Microsoft-owned Mixer debuts new interactive streaming tools for Minecraft
Minecraft is getting even more interactive thanks to a new tool from Mixer.
The Microsoft-owned streaming platform today announced new features that let people watching Minecraft streams interact with the gameplay in real-time.
Minecraft streamers can add “Mixer interactivity” to their game and turn any Minecraft command into an interactive button that viewers can use to change the given game. Streamers can set parameters for how much interaction is enabled.
The new feature is available today in the Minecraft beta (1.2.5) and Windows 10, with Xbox compatibility arriving Tuesday. iOS users will get access once the beta version is cleaned up.
Mixer also announced today that the Minecraft 1.2.5 beta now lets streamers broadcast directly from inside a Minecraft game via Mixer; iOS users will get this capability in the final release.
Both Mixer and Minecraft are Microsoft companies. The tech giant acquired acquired Minecraft-maker Mojang for $2.5 billion in 2014 and bought Mixer for an undisclosed sum last year.
The acquisitions are part of Microsoft’s strategy to accelerate its gaming business across the company. In a company-wide memo sent in June, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella outlined five core customer solution areas that he wants employees to prioritize. They include modern workplace; business applications; applications and infrastructure; data and AI; and gaming.
Microsoft’s acquisition of Mixer, originally called Beam, gave Microsoft a rival to YouTube Gaming and Amazon’s Twitch, letting users livestream and watch games and other content. Mixer seeks to differentiate itself with features including low-latency streaming, the ability for up to four broadcasters to stream to a shared chat experience, and ways for viewers to interact with games as they’re streamed.
Another advantage is Mixer’s close ties with Microsoft’s PC and video-game platforms, which is evident from today’s Minecraft announcement.
Microsoft-owned Mixer debuts new interactive streaming tools for Minecraft
Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition Gets Physical Release Date
Nintendo of America shared the news, along with an image of the physical release’s box art, in a post on Twitter.
Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition box art via Nintendo of America
Minecraft was released digitally for New Nintendo 3DS as a surprise announcement during last month’s Nintendo Direct. The New 3DS version of Mojang’s popular sandbox game features the Survival and Creative modes, as well as five skin packs, two new texture packs, and more.
Players can use the touch screen to view the map, access their inventory, and craft various items. Additionally, the New 3DS version gives players the option of controlling the game with either touch or traditional button controls.
For our thoughts on this handheld version of Mojang’s creation-minded phenomenon, read IGN’s Minecraft: New 3DS Edition review.
Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition Gets Physical Release Date
9-year-old publishes a Minecraft adventure book
Waking up in a beautiful forest you find yourself in the midst of an adventure, suddenly having to decide whether to journey into the village or continue exploring through the trees.
Every path begins as such, allowing readers to choose the way the story unfolds — will you craft your own mansion, change forces and become evil or venture into the mysterious village.
Alongside the thrill of your average 9-year-old activities such as soccer and nerf wars, Luke Reynolds has a passion for writing. The fourth grade Unity Christian School student has already accepted awards for his writing abilities, receiving the “scribe” award — given to students for outstanding writing skills, at the end of his third grade year.
“I knew he had talent but was more than impressed when the words and ideas never quit flowing during the writing process” said Luke’s dad Jamie Reynolds. “Ninety percent of the story came straight from Luke’s mind through my fingers to the page.”
Jamie Reynolds teaches English and language arts at an elementary school and over the last two summers the two have combined forces to write an unofficial Minecraft book.
The book, “Griefers, Creepers, and Swords”, consists of 150 pages of freedom that allows readers to form their own paths based in the game Minecraft.
Created in 2009, Minecraft is known as the game of no rules and creativity — allowing players to build and explore however they want with a variety of blocks and survival tactics.
It’s similar to a choose your own adventure book Kimberly Reynolds, Luke’s mother, said. Readers are able to decide their adventure by selecting which path they want to take as they read through the story. At the end of various situations, the reader selects what they want to happen next and the book directs them to the page they need to turn to in order to continue their journey.
While no severe writer’s blocks occurred throughout the writing, the two expressed the challenge of going back to school between the two summers. They encountered a rough time coming back and figuring out where to continue the book.
Luke said he hopes to write at least four more books continuing the pick your own path style. After completing the Minecraft series he hopes to continue writing about games as well as whatever genre he’s into at the time.
Luke and Jamie hope to continue growing their fanbase. Along with their book “Griefers, Creepers, and Swords”, the two have created a website, minecraftbooks.us, involving a blog, exclusive videos, a newsletter and a biography on the two, as well as a youtube gaming channel.
