The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many school students around the world to embrace remote learning. But not all have computers at home.

Now a group of companies and non-profits in Hong Kong are taking part in a global program by Microsoft that breathes new life into old office PCs and distributes them to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“I live in a village in Sha Tin, and my family’s income is limited,” says Wu Jiahui, a Secondary 5 (Year 11) student at Toi Shan Association College. “We don’t have the ability to purchase computers.”

Instead, Jiahui has had to rely on her smartphone to study. “But the speed is slower, and the software is not sufficient,” she says. “Because of the small screen, it’s hard to read, and the long-term use of my mobile phone caused shoulder pain and dry eye syndrome.”

Without a proper device, students can’t learn efficiently. The quality of their work and their health can be seriously affected. 

– Albert Wong, Association of IT Leaders in Education

Before the COVID-19 lockdowns, Jiahui would finish her homework in her school’s computer room at the end of each day’s lessons. “But I couldn’t make any revisions to my homework at home.”

Barriers to learning

Albert Wong, chairman of the Association of IT Leaders in Education (AiTLE), says students without a computer at home usually end up using their smartphones. “But mobile devices are made for communication, not for learning,” he says.

“Some learning websites have layouts that are not optimal for mobile devices, making it difficult for students to watch video lessons or view slides. Formatting text and visuals for school projects on a smartphone can also be arduous. Not having their own computers hinders students’ creativity and makes learning time-consuming.”

Wong says computers have become essential for learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. “With school suspensions lasting for months due to the pandemic, online learning activities, such as webinars and virtual projects, are necessary,” he says. “Without proper devices, students can’t learn efficiently. The quality of their work and their health can be seriously affected.”

A recent survey of almost 600 students in the territory found that over 70% either don’t have computers or have outdated machines, while 51% don’t have a desk for studying. Moreover, 83% of students said these hurdles made them worry about falling behind their peers.

Empowering students in need

Recognizing this challenge, Microsoft has partnered with corporate groups, computer refurbishers, and education associations to provide computers – once used in offices – to students in need.

“Not every family is in a financial position to provide their children with a computer. Remote learning makes this situation especially hard,” says Ada Ng, Microsoft Hong Kong’s director of corporate affairs and philanthropies. “Donating refurbished hardware is a great way to make a positive impact on a student’s day-to-day life.”

Volunteers at the non-profit Crossroads Foundation overhaul donated PCs under Microsoft’s Refurbisher Program — through which authorized refurbishers across the globe collect secondhand devices, fix them up, and preinstall genuine Microsoft software.

In one recent two-month effort, more than 1,000 used desktops and laptops machines were serviced and refitted, and then sent out to needy students.

Super Rare Games / Nintendo Life

Super Rare Games, one of several companies fighting to keep the world of physical games alive and well, is kicking off a bumper week of deals, competitions, and reveals.

Perhaps the most exciting news for physical collectors is confirmation that the publisher’s next physical Switch game will be revealed tomorrow, Wednesday 9th September. It sounds like it’ll be a crowd-pleaser, too; the press release says, “if our Twitter mentions are anything to go by, it’s one you’ve been waiting for”.

On top of this, Super Rare Games promises “deals, competitions, teases, and some other small surprises” throughout the week, and it’ll also be sharing its plans for the rest of 2020–including info on how many more games will be released and the Collector’s Editions you can expect to look out for. Make sure to keep an eye on its social media channels.

So, those deals we mentioned? Get a load of this:

FREE SHIPPING on any order that includes The Gardens Between: Collector’s Edition or Smoke & Sacrifice! (Excludes orders that contain Dandara)

Two Tribes Collection has been added back to the store! Only 23 copies have been put on sale from units previously held for customer service

50% off all t-shirts – only 100 of each design printed. Once they’re gone, they’re gone

25% off trading card binders – protect, organise, and display your Super Rare card collection

Taking advantage of that shipping discount? Chroma Squad, Old School Musical, SteamWorld Heist, and Little Inferno have limited stock remaining

All of these offers are set to end on 13th September, or when stock runs out, of course. You can buy all of these games and browse the Super Rare store right here.

Do you collect physical indie games? How many do you have in your collection? Let us know with a comment.

Article summary: Here’s a quick visual overview of the contents of this tutorial.

