game, which provided players with, “just 32 blocks to build with, all the original bugs, and an (inter)face only a mother could love.”

New York may be the first state to ban declawing cats.

“A veterinary procedure criticized for being inhumane could soon be outlawed altogether in one state. As NBC New York reports, a bill that would ban declawing cats has been approved by one committee in the New York State Assembly, but it still has a few more rounds of voting to go before it becomes law.”

Netflix’s The Last Summer is a pretty boring coming-of-age movie. 

“The final moments of senior year and that summer after high school graduation have been the subject of more than a few coming-of-age films: Can’t Hardly Wait, Dazed and Confused, Say Anything, etc. It’s a time for goodbyes to old friends, last ditch hometown flings, and the crumbling security of adolescence as decisions about the future creep closer, forcing teens of a certain age into finding themselves… or whatever. Netflix’s latest entry into the post-high school, rom-com genre, aptly titled The Last Summer, follows a group of recent grads throughout, you guessed it, the last summer before college in an anthology focusing on the individual experiences of several Chicago teens. Mostly, it’s pretty boring!”

If you’re getting tired of being confined to the world of Minecraft, Microsoft and Mojang have some good news for you. This summer, Minecraft is entering the real-world thanks to augmented reality, mobile devices, and the Minecraft Earth app.

As the FAQ explains, Minecraft Earth is Minecraft, but as it appears in the real-world thanks to the use of augmented reality. Think Pokemon Go, but on a much larger scale and the with ability to “build creations with friends and place them in the real world at life-size.” Essentially, we’re being offered the Minecraft version of your location, be that at home, school, or wherever you choose to frequent.

Minecraft Earth will be made available for iOS and Android because those platforms make the most sense for augmented reality. To begin with, a closed beta will run on both platforms and starts in the summer. Hundreds of thousands of people will be allowed to play, but you must be at least 18 to participate. Simply sign up and cross your fingers if you want to take part.

Microsoft is giving no hint as to how long the closed beta will last, but it has confirmed Minecraft Earth will be free to play and also free of loot boxes. So expect the same Minecraft experience you enjoy today, but with a real-world, augmented reality twist.

Clearly, Minecraft Earth is the next big phase of the world’s expansion. However, last week the original Minecraft was made available to play in web browsers. You can therefore play Minecraft Classic while waiting for Earth to launch.

Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo have released a punchy Dead or Alive 6 launch trailer to celebrate its release today on PlayStation 4, PC, and Xbox One.

Dead or Alive 6 is supposed to tone down the series’ emphasis on fan service when it comes the design of its female combatants, although it doesn’t seem like much has changed in this respect. The fighters do sweat an awful lot in the game, though, which is new, right?

Team Ninja’s latest brawler also features a story mode, and there’s a robust lineup of characters to pick from, including fan favourites and newcomers alike. Oh, and there’s a stage in the game that features an actual Kraken, for some reason.

Dead or Alive 6 is out now.

Cats? Pandas? Notch? Minecraft is a very different game now to the one which launched back in 2009. It’s a more complex, customisable beast – and sometimes I yearn for the simplicity of its earlier days.

Well, today you can tickle your nostalgia buds and fire up Minecraft as it used to be, via your browser. Just head to classic.minecraft.net and you can play straightaway.

It’s basic. Very basic. But if you want to place some blocks and remember all the good times before Notch went weird, this is for you. This is Minecraft as it once was, just a handful of resources and the most basic of biomes to tinker with. Smells like memories.

We’re expecting many more Minecraft announcements next week, when the game hits its 10th anniversary proper. Yesterday, Microsoft teased a new mobile Minecraft AR game, which looks similar to Pokémon Go.

Sometimes we include links to online retail stores. If you click on one and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. For more information, go here.

You know how sometimes a new iPhone model will leak because an Apple employee leaves it in the back of a taxi?

Well, that’s the excitement Microsoft wants to conjur up in this new Minecraft teaser for what looks like a new Pokémon Go-style game.

Microsoft has dabbled in bringing Minecraft to other platforms before (remember that snazzy looking HoloLens tech demo?) but this one looks a little more familiar – it’s a mobile AR game you play on your phone while out on the street.

The video below shows a preened Microsoft employee leaving their mobile on a public bench. A woman picks it up and sees the new Minecraft AR game running, and is promptly excited by the pixelised pigs and Villagers around her.

More, we’re promised, will be unveiled at Minecraft’s big 10th anniversary event on 17th May.

Speaking of the event, Microsoft has confirmed Minecraft creator Notch will not be included in the celebration – due to his increasingly controversial “comments and opinions”.

