Gamer-Island

The store has a new Creator Center: open it from the shop sidebar to see everything you have made, what it has sold, what you've earned, and where any pending items sit in the moderation queue.

Making items is friendlier all round, and there are a lot of improvements around uploading. Similarly, groups no longer demand a perfectly sized square image. Upload whatever you have and we will crop it for you.

We also put together a history of Gamer-Island going back to 2011, with screenshots dug out of some very old backups. Have a read at gamer-island.com/history. And the forum has new sections for video games and board games, so go argue about your favourites.

You can now trade with other islanders! Open someone's profile, hit Trade, and offer your limited items and bux for theirs. Limited items also have a Market on their item page, where owners can offer their exact copy (serial number and all) for sale and anyone can snap it up.

Cash received through trades and market sales is taxed 15%, or just 10% for Island Club members. The trade screen shows you exactly what you'll receive before you agree, so there are no surprises.

Gamer-Island now has a membership: the Island Club. Members get a stack of perks, and the list has been growing by the day:

• Three exclusive profile themes: Sunset Lagoon, Abyssal Depths and Arcade Nights
• The Island Club rank while you're a member, and a member badge that stays forever
• Lifetime members earn an exclusive glowing badge
• Double the daily login bonus, with streaks building to day 7 instead of 5
• A 100 bux stipend every month of membership, no login required
• The Members Lounge, a members-only corner of the forum
• Your name shimmers gold across the island
• Your items and groups jump the moderation queue, and your trade offers appear first
• Lower market tax: 10% instead of 15% on cash you receive
• Longer memberships earn gift months to give to friends: one for a three-month term, three for a year

Memberships are currently granted by the crew while we finish the payment side. Watch this space!

It was discovered that a long-standing bug let the daily login bonus pay out more than once a day, and a few balances grew far beyond what was intended. The bug has been fixed, the affected balances corrected, and items bought with the extra bux returned to the store, with every change itemised in the affected players' transaction histories and personal messages. Everyone's account now sits where it would if the bug had never existed. Thanks for keeping the island fair.

We've spent real time making the site quick.

• Avatars and images are processed with a much faster engine - rendering an avatar is now around ten times quicker than before
• Big lists like the members page load in smoothly as you scroll, instead of all at once
• We hunted down and cut a pile of behind-the-scenes slowdowns

Logging in and searching are more forgiving too: your username is no longer case-sensitive, and searches across members, the store and groups ignore capital letters.