• Flat List: To sum over a list of numbers in a single line of Python code, use Python’s built-in function sum(list).
• Nested List: To sum over a list of lists in one line Python, use a generator expression to flatten the list and pass the result into the function: sum(x for y in list for x in y).

---

Method 1: Sum over a Flat List in One Line

Problem: How to sum over all values in a given Python list?

Example: Given the following list.

a = [1, 2, 3]

You want to calculate the sum of all values in the list—using only a single line of Python code!

# RESULT: 6

Solution: Python’s built-in sum() function helps you to sum over all values in an iterable, such as a Python list.

Summing up a list of numbers appears everywhere in coding. Fortunately, Python provides the built-in sum() function to sum over all elements in a Python list—or any other iterable for that matter. (Official Docs)

Code: Here’s the minimal code example.

a = [1, 2, 3] print(sum(a))

# 6

How does it work? The syntax is sum(iterable, start=0):

Argument	Description
iterable	Sum over all elements in the iterable. This can be a list, a tuple, a set, or any other data structure that allows you to iterate over the elements. Example: sum([1, 2, 3]) returns 1+2+3=6.
start	(Optional.) The default start value is 0. If you define another start value, the sum of all values in the iterable will be added to this start value. Example: sum([1, 2, 3], 9) returns 9+1+2+3=15.

Exercise: Try to modify the sequence so that the sum is 30 in our interactive Python shell:

Method 2: Sum over a Nested List of Lists in One Line

Problem: Given multiple lists in a list of lists. How can you sum over all values in a list of lists such as [[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]] in Python?

Solution: Use a generator expression to flatten the values in the nested list and pass the resulting iterable into the sum() function.

Code: The following code creates a list of lists:

a = [[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]]

To sum over the values in the list of lists, use the following one-liner:

print(sum(x for y in a for x in y))

The output is printed on the shell:

# OUTPUT: 21

But how does it work? The main part of the code is the generator expression x for y in a for x in y that flattens the list.

• The part x for y in a for x in y iterates over all elements y in the nested list a.
• The part x for y in a for x in y iterates over all elements y in the inner list y.
• The part x for y in a for x in y stores the inner element in the iterable.

Here’s a recap on the technique of list comprehension.

To learn more about different ways to sum() elements in a list, check out my detailed blog tutorial:

Related Tutorial: Python sum() List — Ultimate Guide

Python One-Liners Book

Python programmers will improve their computer science skills with these useful one-liners.

Python One-Liners will teach you how to read and write “one-liners”: concise statements of useful functionality packed into a single line of code. You’ll learn how to systematically unpack and understand any line of Python code, and write eloquent, powerfully compressed Python like an expert.

The book’s five chapters cover tips and tricks, regular expressions, machine learning, core data science topics, and useful algorithms. Detailed explanations of one-liners introduce key computer science concepts and boost your coding and analytical skills. You’ll learn about advanced Python features such as list comprehension, slicing, lambda functions, regular expressions, map and reduce functions, and slice assignments. You’ll also learn how to:

•  Leverage data structures to solve real-world problems, like using Boolean indexing to find cities with above-average pollution
•  Use NumPy basics such as array, shape, axis, type, broadcasting, advanced indexing, slicing, sorting, searching, aggregating, and statistics
•  Calculate basic statistics of multidimensional data arrays and the K-Means algorithms for unsupervised learning
•  Create more advanced regular expressions using grouping and named groups, negative lookaheads, escaped characters, whitespaces, character sets (and negative characters sets), and greedy/nongreedy operators
•  Understand a wide range of computer science topics, including anagrams, palindromes, supersets, permutations, factorials, prime numbers, Fibonacci numbers, obfuscation, searching, and algorithmic sorting

By the end of the book, you’ll know how to write Python at its most refined, and create concise, beautiful pieces of “Python art” in merely a single line.

Get your Python One-Liners Now!!

Last modified on July 22nd, 2020.

Are you interested in creating an image editor tool? If so, this article will help you to get started with it.

An image editor will have a range of tools. It can be very basic with only tools like resize, rotate and crop. Or it can be super extensive like a Photoshop.

Rotate is a basic and essential tool that is part of any image editor. Let us start with something easy and basic like rotate then add some more essential tools.

I will be using CSS transform property as the core and add JavaScript to enrich the tool.

