It appears that today the government has shut down MegaUpload for copyright infringement.  MegaUpload is one of the sites that we recommend using when you upload your games to the internet.  With MegaUpload down, that is one less site to use.   It appears it will be down for awhile, if not forever.  The owners of the site got into serious legal issues.

[quote]

The Department of Justice announced Thursday that it has conducted a major action to shut down MegaUpload, a popular file-sharing site widely used for free downloads of movies and television shows.

After receiving indictments from a grand jury in Virginia for racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and other charges on Jan. 5, federal authorities on Thursday arrested four people and executed more than 20 search warrants in the U.S. and eight foreign countries, seizing 18 domain names and an estimated $50 million in assets, including servers run in Virginia and Washington, D.C.

[/quote] From:  http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2012/01/file-sharing-megaupload-shut-down-for-piracy-by-feds.html

Just want to note, this has nothing to do with SOPA.  SOPA would allow the government to shut down sites without a trial.   MegaUpload had a trial, that is good.

But what is bad, is that there is now legal precedence developing that could one day allow the government to shut down our site or other sites which allow users to share and upload their files.  It is times like this I worry about people who upload games with copyrighted materials in them, such as music, or ripped resources.

Sure we are small scale and we will probably never get noticed, but it is a concern none the less.

If you have any files hosted on MegaUpload posted on this site, be sure to upload them to another site and update your records, as MegaUpload is now offline.

EDIT:

It appears that the reason the website for the Justice department and Universal Music Group (which had been involved in litigation with MegaUpload) were taken down today by members of the hacker group Anonymous in response to the actions against MegaUpload, according to a report on CNET News.   Wow.  Cyber warfare!

thephantom2012-01-19 19:00:25

In the last week many great things have happened!

Community news

Games in Development

• Ryan has started work on a new game called Bewildered, it is inspired by Portal and is a puzzle game.   
• Dracona started work on another project called Age of Ice: The Titan Reborn , it appears to be made in RMVX and is the first game in the "Tempurian Chronicles".  
• Ankhranum is working on a new game called Bio-Jaga.  It is inspired by Bionicles and appears to be a fully 3D game.
• Skullbox conintues to work on Beasts and Pirates, which is an online game for both PC and Mac where you can control a team of creatures and fight other people in combat, inspired by Pokemon, and it is made in Java.

Writing Workshop

• Tigurus has begin writing a book of poems called Tigsy-Kun's Book of Secrets.

Scripting Workshop

• Tigurus is hard at work giving you the latest in RMXP scripts with updates to both his
  [RMXP] Battle Borders  and   [RMXP]Borders Around Actors Menu
  

New Role Plays in the RPG Garden:

• Mike created an Out of Character thread called RP OOC
  
• Mike's Pandora - post contemporary set in the year 2024 set in a world of monsters and magic
  
• Dracy's The Master's Law - medevil fantasy world, create kingdoms, complete with dragons, golems, and trolls
  

Other things around the forum:

• A special happy birthday to Ryan!
• The Game Room - full of forum games, seems to be coming back into popularity.  Join in on the fun.  Note: the Game Room does not increase your forum score or SP.
• Members of the site are joining together and exchanging their gaming information on various platforms to start playing together - Gaming
• Active blogs:    Lags Log: Morning Lescue!, RyBlog.txt,  and  Jedi's Blog of Stuff

Chat Room is still popping!  Try different hours of the day.  Sometimes many people are in there at once!  To find the site's chat room click the "Chat Room" tab above the forum.


New content added!

2 games,  1 tutorial,  1 resource, and 1 download


For anyone who was a member of phanxgames, you may remember this (started making it about 4 years ago, then forgot about it for a while lol). I am still planning on releasing it. Most of the game engine is done, just need to work out a few parts. The full game will feature a total of 5 cases. I will release the game once the first case is finished, and release updates as I get further cases done.

http://www.gmaker.org/games/view.asp?id=269





Create a bank in your game that allows you to deposit, withdraw, and check your bank amount.

http://www.gmaker.org/tutorials/view.asp?id=271






This script makes borders around the actors during the battle.
Just like the border menu it's based on.

http://www.gmaker.org/resources/view.asp?id=273









http://www.gmaker.org/games/view.asp?id=274







thephantom2012-01-09 11:04:03

Up until recently we have been pretty well financially.  We have had a steady flow of money coming in from other websites we have been hosting.  Several clients have dropped out recently do to their need to no longer need web hosting, and this has created a burden on us to cover the areas that they once paid. 

The banner advertisements on the site currently cover about $5/month, and a few remaining clients cover about $45/month.    We are left with $10/month that we must now cover ourselves.    I have been pulling the money out of the gMaker.org Treasury account from past donations over the years.  But this account was designed to buy future site features, licenses, and give back to the community through special awards.   

The Treasury is now almost gone.  I will use my own money if I have to to pay for the site for a while, but I currently don't have a job, and I can't afford to pay for the site myself.

Please help out! Help us raise $120 by next year!  ($10/month)

Note: We may need to increase this once the site starts growing, as we may need to upgrade our servers.


Benefits to donating!

• Receive the special donators badge on your profile (once the new profile system is created) to let everyone know you donated!
• Have your name forever listed on the Donators page.
  
• Gain access to the exclusive donators forum
  
• Plus more benefits as time goes on, you will also be eligible for!
  

Check out our fundraiser page!
https://www.wepay.com/donations/gmaker_hosting


Want to make the site a free $20? 
Sign up to WePay with my referral link, and setup your own donation box!  Once your donation box gets money gMaker.org will get $20, you will get $10, and we are both the happier!  The perfect way to help the site and help your school, or your club in real life collect online donations!  Let's work together!
gMaker.org referral link:  https://www.wepay.com/x5nwpv


Thank you for your support!


thephantom2011-12-23 12:59:01

Check out our new parody commercial based on the official RMVX commercial found here!