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YouTube now lets creators pause comments on videos
It's rolling out to all creators.
YouTube is deactivating links in Shorts videos to combat spam
The move follows other anti-spam measures.
TikTok nudges users to credit the videos that inspired their posts
A group of Black creators went on strike last year over a lack of attribution for their efforts.
Splice's music creation plans are going on sale for Black Friday
Newcomers can get $20 off a 12-month Sounds+, Creator or Creator+ subscription.
Splice launches new Creator plans with exclusive plugins and educational videos
Astra and Beatmaker are the company's first VSTs, but the Skills lessons are the star of the show.
YouTube is permanently closing its creator-focused city 'Spaces'
YouTube is permanently shutting its physical workspaces for Creators in favor of virtual events and pop-up shows.
Photoshop for iPad gets Curves and Apple Pencil pressure settings
Curves and Apple Pencil sensitivity settings have finally arrived on Photoshop for iPad.
Spotify’s tastemakers create 17 specialized podcast playlists
Spotify is making it easier to find podcasts you'll like.
Microsoft lets Xbox Game Pass holders support their favorite Mixer streamers
When Microsoft launched Mixer Direct Purchase back in 2018 it did so to help reward streamers for bringing new games and features to viewers' attention. Now, it's adding a new way to support creators. From today, Mixer partners will receive $3 compensation for every new member that joins Xbox Game Pass and credits their channel with a code, so you can show your favorite streamers some extra love.
Patreon splits its service to cater for different creators
Patreon is rolling out a new price plan structure. Announced today, the new system comprises Patreon Lite, Patreon Pro and Patreon Premium -- three tiers that, according to the company, are designed to better match the needs of creators.
Magic Leap releases its first set of AR developer tools
We've been anticipating Magic Leap's as-yet unreleased mixed reality gear for quite some time now. We know that the AR headset will be dubbed the Magic Leap One, will cost around $1,000 and will have applications for music as well as gaming. Still, the number of things we don't know about the gear is pretty significant. Now, however, the company appears to be lifting the veil a little bit with a new Creator Portal, which seems to contain more information for developers interested in the device as a platform, with a simulator, developer community, learning resources and an SDK to get started making apps for the unreleased device.
Plague Inc. developer agrees to speak with Centers for Disease Control
James Vaughan, the creator of the iOS disease-spreading hit Plague Inc., has agreed to speak to the actual Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a US organization that deals with real viruses and other infectious outbreaks. "They reached out to contact me," Vaughan told Polygon recently. "It was something they were all playing, and they thought, 'Wow, this is pretty cool.'"Vaughan doesn't have any medical training; he started Plague Inc. as a hobby while working as an economic consultant. But he said he did make the game as "scientifically plausible as possible," and the CDC wants to speak with him not only to chat about infectious diseases, but how to best use games to educate and inform the public about real health issues.
Daily iPhone App: Party Wave is Final Fantasy creator's first iOS title
Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Saganuchi's studio is called Mistwalker. It created the Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey RPGs for the Xbox 360 a few years ago. But the studio's latest direction, like a lot of big studios lately, is to create some smaller mobile games, and Party Wave, Mistwalker's first iOS title, has just arrived on the App Store. Party Wave is described as an "action surfing" game, but it's much simpler than a surfing simulation. Each stage in the game (there are quite a few to play through) has two phases. In the first, you use line-drawing to guide a group of surfers around obstacles to an oncoming wave. And once the wave appears, you need to juggle the various surfers involved by tapping them. dodging various obstacles and keeping them afloat. The game is fun, though it's clearly a first title. It's not very focused, and some of the polish isn't quite there. The aesthetic is surprisingly calm: The music is nice and tropical, even when the action gets a little nuts. It's not entirely clear what you need to do all the time -- some obstacles are invisible, so you need to remember where they are to keep from hitting them -- but once you figure it out, there's a nice strong game to play. Party Wave is available for $1.99 as a universal app. It's an interesting experiment for Mistwalker, and I hope it works. But it would be nice to see Saganuchi return to his RPG roots, instead building an original Final Fantasy-style game for the modern iOS platform.
Layar chief exits CEO spot in favor of print guru, edges closer to augmented reality magazine dreams
Layar previously signaled that it wants to get into augmented reality print media, and its founder Raimo van der Klein is putting his money (or at least, his title) where his mouth is. He's leaving the CEO position in favor of Quintin Schevernels, who comes from the print publishing world as VNU Media's COO. Van der Klein will hang around as Creative Director to keep the company pushing forward in new directions, but he sees most of the money-making coming from print-friendly tools like Layar Creator -- it only makes sense to have someone who's well-steeped in the medium (and who can turn a profit) running the show. Schevernels hasn't signaled any grand strategy changes in his first few hours on the job, although he might not be in any rush following the launches of apps like Stiktu. We'd just be ready for a whole lot of augmented reality magazines and cereal boxes in the near future.