This can become a basic starter toolkit that can be expanded to a full fledged image editor in the future.

Following is a preview of the things to come.

What is inside?

1. How to edit an image?
2. A quick glance on CSS transform and image editing
3. Examples and demo on image editing
4. Conditions and exceptions on applying transform property
5. Importance of respecting system preferences

How to edit an image?

Do not underestimate the power of CSS. Gone or those days, where CSS just applies decoration on top of HTML and beautifies the document. CSS3 and beyond, with the combined support of HTML5, advancements in the browser support has change CSS to a powerful UI tool.

It complements well with the JavaScript. When we combine it together, we can create wonders. The divide between thin-client and thick-client has vanished. The CSS is a very good beginner’s tool to start with simple image editor features.

When you work on image editing capabilities with CSS, you must consider browser compatibility. Some browsers will not render as you code. So, we have to be carefully choosing the properties.

I have used CSS keyframesrules to set the core properties.

In an older article, we have see several animation effects with CSS and Javascript.

In this article, you can find the example code of the below items with a demo.

• Rotation and spin
• Skew
• Scale
• Translation

A quick glance on CSS transform and image editing

CSS transform property can be used to do basic image editing. It supports functions like rotation, skew, scale and translate.

The key functions are rotate(), skew(), scale(), translate().

The transform functions have classification based on the axis of animation. For example rotateX(), rotateY() and more. This can be used for image animation.

We can apply the transform functions in a combination way for a single UI element’s selector. When we use many transform function, the animation effects happen in a right to left order.

Examples and demo on image editing

Scaling an image

The scaling is a transform function that allows us to scale up or down the element’s dimension. The scaling transform output varies based on the function used and its parameters.

The scale() function can have single or dual parameters. With a single parameter, it applies uniform scaling in both x, y-axis. When we supply separate values for the x, y-axis, then the scaling range will vary.

With three params the scale3d() function allows scaling in x,y,z axis.

We can also apply scaling with respect to single axis by using scaleX(), scaleY() or scaleZ().

The above demo has a slider to scale up and down an image.

Below code has the UI elements to apply scaling transform on an image element. It has a pallet with an image element and animation tools.

image-scale/index.php

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>

<head>

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">

<link href="../assets/css/phppot-style.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />

<link href="./assets/css/style.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />

<link href="../vendor/jquery/ui/jquery-ui.min.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />

<script src='../vendor/jquery/jquery-3.3.1.js' type='text/javascript'></script>

<script src='../vendor/jquery/ui/jquery-ui.min.js' type='text/javascript'></script>

</head> <body> <div class="phppot-container"> <div class="container"> <div class="image-demo-box"> <div id="slider"> <div id="scale-handle" class="ui-slider-handle"></div> </div> <img src='../sweet.jpg' id='image' /> </div> </div> </div> <script src='./assets/js/scale.js'></script>

</body>

</html>

This jQuery script initiates UI slider by setting the min max ranges. The slider handle will show the scaling factor.

On dragging the slider, the script applies scaling transform on the image element. The slider’s step property defines the scaling multiples.

On dragging the slider handle, the script will populate the scaling factor in the handle.

image-scale/assets/js/scale.js

$(document).ready(function() { var scaleX = 2; var handle = $("#scale-handle"); $("#slider").slider({ min : 1, max : 2.5, value: scaleX, step: 0.1, create : function() { handle.text(scaleX+"x"); scale(scaleX); }, slide : function(event, ui) { scaleX = ui.value; handle.text(scaleX + "x"); scale(scaleX); } });

}); function scale(scaleX) { $('#image').css('transform', 'scale(' + scaleX + ')');

}

Translating image element

Like other transform functionality, the translate() function performs 2D, 3D translation.

The translate() function with one or two params results in 2D translation. The two params are to move the image in the x, y-axis of a 2D plane. With single param, the translate() will happen in a horizontal direction.

The translateX() and translateY() are for implementing translation in a particular direction.

The translate3d() with x, y, z factors allows creating 3D animation.

In this demo, there are two sliders in horizontal and vertical directions. On dragging the handle of these sliders, it moves the image on the 2D plane shown above.