Their youtube channel, Unofficial Minecraft Books: Pick Your Path Series, allows viewers to watch segments of the book writing experience and a tour of Luke’s own Minecraft world.
Readers and minecraft enthusiasts can purchase “Griefers, Creepers, and Swords” at the Last Stop Gift Shop inside the Rome-Floyd visitor’s center as well as Amazon. The book can also be purchased at local arts and crafts fairs.
Stranger Things haunts Minecraft today with a new skin pack
Do you like the Netflix original Stranger Things? In the first season, the show follows a group of children as they try to uncover the mystery behind the disappearances of several friends and members of the community.
It explores concepts like alternative alternative dimensions, and many more sci-fi tropes. Well, the second season is here and it looks like Minecraft is celebrating that with style.
According to Microsoft, creepers won’t be the only trouble that Minecraft players will need to look out for because the Stranger Things Skin Pack is here! Join fan-favorites like Eleven, Mike, Dustin, Lucas and Will as they explore the looming dark forces and save Hawkins! You have to survive the terrifying Demogorgon, adolescence, and horrendous 80s fashion choices in pixelated glory.
The Stranger Things Skin Pack is available on upgraded Bedrock Engine platforms through the Minecraft Marketplace for 490 coins. Other platforms are also getting the pack but they have to buy it for $2.99. The Stranger Things Skin Pack is definitely a great, spooky addition to Minecraft. However, keep in mind that Minecraft’s Halloween Spooktacular is taking place right now until October 31, 2017 so be sure to join a server and participate in the festivities.
Be sure to check out Minecraft at retailers if you haven’t already. The game is getting upgraded for Xbox One X so that will be a sight to behold. Additionally, be sure to check out Stranger Things on Netflix by downloading the application on the Microsoft Store.
‘Minecraft’ update allows player to connect across multiple devices
Minecraft fans now, in theory, never have to stop playing their favourite game thanks to an update that brings it to a variety of platforms, including Xbox One, Android and Windows 10 computers.
The Better Together Update from developer Mojang not only connects more gamers, allowing them to play together, but it also facilitates new usage scenarios, for example the option to start a game on a console and then move onto a smartphone when you leave the house.
The update also brings new features such as playing time on community servers and automatic synchronisation of updates and content across all devices when you’re logged in with an Xbox Live account. — dpa
‘Minecraft’ update allows player to connect across multiple devices
Kinect: Seven years of strange experiments
Kinect is dead. The writing has been on the wall for years, at least since Microsoft de-bundled the motion-tracking system from the Xbox One in 2014, knocking $100 off the price tag and making the system more competitive with the PlayStation 4.
The Kinect debuted in 2010 with the Xbox 360, and it had a good run, overall: Microsoft sold roughly 35 million devices in total. However, across its iterations and upgrades, the Kinect never quite found its market — the one application that would turn the hardware into an essential piece of home technology. It wasn’t a conversational, connected, voice-activated system like Google Home or Amazon Alexa, and game developers lost interest in the device as virtual and mixed reality rose to the fore. The Kinect was a product out of time.
That’s not to say it didn’t contribute to some truly wild experiences over the years. Developers quickly applied Kinect to surgery, physical therapy and a range of other medical uses. Three years after its debut, the Kinect was able to read sign language. Musicians flocked to the technology, applying it to live shows and videos. And then there were the games: Fantasia: Music Evolved, D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die and Fru were brilliant examples of the breadth of experience possible via Kinect’s gesture-tracking interface. Even Kinect Sports Rivals, for all of its flaws, laid the groundwork for local multiplayer in motion-controlled gaming.
Below, we’ve collected a handful of trippy, strange and downright cool Kinect experiments from its seven years on the market. The Kinect is dead; long live Kinect.
Bathtub touchscreen
The Aquatop projector turned a bathtub into a touchscreen surface, powered by bath salts and Kinect. From researchers at the Koike Laboratory at Tokyo’s University of Electro-Communications, Aquatop let people pinch and drag the water to manipulate images and play games — all without the fear of getting a phone or tablet wet.
Furry mirror
You could also call this one the “Chewbacca cosplay simulator,” if you’re feeling saucy. New York-based artist Daniel Rozin created a “mirror” out of nearly 1,000 black and white pom-poms, using the Kinect to track people’s movements and power 464 servos to respond in kind. This is the artistic side of Kinect — something ridiculous, thought-provoking and completely impractical.