Microsoft has announced that its annual MineCon livestream event, which offers a look at Minecraft’s future plans, will return (in this tenth anniversary year) on 28th September. Oh, and it’s got a new name.

Back in 2017, Microsoft decided to turn Minecraft’s massive real-life MineCon event, which had been held on a somewhat annual basis around the world since 2010, into a smaller-scale digital-only affair. The change in format heralded a new name – MineCon Earth – but that’s now been swept up by the newly announced Pokemon-Go-like Minecraft mobile game. As such, this year’s MineCon livestream will be known by the highly imaginative name of MineCon Live.

The show kicks off at 5pm on 28th September in the UK (that’s 12pm EST), and will last for around 90 minutes. It will feature, says Microsoft, “juicy Minecraft news, content creators… pre and post show bits, as well as on-demand community panels.”

Microsoft also promises new information on Minecraft’s next major game update, and the opportunity for fans to vote and decide on a new biome to be added to the game – similar to a competition held during MineCon Earth 2017, in which the community was able to vote on a new mob. That later gave the world the flying Phantom (the tongue-squid was robbed).

MineCon Live can be viewed on the official website come 28th September, and it’s also scheduled to appear on “a bunch of streaming sites”, says Microsoft somewhat unhelpfully. Presumably Mixer, Twitch, and YouTube then, but don’t quote me on that.

NetEase has tripled its net income year-over-year and has sights on international expansion. Niko Partners’ Daniel Ahmad says Minecraft’s achievement in China is ‘extremely impressive.’

China, even with its restrictive licensing policies, continues to be a huge market for the global games business, worth almost $31 billion in 2018 according to Niko Partners. Online game company NetEase is certainly one of the major contributors to the region’s growth, and the firm has just reported another very solid quarter with big gains in both revenues and net income to kick off its 2019 fiscal year.

“We are pleased to begin the year with a strong quarter. Our total net revenues grew robustly by 30% and our net income more than tripled year-over-year,” said Mr. William Ding, Chief Executive Officer and Director of NetEase. “Online game services revenues continued to grow steadily with the support of a diversified portfolio and impressive performances from all of our leading titles.”

Net revenues for the first quarter came to RMB (Chinese Yuan) 18,356.2 million ($2.7 billion) while NetEase saw its net income jump to RMB 2,382.1 million ($354.9 million). The publisher cited strong performances from titles like Night Falls: Survival, Onmyoji, and Invincible, along with steady performances from its Fantasy Westward Journey and New Westward Journey Onlineseries, which also saw new expansion packs released.

One particularly impressive achievement during the quarter came from Minecraft, which NetEase began publishing in China in August 2017. In less than a year, the game racked up 100 million registered users in China, and as NetEase reported, that number now stands at 200 million users, not even two years since it launched. For a game that’s well over a decade old, that’s quite a feat, and it shows just how globally appealing Minecraft truly is.

“Minecraft’s 200 million registered user number is extremely impressive given the game has been on the market for less than two years. Only a handful of games have been able to reach 200 million users in such a time frame. [Tencent’s] Honor of Kings reached this milestone shortly after one year on the market. We note that the game was popular in China prior to official entry, which helped pave the way for demand that has contributed to the success of the licensed Chinese version,” Niko Partners’ Senior Analyst, Daniel Ahmad, commented to GameDaily.

Minecraft was launched in China before the country’s restrictive game policies were put in place. That doesn’t mean that the popular block-based title is immune to the nation’s censorship, however.

“The Chinese version of Minecraft is quite similar to the Western version, as the game content was benign anyway, in that it is aimed at younger players. The main changes generally involve the interface and localization for Chinese players. However, NetEase was recently fined RMB 50,000 by China’s National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications after it was discovered that users were able to spread adult content in game through the rooms feature. The result was that NetEase deactivated the ability to rename rooms and implemented a stronger reporting policy to curb immoral content in the game,” Ahmad explained.

The fact that NetEase has been able to perform this well as the market continues to work through licensing pains actually makes the company’s first quarter even more impressive. Ahmad added that a number of other publishers “are still feeling the impact of the temporary game license approval freeze which ended in December 2018 [but NetEase] is diversifying its game development pipeline to create games in multiple genres and is working on global expansion through self developed titles and partnerships.”