This HTML shows the template elements to set the image-translate demo.

image-translate/index.php

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>

<head>

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">

<link href="../assets/css/phppot-style.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />

<link href="./assets/css/style.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />

<link href="../vendor/jquery/ui/jquery-ui.min.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />

<script src='../vendor/jquery/jquery-3.3.1.js' type='text/javascript'></script>

<script src='../vendor/jquery/ui/jquery-ui.min.js' type='text/javascript'></script>

</head> <body> <div class="phppot-container"> <div class="container"> <div class="image-demo-box"> <div id="slider"> <div id="translate-x" class="ui-slider-handle"></div> </div> <div id="v-slider"> <div id="translate-y" class="ui-slider-handle"></div> </div> <img src='../sweet.jpg' id='image' /> </div> </div> </div> <script src='./assets/js/translate.js'></script>

</body>

</html>

This script sets the horizontal and vertical translation slider properties. The horizontal slider has the range between o -160. And, the vertical translation ranges between  0 to 50.

image-translate/assets/js/translate.js

$(document).ready(function() { var translateX; var handle = $("#translate-x"); $("#slider").slider({ range : "min", min : 0, max : 160, create : function() { handle.text($(this).slider("value") + " px"); }, slide : function(event, ui) { translateX = ui.value; handle.text(translateX + " px"); translate(translateX); } }); var translateY; var vhandle = $("#translate-y"); $("#v-slider").slider({ range : "min", min : 0, max : 50, orientation : "vertical", create : function() { vhandle.text($(this).slider("value") + " px"); }, slide : function(event, ui) { translateY = ui.value; vhandle.text(translateY + " px"); translatey(translateY); } }); }); function translate(translateX) { $('#image').css('transform', 'translateX(' + translateX + 'px)');

} function translatey(translateY) { $('#image').css('transform', 'translateY(' + translateY + 'px)');

}

Tools for rotating an image

Ah yes, we have reached the rotate tool. This is a core feature in any image editor. Rotation spins the image or other UI elements based on the angle specified.

With a negative degree, the animation will happen in counter-clockwise rotation.

Like scale and translate, rotate function also has classification based on the axis. Those are,

• rotate(angle)
• rotate3d(x, y, z, angle)
• rotateX(angle)
• rotateY(angle)
• rotateZ(angle)

The rotate3d() function needs the angle and the x, y, z co-ordinates of the rotation axis.

A spin will make the image rotate from 0 to 360 degrees. You can stop spinning or refresh the image orientation back to its original.

image-rorate/index.php

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>

<head>

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">

<link href="../assets/css/phppot-style.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />

<link href="./assets/css/style.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />

<link href="../vendor/jquery/ui/jquery-ui.min.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />

<script src='../vendor/jquery/jquery-3.3.1.js' type='text/javascript'></script>

<script src='../vendor/jquery/ui/jquery-ui.min.js' type='text/javascript'></script>

</head> <body> <div class="phppot-container"> <div class="container"> <input type='text' id='txtInputAngle' class="degree" value="10" /> <input type='button' id='btnRotate' value='Rotate' /> <input type='button' id='btnSpin' value='Spin' data-state='off' /> <input type='button' id='btnRefresh' value='Refresh' /> <div class="image-demo-box"> <div id="slider"> <div id="rotation-angle" class="ui-slider-handle"></div> </div> <img src='../sweet.jpg' id='image' /> </div> </div> </div> <script src='./assets/js/rotate.js'></script>

</body>

</html> 

I have used CSS keyframes to allow continuous spinning. Below CSS shows the styles used for the image rotation demo.

image-rorate/assets/css/style.css

.image-demo-box { border: #CCC 1px solid; text-align: center; margin: 15px 0px; } input[type=button] { width: 65px; margin-right: 8px; outline: none; background: #f6f5f6;

} input.degree

{ width: 50px;

} #image { margin: 50px auto; border: #f6f5f6 10px solid; width: 200px;

}

.rotate { animation: rotation 8s infinite linear;

} div#slider { border-bottom: 1px solid #c5c5c5;

} #slider .ui-slider-range { background: #c5c5c5; } #rotation-angle { width: 50px; padding: 3px 5px 1px 5px; font-size: 0.8em; text-align: center; border-radius: 2px; outline: none; } .ui-slider-handle.ui-corner-all.ui-state-default { border: 1px solid #c5c5c5; background: #f6f6f6; font-weight: normal; color: #454545;

} @keyframes rotation { from { transform: rotate(0deg); } to { transform: rotate(359deg); }

}

When you click the rotation tool, a jQuery script rotates the image based on the specified angle.