Sustainability wonderland
Once upon a time, the New York Hall of Science hosted a sprawling, interactive forest designed to help kids better understand the core tenets of sustainability. Connected Worlds featured six different digital biomes, including a 40-foot waterfall and movable “logs” lying about the play space. It took a dozen Kinect cameras, dangling in midair, to make the whole thing possible.
Playing a four-story pipe organ
Old, meet new. Composer Chris Vik added Kinect to a huge 83-year-old pipe organ in Melbourne, Australia, and he was able to play it with gestures alone. The Town Hall organ had been retrofitted to accept MIDI input in the 1990s, so Vik wrote some code, hooked up a Kinect, and voilà.
Dino bones
In July, scientists at the Field Museum of Natural History had a problem: They needed to scan the skull of a Tyrannosaurus rex, but their equipment wouldn’t fit around the beast’s massive jaw. Enter: Kinect. Researchers were able to scan the entire five-foot fossil and investigate a series of holes in its jaw, all for thousands of dollars less than using traditional scanning systems.
Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails’ frontman, Trent Reznor, and art director Rob Sheridan are pretty big nerds, and they took the Kinect under their wings on a festival tour in 2013. During his set, the Kinect tracked Reznor’s movements and projected them onto a series of mobile screens as a distorted kind of mirror. We talked with Sheridan this week about the death of the Kinect; read his thoughts right here.
Guarding the Korean border
Self-taught South Korean programmer Jae Kwan Ko took the Kinect to a new level of militaristic might, applying the hardware to the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea. The Kinect system monitored the border for movement, and it was even able to discern the difference between animals and humans.
RoomAlive
RoomAlive was an internal project from Microsoft that represented the dreams of gaming and sci-fi fans worldwide. It essentially turned a living room into a Star Trek-style holodeck, projecting interactive objects and environments on the walls and floors. RoomAlive never made it to the stage where it was ready for consumer consumption, but the fact that this type of technology existed — in 2014, even — was incredibly exciting.
Let it go
Finally, there’s this: The best use of Kinect in the history of mankind.
Minecraft ‘Stranger Things’ skin pack arrives alongside season two
The second season of Stranger Things just premiered on Netflix, and now, Minecraft is capitalising on the moment.
The Microsoft-owned building game has announced that players who love the hit retro-horror TV show can now buy a new skin pack based on it. It’ll bring the whole cast, too, including Hopper, Mike, Eleven, Dustin, Lucas, and Will. There’s even an entire trailer to promote the skin pack (watch it all – and at the very end you’ll see that freaky monster from the alternate universe).
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You can buy the skin pack for all “Bedrock” versions of Minecraft, so that means for mobile, Windows 10, and Xbox One, for $3 (or 490 coins) in the Minecraft Marketplace. But be sure to check out the new season as well. Once again, it is set in Hawkins in autumn of ’84. The story continues from season one, complete with the core cast and characters, as well as several new characters.
We’ll get to meet tomboy Max and her older step-brother Billy, a woman named Roman, RadioShack manager Bob Newby, Department of Energy agent Dr. Owens, and conspiracy theorist Murray Bauman. No, none of these characters are in this skin pack, unfortunately.
Minecraft ‘Stranger Things’ skin pack arrives alongside season two
The Annual Celebration of All Things Minecraft Just Got 1 Very Cool Cohost
And if that wasn’t enough to catch your eye — which, let’s be real, is very appealing to those of us who love Minecraft but maybe don’t have the ability to travel to the highly hyped event each year — on Oct. 19, it was announced that there would be another familiar face hosting the event beside the legendary Lydia Winters: Will Arnett. That’s right; the man formerly known as GOB Bluth, Devon Banks, and Bojack Horseman is a Minecraft fan, too.
“My boys and I have so much fun playing Minecraft,” Arnett said in a statement about the event, adding, “but even more than that, I love how Minecraft inspires so much creativity in them. I couldn’t be more excited to be a part of MINECON!”
Check out a full rundown of everything Minecon Earth over at the official site, the official launch trailer (featuring Arnett) above, and, for good measure, the best Bojack Horseman-inspired Minecraft video ever below.