NetEase CEO William Ding stressed that his company is making a concerted effort to expand beyond the MMORPG space and also into international markets. He specifically cited the “strong debuts’ of Night Falls: Survival and Cyber Hunter in Japan. Knives Out also has been popular in Japan, topping the iOS grossing chart in March and May, while Identity V reached Japan’s top 5 iOS grossing chart for the first time in April. Beyond that, NetEase is looking to launch Ancient Nocturne in Japan and Korea this year.

But will the Chinese giant’s ambitions lead it to take new steps in the West? The company opened a Western HQ back in 2015, but its business has been more about taking Western titles (such as those from Blizzard) and bringing them to China. That said, there’s more and more global thinking going into its product launches moving forward.

“NetEase has evolved significantly over the past couple of years and has shifted to a global game development approach for its new titles,” stressed Ahmad. “While previously focusing on developing games for China first, the company is now creating games with a global audience in mind with recent releases such as Cyber Hunter, a sci-fi Battle Royale game, showing that NetEase is able to develop and release games overseas prior to the China launch.

“We expect the company to grow its overseas revenue significantly over the next few years. In addition, as people look at Tencent and NetEase as the two gaming giants in China, NetEase has been able to stand out through its focus on high quality self-developed titles.”

Blockchain gaming giant Enjin is set to bring blockchain technology to the hugely popular sandbox video game Minecraft following the launch of its new Minecraft plugin.

Coin Rivet recently interviewed co-founder and CTO of Enjin Witek Radomski. During the interview, Witek revealed the exciting news for Enjin and Minecraft enthusiasts alike.

He noted: “One thing we’re working on now is actually the Minecraft launch. The Minecraft anniversary is coming up here in just a few days, and we are going to be launching a public server that uses our Enjin Coin platform.”

Anybody who owns a copy of Minecraft will be able to join the public server. Players will be able to roam around the world and complete quests – some of which will reward the player with tokenised items.

“There’s going to be some Multiverse items hidden in the world as well, so players can discover some chests and figure out how to unlock them.”

Witek went on to reveal: “We’re building out this Minecraft server with a cool little medieval world. It’s really exciting, and it’s going to be the first example of Minecraft that we’re going to put out there.”

Enjin’s Minecraft public server launch will coincide with the launch of Enjin’s Java software development kit (SDK), with the “whole thing” having been developed in Java.

The Java SDK will be released as open source soon, with the release of the Minecraft plugin set to take place a few weeks later.

“We’re going to release our Minecraft plugin to the public, and that means any Minecraft server can now integrate blockchain,” added Witek.

Interested in reading more Enjin-related stories? Discover more about the collaborative blockchain gaming Multiverse which is spearheaded by the Enjin team.

The post Enjin set to bring blockchain to Minecraft appeared first on Coin Rivet.

Ten years ago today, Minecraft made its debut into the world, marking a significant milestone in the history of video games. Just as we can’t imagine the gaming industry without this universally-loved title, which has now sold 176 million copies worldwide, we also can’t imagine what the video industry would look like without all those MinecraftYouTube videos.

Minecraft-related content has been a cornerstone to the game’s success, driving around 436B views to date on YouTube alone! In celebration of the game’s tenth anniversary, we looked at some of these videos to discover which creators, publishers, and brands are driving the conversation around Minecraft.

The Top Minecraft YouTube Videos of All Time

Minecraft and YouTube Are the Perfect Pair for Success

YouTube has been the go-to destination for content related to the game almost since the game’s inception. In 2015, for example, the game was one of the most-searched terms on YouTube and boasted the #1 spot across the top 20 game franchises on the platform.

While the popularity of Fortnite videos seems to have given Minecraft a run for its money, the sandbox-style building and adventure game is still the #1 game on YouTube.  In 2018 alone, around 311K user-generated Minecraft YouTube videos pulled in a total of 45.1B views.

Here are some other stats we discovered about the deep connection between YouTube and Minecraft:

• 5M Minecraft-related videos have been uploaded to YouTube to date.
• On average, these videos pulled in a 58.2K 30-day view count (V30) and a 30-day engagement rate (ER30) of 7.1x, which is seven times the normal engagement rate across YouTube!
• Longer Minecraft videos attract more views: clips of 10-15 minutes pulled in the most views (123B to date), with content that’s 20 minutes or longer pacing not far behind (114B views to date).
• The top five countries by views include the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Russia, and Spain.
• Influencers have uploaded the most Minecraft-related YouTube videos at 4.2M. Brands claim 7532K videos, while media and entertainment companies have uploaded 9806K.

YouTube + Minecraft = one of the best matches in the entire online video world. Anyone can film their gameplay of the title and upload to the platform, while YouTube benefits from all the traffic and advertising on the clips. And of course, this symbiotic relationship gives Minecraft owner Microsoft plenty of free attention on its beloved game.