It changes the images’ transform property using jQuery $.css() function.

The rotation slider ranges from 0 to 360 degrees. I have added the rotation script below. It shows how to turn on a jQuery UI slider to rotate an image element.

image-rorate/assets/js/rotate.js

$(document).ready(function() { var rotationAngle; var handle = $("#rotation-angle"); $("#slider").slider({ range : "min", min : 0, max : 360, create : function() { handle.text($(this).slider("value") + " deg"); }, slide : function(event, ui) { $('#image').removeClass('rotate'); rotationAngle = ui.value; handle.text(rotationAngle + " deg"); rotate(rotationAngle); } }); $('#btnSpin').on('click', function() { if ($(this).data('state') == 'off') { spin($(this)); } else { stopSpin($(this)); } }); $('#btnRotate').on('click', function() { $('#image').removeClass('rotate'); rotationAngle = $('#txtInputAngle').val(); rotate(rotationAngle); }); $('#btnRefresh').on('click', function() { $('#image').removeClass('rotate'); rotate(0); });

}); function spin(buttonElement) { $('#image').addClass('rotate'); $("#image").css("animation-play-state", "running"); $(buttonElement).data('state', 'on'); $(buttonElement).val('Stop');

} function stopSpin(buttonElement) { $("#image").css("animation-play-state", "paused"); $(buttonElement).data('state', 'off'); $(buttonElement).val('Spin');

} function rotate(rotationAngle) { if ($('#btnSpin').data('state') == 'on') { stopSpin($('#btnSpin')); } $('#image').css('transform', 'rotate(' + rotationAngle + 'deg)');

}

Apply skew transform

By changing each point of the element in a fixed direction will skew the element. This change will tilt or skews the elements layout based on the specified angle.

The skew transform functions skewX(), skewY(), skewZ() tilting element boxes along with the X, Y, Z axis.

image-skew/index.php

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>

<head>

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">

<link href="../assets/css/phppot-style.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />

<link href="./assets/css/style.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />

<link href="../vendor/jquery/ui/jquery-ui.min.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />

<script src='../vendor/jquery/jquery-3.3.1.js' type='text/javascript'></script>

<script src='../vendor/jquery/ui/jquery-ui.min.js' type='text/javascript'></script>

</head> <body> <div class="phppot-container"> <div class="container"> <div class="image-demo-box"> <div id="slider"> <div id="skew-angle" class="ui-slider-handle"></div> </div> <img src='../sweet.jpg' id='image' /> </div> </div> </div> <script src='./assets/js/skew.js'></script>

</body>

</html>

image-skew/assets/js/skew.js

$(document).ready(function() { var skewAngle; var handle = $("#skew-angle"); $("#slider").slider({ range : "min", min : 0, max : 40, create : function() { handle.text($(this).slider("value") + " deg"); }, slide : function(event, ui) { skewAngle = ui.value; handle.text(skewAngle + " deg"); skew(skewAngle); } }); });

function skew(skewAngle) { $('#image').css('transform', 'skew(' + skewAngle + 'deg)'); }

Conditions and exceptions on applying transform property

The CSS transform property will not work with some UI elements.

For example, table column element <col>, table column group element <col-group>, and more. Those are non-transformable elements.

What are transformable elements?

Most of the UI elements enclosed with the CSS box model are transformable. The following image shows the HTML element layout enclosed by a CSS box model.

Also, renderable graphical elements, clipPath elements are also known as a transformable element.

Importance of respecting system preferences

The system preferences will affect the motion of elements. If your system preferences is set to reduce animation is on, it will omit the animation effect of the above demo.

To respect this settings we have to add a CSS media rule to set the
prefers-reduced-motion. The possible values are no-preferences and reduce.

This media rule with reduce option provides a CSS block to suppress animation.

@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) { .rotate { transform: none; }

}

In the above examples, I have used the media rule to respect the user’s system preferences. You can test this with the demo by enabling the reduced-motion.

Conclusion

We have seen the CSS transform based image editing. This is just a beginning only. This can serve as a bootstrap for building a full fledged image editor.