The Annual Celebration of All Things Minecraft Just Got 1 Very Cool Cohost
Arcade shooter ‘Nex Machina’ gets a physical release November 10th
Resogun creator Housemarque has earned a reputation as a specialist in digital-only game releases (its last hard copy release was 2012’s Angry Birds Trilogy), but it’s about to buck that trend. The studio has announced that its well-received, Smash TV-style PS4 arcade shooter Nex Machina will be available in a disc-based version through Limited Run Games on November 10th. There’s a $30 standard edition if you just want something tangible, but the centerpiece is a $65 Collector’s Edition that includes the soundtrack on CD, a poster and four art prints in a special edition box. Arguably, that’s the version to get — if you want more than a download, you might as well get something truly memorable.
There’s also a third edition with alternate cover art that will be exclusive to Sony’s PlayStation Experience event in December.
Whichever version catches your eye, you’ll need to move quickly. While the disc release isn’t region-locked, there will only be a relatively small number of copies to go around (as suggested by the choice of Limited Run). This isn’t so much a return to physical distribution as a nod to fans who want better memorabilia than a PSN purchase receipt.
Arcade shooter ‘Nex Machina’ gets a physical release November 10th
Minecraft now has official Stranger Things DLC
The Stranger Things Skins Pack, to give it its full name, launched earlier today on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and PC. Its arrival coincides with the release of Stranger Things’ highly anticipated second season on Netflix.
“Hold onto your long blonde wigs, kids,” barked Minecraft developer Mojang as it celebrated the news, “because the whole cast is here! Break into a classified facility with Hopper, kick off some Dungeons and Dragons with Mike or heck, why not go totally telekinetic with Eleven?” There’s even an announcement trailer if you fancy a game of ‘Guess which beloved Stranger Things character is represented by this particular collection of squares’.
For a complete list of characters included in the pack – there are over 50 skins in total, inspired by both seasons – you can visit the official Minecraft blog. However, Mojang does warn that there may be mild Season Two spoilers in there.
Anyone whose interests lie at the centre of the Venn diagram labelled “spooky ’80s nostalgia” and “block-based survival” can pick up the Stranger Things Skin Pack for £2.49.
Recommended Reading: Is ‘Stranger Things’ really that popular?
The excitement around Stranger Things season 2 has been building for months. We’ve seen soundtracks, merchandise and all kinds of promo tie-ins with other companies along the way. As the show returns this week, the buzz is already so high that reviews probably won’t even matter — people will binge it anyway. It also helps that the first season was both really good and seemed to be really popular, despite the company not releasing any numbers. The Ringer takes a look at how Netflix creates the feeling of must-see TV even though we might not ever find out how popular its shows really are.
Recommended Reading: Is ‘Stranger Things’ really that popular?
Stranger Things 2 skin pack for Minecraft is the only way to bring Barb back to life
Minecraft has partnered with Netflix to create a new set of skins based on the Stranger Things series. The skin pack is available for download right now, and we’ve included the video trailer above.
The skin pack is surprisingly comprehensive, and includes characters and outfits from both the first and second seasons of Stranger Things. Perhaps the most unsettling is the demogorgon, which features both an open and a puckered set of toothy, viscous mandibles.
Stranger Things 2 skin pack for Minecraft is the only way to bring Barb back to life
‘Stranger Things’ invades ‘Minecraft’ with new skin packs
Minecraft players who love the upside down of Stranger Things have a new skin pack to acquire. It’s available now in concert with the new season of the hit retro-horror show on Netflix. It looks like the whole cast is represented as a Minecraft character, including Hopper, Mike, Eleven, Dustin, Lucas and Will.
A ‘Minecraft’ Miniseries Coming from Mattel
Minecraft [$6.99] is so huge that it has captured almost every corner of pop culture—toys, games, novels—and today we got an announcement about a new endeavor from those behind the huge franchise: a YouTube miniseries. Specifically, we are getting a Mattel miniseries based on the company’s Minecraft Mini-Figures. Challenge of the Spooky Isles, as the miniseries is titled, is all about a Hunger Games-like contest where ten crafters are teleported to a strange island and have to survive the crazy challenges while also settling their rivalries. As you can see from the trailer, the miniseries is definitely geared towards a younger audience, but I’ll still watch it because I enjoy pretty much anything Minecraft. And I do like the way they managed to keep the blockiness and still make it cute.
The miniseries will consist of 8 episodes, with the first one launching this Thursday on the Mattel Action YouTube channel. Will it be fun to watch? It does seem to be focused a bit too much on the killing things part of Minecraft, which isn’t personally my favorite part of the game, but if you like Minecraft, you’ll probably enjoy the series, especially if you’re a younger player. Next stop for Minecraft? Possibly TV.