The Award for the Most Minecraft Videos Goes to Influencers

When a power trend occurs in online video, influencers are some of the first to pick up on it. And Minecraft was certainly one of the first power trends in all of digital media.

As noted above, creators and influencers have uploaded the most Minecraft-related videos to date on YouTube. Among these, four out of the top ten most-watched clips were animated song parodies by popular gaming YouTuber CaptainSparklez.

The video with the most views of all time across influencers is Sparklez’s parody of Usher’s “DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love,” which pulled in 176M views and 1.8M engagements:

The creator with the most overall views is PopularMMOs with 11.7B total views on content ranging from let’s plays, arena battles, and mod showcases. DanTDM is the second most-watched Minecraft creator to date with 8.5B views, while family-favorite stampylonghead comes in third with 5.9B views.

This data is only the tip of the iceberg. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that without the support of influencers, Minecraft wouldn’t be one of the top-selling games of all time. A note to game developers, brands, and media companies alike: never underestimate the power of a fanbase and what it can do to drive interest (and sales).

Brands and Media Companies Join in on the Minecraft Fun

While influencers are clearly leading the charge in regards to Minecraft YouTube videos, brands and media companies have also contributed their fair share of content. Their 12.3K videos on YouTube have garnered an all-time total of 4.4B views.

Fittingly, the company with the most views on YouTube is the official Minecraft channel itself. At 833M total views, the channel boasts seven of the top ten most-watched videos across brands and media publishers of all time. Minecraft’s most-viewed clip is the game’s official trailer from 2011, which has 139M views (in fact, almost all of the channel’s top videos are trailers or update announcements):

Some of the other brands which showed up in our search included retailer J!NX Clothing(64.9M views), Telltale Games (79.7M views), and LEGO (241M views). All of these companies created Minecraft YouTube videos introducing their own products themed after the popular game title, and in turn, benefited from millions of views and reach.

As for media companies hopping on board the Minecraft train, we’d be remiss by not mentioning two of the top-performing channels of all time: gaming property LetsPlay and its parent company Rooster Teeth.

The former has pulled in the most media company views and engagements to date at 492M views and 7.9M engagements, while the latter claims 369M views and 5M engagements. Rooster Teeth has been making game-related content since before YouTube even existed, so it makes sense that some of the company’s most-watched videos are on its Minecraft content.

Other media companies pulling in millions of views and high engagement rates on Minecraft YouTube videos include animation and cartoon company Mineworks (294M views and 2.2M engagements), gaming media and news company IGN (59.4M views and 632K engagements), and entertainment channel Smosh Games (169M views and 2.9M engagements).

Here’s to More Minecraft in Online Video

Of course, the breadth of Minecraft’s impact in the online video world doesn’t end here. Gamers around the world upload or stream live content related to the title on other platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitch on a daily basis.

But this sampling of Minecraft-themed content on YouTube alone is enough to see exactly why the game is not just so well-recognized and widely-played, but also why it has become eternally ingrained in global pop culture.

Happy tenth anniversary, Minecraft! We can’t wait to see what the next ten years hold.

The Minecraft team at Microsoft has finally taken the wraps off a new mobile augmented reality game. It’s called Minecraft Earth, and it’s going to bring an augmented reality (or AR) Minecraft world to your Android or iOS smartphone later this year.

I was among the lucky few to try an early version of Minecraft Earth. Here’s what I learned.

Minecraft Earth requires augmented reality

Pokémon Go is often called an AR game, but its blend of the virtual and real is light and optional. Yes, you can see Pokémon appear in the world through your camera, yet you also have the option to turn that off entirely. Augmented reality is not a requirement.

Minecraft Earth is different. The game requires use of augmented reality because it always maps in-game elements to the real world. An overworld map based off Open Street Maps data exists, but when it comes time to see Minecraft come to life, you have no fallback option. You must use your camera, and you must hold your phone up to play.

The overworld will look familiar

Minecraft Earth lets you explore a virtual world built on Open Street Maps data of our real world. The graphics are given a bit of blocky Minecraft paint, but the overall look and feel of the overworld map isn’t far off previous games in this genre. It’s full of things you can tap for rewards when GPS says you’re close enough (I was told the range will be about 70 meters). These are officially called “tapables.”

Like Pokémon Go and other competitors, Minecraft Earth will be making some judgement calls about where game objects should be located. They will appear only in “public” spaces, and will avoid private residence, businesses, or places that could be dangerous, like busy roads.