With CSS transform, we have added JavaScript and enriched the tool. We have also added various motion effects.

I have added most of the template files and the jQuery scripts above. But you can find the complete bundle with the downloadable source code here below.

Download

↑ Back to Top

Remember that only those on Xbox One / Windows 10 / and Android may participate in the Beta builds.  You will not be able to join Realms or non-beta players worlds and you will not be able to open worlds opened in the Beta in earlier/current stable builds of Bedrock.

Performance and Stability

• Fixed crash that could occur when playing an emote and suspending the game (MCPE-73235)

General

• Tweaked arm animation for Brutes, Piglins, and Vindicators that have their weapons removed (MCPE-83581)
• Emotes can no longer be equipped before unlocking them (MCPE-84810)
• Custom skins now work properly on multiplayer (MCPE-48207)

Achievement Screen

• New achievements screen design and added a new achievement details screen (available after gradual roll-out). We would love to hear your feedback on it here in this post!

General

• Custom names now modify boss’s bars (MCPE-43473)
• Fixed bug where system language setting for Simplified and Traditional Chinese was not honored by the game
• Nintendo Switch can now upload worlds to Realms again (REALMS-474) 
  
  • NB – this fix is still in beta so won’t be available for Realms or non-beta platforms yet, but we wanted to give you a heads up this fix is on its way!
• Game no longer crashes if a player opens a Shulker Box they’re standing on after rejoining a multiplayer session
• Fixed issue where some walls were not correctly connected on world load
• Fishing Rod will now correctly cast when close to a Mob (MCPE-65249)
• Fixed an issue that meant the block highlight/selection box was extending above blocks
• Fixed an issue with missing animation when damaging bamboo
• Added Noto Sans font license button and pop-up dialog to Settings screen (in the Profile section)

Graphical

• Fixed a graphical issue with glass blocks in City Living world, that affected some devices on Windows 10
• Fixed an issue with the skybox background graphics not rendering correctly on some devices

Actors

• The “minecraft:behavior.controlled_by_player” goal is now data-driven
• Physics Component’s has_gravity is now used to decide whether a mob should apply water gravity, if the mob does not have a Navigation Component
• Ender Crystals can no longer be pushed
• The Squid’s rendering is now data-driven
• Minecarts are now data-driven. This converted minecart rideable, minecarts with chest, with hopper, with command block, and with TNT to be data-driven

Display Name Component

• Items can now override their display name with a localized ‘value’. If a value is not supplied the component will stay with its default name. If the value supplied is not in the localization file the display name will be the value string

Item Parsing

• Example 1
  
  • any_tag functionality added to several actor components. In addition to representing items as item names in json they can now be represented as a set of tags
  • “item”: {“any_tag”: “food”}
  • “item”: {“any_tag”: [“food”, “wood”]}
  • “bribe_items”: [“emerald”, {“any_tag”: “stone”}]
  • minecraft:ageable feed_items can now use any_tag functionality
  • minecraft:breedable breed_items can now use any_tag functionality
  • minecraft:bribeable bribe_items can now use any_tag functionality
  • minecraft:giveable items can now use any_tag functionality
  • minecraft:healable items can now use any_tag functionality
  • minecraft:tamemount feed_items and auto_reject_items can now use any_tag functionality
  • minecraft:equippable accepted_items can now use any_tag functionality
• Example 2
  
  • looks for “apple” key in the vanilla localization for a string to use as the display text, which it will NOT find a value so the display name will just be “apple”
  • “minecraft:display_name”: {
    “value”: “apple”
    }
• Example 3
  
  • looks for “item.apple.name” key in the vanilla localization for a string to use as the display text, which it will find a value as “Apple”. Note “minecraft:” namespace not required.
  • “minecraft:display_name”: {
    “value”: “item.apple.name”
    }
• Example 4
  
  • looks for a custom string supplied in the resource pack, if not found the display name will be “item.my_namespace:My_Awesome_Item.name”.
  • “minecraft:display_name”: {
    “value”: “item.my_namespace:My_Awesome_Item.name”
    }

To ensure that we can devote our resources to the platforms where most Crafters are playing, we are ending support for certain older devices and platforms where Minecraft is available. Effective in October 2020, Minecraft will no longer be updated or supported on Gear VR, Windows 10 Mobile, Android devices with 768MB of RAM or less, iOS devices running iOS 10 or below, or video cards that only support DirectX 10.1 or below.

