Prizee: The French Flash portal so big it had its own themed restaurant and then sank hard

PS: Since today there are no news, I have decided to share an article about a lesser known F2P Flash games platform from the times before WoT, a place that I still miss to this day (including its spin-offs like Blobzone). You can find certain similarities with WG, such as „friendly” gambling. All in all an interesting read, I hope. You can also read our 5 year old article about Club Penguin’s death.

Source (Author:ToulouTouMou)

We cannot deny the link between the boom of free-to-play games and the democratization of Internet access. Since they were free content on the Internet, people tried to find ways to monetize them, and naturally this extended to videogames. Many companies attempted to make profits out of free games (see my article about Studio Tanuki), and often ended up going out of business without making any impact on the cultural landscape whatsoever.

But, in the pioneering years of the Internet, there were one website that managed to stay online for almost two decades, still is remembered to this day, and changed the Internet as a whole: Prizee

If you were a French-speaking teenager during the first half of the 2000s, you have certainly already heard of Prizee. It was the biggest free gaming website of its era, gathering an immense community of players around addictive Flash games, kid-friendly mascots and intricate monetization systems. Years before the debates about microtransactions and loot boxes, this website made literally millions of euros out of free-to-play games promising physical rewards to players.

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The Curious Ideas of Yoh – Part 2

Source: EU Portal

Welcome back to our second and final part of this miniseries about the history behind the new American heavy tanks. Make sure to check out Part 1 for our first look at the curious designs and proposals by the H.L. Yoh company that inspired the new Tech Tree branch.

Part 2 will take us further along the sometimes bizarre ideas they proposed to the U.S. Army in the 1950s. Let’s explore the grand plans and wonders of Yoh, including the original concepts of reserve tracks, one of the few feasible ideas now in the game!

The Automatic Gun

A concept for a revolving magazine that housed various rounds of 105 mm ammunition. The commander or loader would rotate the magazine until the desired shell type was in line with the gun. A plunger housing the firing mechanism then moved the shell into the gun chamber and locked in place to provide obturation. As the projectile moved forward when fired, it passed a port permitting gas pressure to unlock a breech plunger. Some of the remaining gas pressure forced the empty casing back into the magazine with the breech plunger behind it. The gun would then be ready to receive the next round.

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