If you want, you can transfer your Minecraft Wii U data to Switch now
Go ahead
The Wii U version of Minecraft was basically put out to pasture when it wasn’t included in the “Better Together” cross-play update. In summation, any version of the game that retains the “Edition” moniker will be limited to its own platform, while everything else can play together. Notable exceptions include PS4, Vita, and of course, Wii U.
This led to a lot of people naturally upgrading on Switch (where Better Together works), but they had to leave their save files behind. Well, that changes this week, as Nintendo has implemented a cross-save transfer from Wii U to the newest Nintendo generation. Just load the game up on Wii U, select your save, select transfer, then import it on Switch.
I never really got into the Wii U version (I kept playing Xbox One and only dabbled in the new Mario sandbox), but if I did, this would be a nice concession. Provided that you’re okay with eating the cost to upgrade of course.
;)
If you want, you can transfer your Minecraft Wii U data to Switch now
Minecraft Pocket Edition add-ons have been infecting Android phones with Trojan malware
Minecraft, with its blocky Scandinavian charm, is not a game you’d expect to have the potential to hijack you mobile with malware and turn it into a botnet.
The game Microsoft acquired for £1.5bn is fairly secure, but despite that, cyber security firm Symantec has found a clutch of Minecraft-based add-ons in the Google Play Store that are harbouring malicious code for Trojan malware called Sockbot.
The Trojan links infected devices to a proxy server to surreptitiously generate advertising revenue and enslave the device as part of a botnet.
Symantec noted that the malicious add-on apps, which allow users to change the appearance of their in-game characters for Minecraft: Pocket Edition, appeared to be originally designed for generating illegitimate ad revenue, but now have more scope to power cyber attacks.
“This highly flexible proxy topology could easily be extended to take advantage of a number of network-based vulnerabilities, and could potentially span security boundaries,” Symantec’s Shaun Aimoto said. “In addition to enabling arbitrary network attacks, the large footprint of this infection could also be leveraged to mount a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.”
Aimoto noted that to date, Symantec has found eight Minecraft-based apps infected with the Trjoan that have a combined install base ranging from 600,000 to 2.8 million Android devices, and appears to be targeting gadgets mostly in the US but also in Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and Brazil.
After discovering the malicious apps, Symantec informed Google which stripped them from the Play Store, so mobile Minecraft fans can rest easily for the time being.
However, the cyber threat looks to have been a fairly advanced one, having managed to sneak past Google’s vetting and security processes for the Play Store by posing as legitimate add-on apps. And once the malware was on a device, it used encryption to obscure its code and avoid basic-levels of detection.
With this in mind, Symantec advises the evergreen practise of keeping your mobile software up-to-date, avoiding apps from unknown sources, paying close attention to the permissions an app wants, and of course use mobile security services.
Minecraft Pocket Edition add-ons have been infecting Android phones with Trojan malware
‘Minecraft’ Is Helping Preserve the Ancient Language of Elfdalian
There are more than 6,000 languages on the planet but we’re losing them at rate of one every two weeks. Globalization and mass communication made the world smaller and English, Mandarin, and Arabic have become lingua franca, pushing out smaller languages that connect minority communities. With a little help, some of those communities are fighting back.
Elfdalian is an ancient Scandinavian language spoken by around 3,000 people in the Älvdalen region in the middle of Sweden. It’s a descendant of old Norse that developed in isolation throughout the Middle Ages. The Elfdalian people lived a semi-nomadic life traveling from a small town to country farms during the Summer. Here’s what it sounds like.
The language is having a hard time in Sweden. Despite international recognition and support, Stockholm considers Elfdalian a dialect of Swedish and not its own official language. Despite its small native speaker base and status with the government, Elfdalian is experiencing a renaissance online. Thanks to the internet and the passionate Ulum Dalska—the Organization for the Preservation of Elfdalian—the language has managed not only to survive but thrive in recent years.
Chris Pennington and Emilia Stjernfelt hope to give it another boost with Minecraft. Pennington is passionate about languages and passionate about helping. “A people’s history and culture is wrapped up in the language they speak,” Pennington told me over Discord chat. “So, one of the most important things you can do is pass that language along to your children.”
Pennington and Stjernfelt are using Minecraft to build a virtual world that’ll make it easier for Elfdalian speakers to pass that language on to their kids. Stjernfelt is Swedish and Pennington is American. Neither are native Elfdalian speakers. The pair met and fell in love in a Swedish Minecraft server. Soon, the two had married and he’d moved across the ocean to be with her.