If your device is affected, a prompt will appear in-game to let you know if it will no longer receive updates. Please see the article on Minecraft.net for more information.

Nintendo has altered its cancellation policy to let consumers opt-out of digital pre-orders up to one week before launch.

Nintendo would previously charge shoppers as soon as they’d placed a pre-order on the Nintendo eShop, irrespective of when their chosen game was launching.

As highlighted by NintendoLife, however, the company has now quietly tweaked that policy to ensure eShop customers won’t be charged any sooner than seven days before launch, and will also let them “cancel pre-orders up until time of payment.”

“The expected payment date [for pre-orders] is no sooner than seven days before the product is released,” reads the amended policy. “You may cancel your pre’orders up until time of payment.

“You can cancel pre-orders by selecting Shop Menu in your Nintendo Account settings then selecting Your Pre-orders, or by selecting Your Pre-orders in Account Information on Nintendo eShop on your device.”

It’s a small but notable change that gives consumers more freedom when shopping digitally, and one that’s timely as digital sales at Nintendo continue to rise.

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

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[Hi, I’m ‘how people find your game’ expert Simon Carless, and you’re reading the Game Discoverability Now! newsletter, which you can subscribe to now, a regular look at how people discover and buy video games in the 2020s.]

Welcome to the latest Game Discoverabilityland weekly round-up, whereby I go semi-deep on something, follow up on some other things, and end it out with ‘like a thousand other things’ about game discovery/platforms that you might have missed.

Ready? So let’s boogie…

How will the platform wars be fought?

So, Joost Van Dreunen, the ex-head/founder of Superdata Research (who has a game biz book that looks intriguing coming out in October!) has a slightly under-the-radar newsletter, Superjoost (!)

Anyhow, his very interesting thoughts on Epic vs. Apple strayed into some areas I’ve been thinking about a lot. He shared his below infographic on how game platforms pay out, and suggested: “If everyone continues to agree, content creators won’t stand a chance. But all it takes is for one of them to drastically lower their rates, and game makers and audiences will flock to it.”

So here’s my counterthesis to Joost, unfortunately for everyone hoping that royalty percentages for third-party game studios will improve. I do think that the game industry is changing significantly, and platform exclusives can be important (especially on consoles!) But I see two major trends:

• More internally owned game studios at key platforms (see: Xbox’s big studio grab in the last couple of years, Sony saying first-party expansion is important to them, console, Stadia also building out, etc.)

• A move towards a ‘catalog’ first-party games that can be used however the platform wants. It’s a source of continued revenue/profit, & owned high-quality titles can be used for ‘free’ in the game subscription wars of the future (ahem, Xbox Game Pass). There are no bidding wars for content or awkwardness over the developer being bought out, if you own the company making the game.

So I don’t think most large platforms will compete for market share by reducing royalty rates. (I know Epic is trying, but I believe it’s more about ‘fairness’ to Tim Sweeney than for tedious capitalist business reasons.)

Why no store wars this way? It’s (relatively) easy for third-party studios to convert games to other formats, and no single platform can entice devs for exclusives purely on royalty boosts. Even Epic had to use advances against sales as well as royalty changes.

Taking the platform cut from 30% to 20% would be amazing – and I still think large platforms should do it on their lowest revenue tier anyhow. But I see the future as ‘third-parties launch their games on multiple platforms with a 30% cut, and then get incremental revenue from Game Pass-like subscription/bundle deals’.

And when the bundles erode the standalone sales for an average game – and they will – I am hoping and presuming that the platforms will step up their subscription-related payments to compensate. You’re going to do that, right, platforms?

Extra insight: virtual events, Steam followers

There’s been a couple of notable follow-ups to previous newsletters, so I thought I’d group them together here:

The virtual event experience…

After my comments in last week’s round-up on the Indie Arena Booth method of virtual events, “an in-browser experience where you can actually ‘walk’ through dev-designed booths.” I thought it was a super interesting experiment, and they ended up getting 20,000 in-world participants.

When I tried, it, though, some of my thoughts echoed Michael French of Games London’s: “Impressed by what I’ve seen of the Indie Arena Booth interface, but still jarring to get kicked to various other places/apps – Discord, Steam, YouTube – which all opened at jumpy points. Guess there’s still no solution to this in the short term when it comes to events.”