Tapables reward you with blocks, items, or animals. There’s a variety of rarities, from common cobblestone to very rare obsidian.

The augmented reality adventures are unique

Tapables are only one thing you’ll find on the map. You’ll also encounter Adventures, and that’s where Minecraft Earth starts to set itself apart.

Adventures are essentially mini-games that are linked to a specific real-world location. You might be walking through a park and see an Adventure appear. Walk up to it and you’ll see, through your phone, some Minecraft blocks on the ground. You can walk up to mine them, and when you do, you might uncover a cave with skeletons to kill or a puzzle to solve.

All this happens in AR through your phone, so what’s happening in the game mirrors reality. If you want to dodge an enemy’s arrow, you must move. If you want to pick up loot sitting twenty feet away, you must walk there. There’s no shortcuts or alternatives to playing in AR.

You can play at home, too

You find Tapables in the real world, and Adventures as well. Does that mean you have to stop playing when you get home?

Nope! Minecraft Earth lets you play in your living room by throwing down a Build Plate. That’s where the blocks you collected on your commute or a walk through the nearest park can be used to build a home, a castle, or a dungeon.

Build Plates map themselves to a flat surface in your play space (a table, in most cases) and give you a god’s eye view for easy editing. However, you can blow up the Build Plate to life-size scale to experience what your creation looks like from a first-person perspective.

You can also invite friends to visit your Build Plate, though only so long as they’re in the same room as you. There’s no online multi-player in the traditional sense. And make sure your friends are trustworthy because, like with a normal Minecraftserver, they change the build plate when they visit.

It’s free-to-play, and micro-transaction details are slim

Minecraft Earth will be a free-to-play game. Microtransactions will certainly be a part of the experience, but details about what will be sold and how much it will cost remain thin. The developers of course promise the game won’t be “pay to win.” However, since the game is almost entirely cooperative – there’s no PvP of any kind – it’s unclear what the lack of “pay to win” will mean in practice.

The developers say the game won’t have loot boxes.

It runs the Bedrock engine

Despite its differences, Minecraft Earth still runs the same Bedrock engine that’s used in Minecraft. It’s an important point, and one the developers took care to maintain. The vanilla game is now 10 years old and has a huge fan base that’s come to know and love certain in-game oddities, like the specific way water flows, or how redstone switches work.

All that knowledge you’ve retained from Minecraft continues to apply in the mobile game. Minecraft Earth does have a few unique blocks and mobs, but they’re variations instead of all-new mechanics. You might run across a “Muddy Pig” that loves mud like no pig you’ve seen before, but it otherwise looks and acts like any other Minecraft pig.

Can you craft?

Yes, you can. The game will drop the traditional three-by-three grid for simple recipes, but the recipes will be familiar to Minecraft players. With that said, exact details about what can and can’t be crafted, and the materials required, haven’t been made public yet.

Can you use mods?

No, you can’t. Mod support has not been ruled out in the future, but it’s not planned for launch and there’s no timeline for when it might be included.

Is cross-play supported?

No. Minecraft Earth may use the same Bedrock game engine as Minecraft, but it’s a very different game in most respects. You can’t play with people playing vanilla Minecraft and you can’t import or export creations from Minecraft Earth to Minecraft.

Can you play on HoloLens?

The Minecraft team previously announced a HoloLens version of the game. The experience working on that helped inform the team working on Minecraft Earth, but the two games are separate entities and there’s no plan to make Minecraft Earthavailable on Microsoft HoloLens or HoloLens 2.

You’ll need a beefy phone

The game’s recommended technical specifications aren’t official, but I tried the game on a selection of Apple hardware that, to my eye, appeared to be the latest Apple iPhone XS. Playing the game caused the phone to become quite warm, a good indication that it was using all it had to render Minecraft Earth.

Augmented reality games tend to be demanding. They run best on relatively new hardware. They also drain battery life quickly. There’s no reason to think Minecraft Earth will be different. You’ll want a recently released phone for the best experience, and don’t forget to bring a portable battery.

When is the beta, and how do I join?

The closed beta will launch “this summer” on both iOS and Android. Entry will be limited, though the developers expect they’ll be able to invite “hundreds of thousands” of players over time, so your chances are good. You’ll also receive a free character skin if you sign up for the beta.

You can sign up on Minecraft Earth’s website. Note that players have to be 18 years or older.

And when’s the release date?

The final, full release date hasn’t been announced. Minecraft Earth is slated to come out later in 2019 and the team seems confident it will hit that window.

You can expect to hear more about the game at E3 2019.