Minecraft helped Pennington learn Swedish so he could better communicate with Stjernfelt and his other friends and now he thinks it could help people learn Elfdalian. “Most language learning methods it involves some rote memorization” he explained. If you’ve taken a foreign language class you know the drill—flash cards with pictures and labels, constant practice, and repetition. Minecraft, instead, offers virtual immersion, which is a much better way to learn.
The Elfdalian village of Älvdalen in Minecraft is complete with quests designed to help players learn about the culture as well as the language. “We plan to have one where the player goes to help out in one of the summer pasture farms, and another where they are tasked with picking up items from a grocery store,” Pennington said.
The project has excited the Elfdalian community. Ulum Dalska even flew the pair to town to put them through a Summer course on the language. The project is further proof that the language is unique and distinct from Swedish, something Elfdalian speakers have had a hard time making Stockholm understand.
Pennington and Stjernfelt hope to release their Minecraft Elfdalian game next year. They’re looking for skilled Minecraft builders. Interested digital architects can apply here. To learn more about Elfdalian, visit Ulum Dalska’s website.
‘Minecraft’ Is Helping Preserve the Ancient Language of Elfdalian
The ‘Star Wars’ Han Solo movie now has an official name
Star Wars’ cinematic universe tale focused on young Han Solo has a name, and we found out thanks to director Ron Howard, who announced it using a placard in a video shared on Twitter. The name, in case you were wondering, is “Solo: A Star Wars Story.”
It follows the “A Star Wars Story” model set by Rogue One, the first spin-out movie set in the Star Wars universe but occurring outside of the main franchise. These movies occur within canon or Star Wars fictional history, but they don’t center around the Skywalker family and its ongoing saga.
Howard also informed us via the video that primary shooting on Han Solo has wrapped, meaning it’ll now go into editing ahead of its May 25, 2018 release date. The movie actually lost its original directors, if you’ll recall, after The Lego Movie‘s Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (pictured with the cast above) departed the project citing creative differences with Lucasfilm president and Star Wars universe commander in chief Kathleen Kennedy.
The movie, which stars Alden Ehrenreich, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover and more, will hopefully still deliver the goods when it debuts next year.
Minecraft now lets you export your creations in 3D — but only on Windows 10
Minecraft players will now be able to easily save their in-game creations as 3D models. A new update adds the capability, but it’s among the few features that can only be enjoyed by players on the Windows 10 edition of the game.
The feature was teased in a beta a couple months back, but is now a main-branch feature for the game. Exporting is done by putting a special block down near your sculpture, house or what have you, and giving it a few parameters: how many blocks in this direction to capture, etc.
The game then exports the resulting model directly to Remix 3D, Microsoft’s new platform for sharing 3D models and animations. From there you can share it with others or export again to Paint 3D, where you can further decorate it or export (yet again) to other, more interoperable formats.
(If that seems like too many steps to you, or a little too much Microsoft, feel free to use one of the third-party apps that have done this for years.)
Minecraft long ago made the switchover from niche indie game to global platform, and so far the various versions have more or less maintained feature parity. Versions running on Windows, however, have generally had the lead in advanced features like mods, app integrations and so on.
Windows 10 players should find the new feature next time they boot up the game.
Minecraft now lets you export your creations in 3D — but only on Windows 10
Minecraft, King, and PopCap headline speaker line-up for MGF Seattle 2017
Speakers from Minecraft, King and PopCap will take the stage at Mobile Games Forum Seattle 2017 during its two-day run on October 24th and 25th.
The event will host a number of talks and panels from members of the mobile games industry, along with a developer showcase and plenty of opportunities to network.
Speaker roster
Speakers include Minecraft‘s Product Marketing Lead Emily Orrson, King’s VP of its Z2 studio Lou Fasulo and PopCap’s Lead Producer Arjun Balaram.
Orrson will discuss how cross-platform play is working for Minecraft, while Fasulo will be giving a talk on using live ops and a game’s community to improve their games.
Balaram will close out the conference with a case study on how PopCap moved from premium to free-to-play with its game Plants vs. Zombies 2.
Other speakers include Super Evil Megacorp’s Taewon Yun, Game Insight CEO Anatoly Ropotov and Stugan’s Jana Palm.
If the above sessions float your boat, we’ve got a special 20% off discount code for the event: just enter SeattlePG20 as your promo code when purchasing your ticket on the official MGF Seattle website, where you can also find out more information about the event.
Minecraft, King, and PopCap headline speaker line-up for MGF Seattle 2017