He concluded: “Ultimately my ‘trip’ (opening a new tab in Chrome) to ‘Gamescom’ (opening the Indie Arena website) this year felt a lot like playing WorldsAway on Compuserve back in ’94/’95 – sparsely populated, system and bandwidth heavy, and a little unsatisfying.”

I think I attended early on and there were more people, but I would broadly agree. Not that I have a better idea, because recreating a real event in virtual space is darn tricky.

The things I think worked the best in GDC (virtual) Summer involved a lot of interactive text chat with speakers whose pre-recorded talk videos were playing at the same time. And that speedruns with devs idea (not mine!) was great. But that doesn’t solve the ‘interact with exhibitors’ issue. But it’ll evolve alongside hybrid events…

How followers could help discern wishlist quality…

My latest newsletter on how we need to take Steam wishlist quality more seriously got a very useful response from Erik Johnson of The IndieBros, who’ve done marketing, community management & other business services for games like RimWorld & the Cook, Serve, Delicious! franchise.

He suggested that another broad way of working out wishlist quality is looking at Steam followers to wishlists as a ratio, noting: “For example, Ruinarch before its big surge in publicity had a ratio of 4:1, a low ratio of wishlisters to followers. Whereas there was a game that launched a while back called WarriOrb that did quite badly from its 16K wishlists built up – however, this game has a ratio of 16:1.”

I actually had a paragraph about this in my original newsletter which I deleted, because I sometimes track SteamDB’s upcoming follower counts, and there’s been some weird anomalies.

But thinking about it again, it’s a valid point. Followers seem to come when there’s ‘interested parties’ browsing around the site. So it seems likely they will be higher quality compared to ‘one off click bookmark-y when grabbing demo’ style wishlists. So… another metric to take into account – could followers be a more accurate metric for launch sales than wishlists nowadays? It’d be fascinating if so.

Other stuff…

Here’s a number of other game discoverability and/or platform things that you might be unaware of. But you are now! Uh, aware of them that is, not unaware of them…

• Spiritfarer’s main menu has a ‘sign up for newsletter’ option which gives you a free eBook if you give them your email. Different platforms have different rules on this. But for those that allow it, it seems like in-game incentives like this are a great idea for building audience.

• There’s a couple of new 5 minute videos on the Steamworks Development YouTube channel, dealing with approaches to wishlists and ways to approach Steam Early Access. Handy. BTW, there’s ‘no magic number’ for wishlists to get bonus Steam marketing – confirmed!

• Here’s an interesting point made by Richard East relating to this newsletter’s lead story – Switch royalty rates are actually closer to 25% than 30%, because 5% of Switch eShop spend is returned as coins that expire after 12 months, so Nintendo pays for up to 5% of eShop spend. (I wonder what % are redeemed?)

• The Alpha version of GameDataCrunch is now available – here’s the page for Descenders, for example. It looks like a fun time for people who like to research tag browsing and ranking in a very, very ‘here’s what the actual data says’ way, in ways you can’t do on Steam.

• The Nintendo eShop has added how many days left a discount is available for as part of its default view. (I think it might start with X days to go, not at the beginning of the sale?) A little more impetus to buy during sales since you can see when it ‘runs out’, but still a very sale-centric universe on Switch.

• Interesting to see Apple introducing App Store changes, including this one: “For apps that are already on the App Store, bug fixes will no longer be delayed over guideline violations except for those related to legal issues.” On some consoles, getting important patches hung up on small errors that were always in the build has sometimes been an issue! (More rapid/instant patching for all systems, please?)

• Microlinks: Sony talking about bringing more first-party titles to PC (RIP the Steam topseller charts for indies, thanks Microsoft, Sony, and EA!), how the Wholesome Games showcases came about, great Richie de Wit-authored Twitter thread on remembering to factor post-launch sales/recoup into your budget.

Finally, quoting myself on Twitter this week: “Interesting to note the games featured in Nintendo’s latest Indie World showcase – many launching shortly afterwards – doing well in U.S. Switch eShop digital charts. Conclusion: Indie World + immediate Switch launch can be a good blitz marketing tactic.” Indie World games highlighted in green: