Four Vita indie games get discounted for PS Plus members

by Matt Liebl, GameZone, Posted Aug 19th 2013 1:30PM

As sort of an end-of-summer consolation, Sony is discounting four games, set to launch over the next four weeks, as part of the PS Vita Summer Select -- just another of the PlayStation Store's many sales throughout the year.

"Over the next four weeks, we're shining the spotlight on some great independent developers by bringing you a new indie title each week," Sony's digital distribution senior manager Pierre Gravereau said. "Check out some of the most unique gaming experiences coming to PS Vita, including Derek Yu's beloved Spelunky, and two-button fighterDivekick. The first game drops tomorrow, so prepare to spend some serious time with your PS Vita!"

PS Plus members will receive a 20% discount on each game during its launch week and all four games are Cross-Buy approved, meaning you can play them on Vita and/or PS3. Below is the lineup of games for the PS Vita Summer Select:

Divekick - $9.99 $7.99 (8/20 through 8/26)Spelunky - $14.99 $11.99 (8/27 through 9/22)Kickbeat - $9.99 $7.99 (9/3 through 9/9)Dragon Fantasy: Book II - $14.99 $11.99 (9/10 through 9/16)
To read more, go to GameZone>Tags: divekick, dragon fantasy, Four Vita indie games get discounted for PS Plus members, games discount, kickbeat, ps plus, ps plus discount, ps plus free games, ps plus indie games, ps plus members, ps plus subscription, ps plus vita, ps vita, ps vita 3g, ps vita gameplay, ps vita games, ps vita news, ps vita sell, ps-vita, ps-vita-1.69, ps-vita-games, psplusindiegames, psplusvita, spelunky, spelunky-hd, spelunky-minis

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Facebook to bring back option to invite all group members to events

Users will once again be able to send event invites to all members of a group, a Facebook spokesperson tells us.

Sometime in the past few weeks, the social network removed the option to directly invite an entire group to an event. Users could only send invitations to users they were connected to as friends. Facebook tells us the reasoning was that creating an event within the group environment generates a notification for users who have group notifications enabled. However, many users were frustrated with the change because their events were no longer getting the same amount of traction among group members.

Facebook says it decided to bring back the feature for all groups as a result of the feedback. The change is expected to go live later today.

People who use Facebook groups for promoting events are likely to appreciate the return in functionality, but they should be mindful of sending invites that members might perceive as spam. The social network often removes features that are abused in this way. For example, Facebook pages can no longer send updates or event invites to fans’ inboxes.

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Facebook Notifies Admins That Content but Not Members of Most Old Groups Will Be Migrated

Facebook has begun notifying admins of old groups that much of the content of these community discussion spaces will be archived — in other words migrated to the new Groups feature. However, group members won’t be ported unless the Page is eligible to upgrade instead of archive. Facebook is recommending admins save their old group content before the upgrade or archive, though it doesn’t specify how.

When Facebook launched the new Groups feature in October, it stated that old groups could not be upgraded to new Groups, and that no additional old groups could be created. It soon began the deprecation process for old groups, burying their bookmarks and navigation interface. However, last week alongside the launch of the Send button, it announced some relatively small, active old groups would receive the option to be upgraded into new Groups and keep their members.

Now when admins visit their old groups that don’t qualify for an upgrade, they’ll see a prompt at the top of the screen explaining the archiving process. Old groups will have their photos, wall posts, discussion threads (which will become wall posts), and group descriptions migrated, but not their “recent news”, group officer titles, info box, group network, or members.

Admins of archived old groups will have to re-add their current members, so therefore they should manually copy down the names of their members to facilitate the invite process if they want to reactive the group.

A Help Center article linked to in the notice explains the different migration process for those admins who receive the option to upgrade their old groups. They’ll see an “Upgrade This Group” prompt at the top of the old group, and members will also be able ask the admin to carry out the upgrade. All the same content will be ported over as is with old group archiving, except group members will automatically be added to the new Group.

There is no way for old group admins or members to request the upgrade option instead of the archive option. Facebook may have already decided which old groups will receive which option, so it may be futile to try to ramp up activity in an old group in hopes of attaining the upgrade option.

Overall, Facebook has done a good job of giving advance notice of the deprecation process for old groups and clearly explaining how it will be completed. It could better explain that “saving” old group content really means writing it down or copy and pasting it, though.

With key content being preserved to avoid a backlash, the only thing users have to gripe about is not having their members ported. And since new Group content can trigger notifications and appear in the news feed, it makes sense for Facebook not create an opportunity for spammers by forcibly adding users to the new version of a group that hasn’t been active in years.

[Thanks to Jim Hanas, Director of Social Media at Sonnet Media for the tip]

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CityVille: Sign up for daily emails offering free energy, crew members and more

by Brandy Shaul, Posted Apr 20th 2011 7:55PM

While most other Zynga games already offer a daily email rewards program, offering you items like free fuel in FarmVille or free energy in FrontierVille, the developer has launched a similar email system in CityVille, allowing users to be rewarded daily just for playing the game (and for giving Zynga permission to email you).

There's a catch here though - a good one, at that. Instead of being sent a random item, or just a single item that doesn't change everyday, you'll be able to choose your reward via the pop-up menu above, that you'll see when logging into the game itself. From there, just choose whether you'd like to receive free Energy, crew for one of your buildings, a building ingredient, or even a mystery item.

It doesn't seem as though you'll be locked into that choice though, as Zynga has shown off an image stating that you'll be given the option to choose yet again when receiving your email. If this does turn out to be the case, you'll be able to choose one price on Monday, a different prize for Tuesday, and so on and so forth depending on your current needs at the time. It's a nice setup, to be sure, but it only helps to further confirm that we're apparently stuck with the energy system the way it is, whether we like it or not.

What do you think? Which of these prizes will you most likely choose as your daily reward? Let us know in the comments.

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Tags: cityville, cityville daily email, cityville email, daily email, email bonus, free energy, zynga

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