Adobe releases a PDF creator for iOS
Given the history between Adobe and Apple, this might be kind of surprising, but it happened anyway. Adobe has released an app for iPhone and iPad called CreatePDF that allows you to make and edit your own PDF files, right on iOS. The app can be used to open up any number of document formats, and then uses Adobe's own conversion services to assemble them however you want into a full PDF document. The app can open everything from Word documents and Excel spreadsheets to images and OpenOffice documents, and converted PDFs can be sent off as email attachments, or even sent to other apps on the iOS device. The app is available as a $9.99 universal download. It's good to see this kind of thing available -- it just means there's even more functionality for iOS in terms of not just viewing documents, but also building and creating them while mobile.
iPhone Minecraft client posted, pulled
If you keep a close eye on the App Store (or have a quick RSS feed following it), you might have noticed an app called Minecrafted up there on Monday morning. It's a Minecraft client for iOS, a version of the extremely popular indie game that can be run on an iPhone, and connect up to real Minecraft servers. But before you run to download it, not so fast -- the app has been pulled from the App Store already, and if you try to find it on the US store, you'll get an error message. So what's the deal? TUAW contacted the app's creator, Trevor Wilkin, and he told us that his original idea was to create the client, submit it to Apple, and then get official approval from the makers of Minecraft before putting it live. Apple threw it live right away, however, and Wilkin says he "pretty much freaked out and removed from sale as quickly as I possibly could." He doesn't know whether the app is legit or not -- it's all original code, according to the description, but presumably he backwards engineered a few things, because it's apparently compatible with current servers and versions of the game. Wilkin sounds innocent enough to us. He says that he has "no desire to hurt the brand and just wanted to introduce a useful tool. I still hope to work out an official solution that doesn't step on anyone's toes." We hope so, too -- having Minecraft up and running officially on iOS would be a nice bonus for both iPhone owners and fans of the incredibly popular game.
Interview: Wideload Games' Patrick Curry talks Disney Guilty Party, life after 'Stubbs'
Some of the most fun to be had during multiplayer video games isn't actually in the game itself -- it's outside of the games, where players chat with each other for fun, break down a strategy during co-op, or trash talk in-between deathmatches. You don't usually get XP for taunting over voicechat or telling your team where the enemy is, but there's a reward nevertheless, a social bonus completely independent of the code that developers write. Wideload Games has done a great job of focusing on that gameplay in Disney Guilty Party. I got to play the same co-op Party Mode as Randy at a pre-E3 event this week, and while it's definitely a family game, it competently serves up custom-made mysteries for families to take on. In hunting down and accusing various colorful suspects, that out-of-game conversation and interaction becomes just as important and fun as the in-game button pressing and Wiimote waggling. Game Director Patrick Curry was my partner-in-crime-solving, and since we have common roots in Chicago (I used to work in the same building, one floor below Wideload's studios), we had a quick chat about the studio's direction towards family games, and its acquisition by Disney Interactive.
Gamesalad offers $99 iPhone game publishing
We mentioned Gamesalad's plans to bring their publishing system to the iPhone earlier this year, and now they've done it: for $99 a year, they say that you'll be able to design games on their game creator development tool, and then publish them straight out to the iPhone's App Store. If you don't want to bother publishing the games yourself, you can create them and have them "viewed" through the Gamesalad Viewer (which we couldn't find on the App Store quite yet), or you can export them out as full applications and publish them as your own iPhone apps (Flutterby is in the store right now as an example of a Gamesalad Creator game). There's also a $1999 membership service that lets you customize every aspect of your games, and provides you with direct customer support, which is supposed to be for "elite users" (like, we guess, actual game companies). And truthfully, I've developed a few apps using just Xcode, and it's not too big a deal (though I've never had to go through an actual release or worked with end users, which I'm sure is most of the battle anyway). But if the thought of using professional coding tools to develop your little game idea sends you into panic attacks, and the Gamesalad creator seems more your speed, this might be a nice viable way for you to turn your gaming idea into App Store gold. It costs nothing to download and try out the creator, so if the idea interests you, you can work on putting a game together, and then pay later when you decide you've got something you want published on the iPhone. And hey, if you do put a game up, be sure to send a tip and let us know -- we'd love to see the end products of this process.
