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Webkinz deleted your account, but the mobile app provides a new future

If you're familiar with Webkinz, the plush toys that were popular in the mid-2000s and had a corresponding online world, you may sometimes wonder...

Zynga sued over Draw Something and Words With Friends 2019 data breach

2 people have actually submitted a class-action grievance versus Zynga following a 2019 data breach that reportedly affected more than 172 million people Zynga...

Steam is experiencing a partial blackout, consisting of the Store and Community portals

Valve’s Steam platform appears to be having a partial outage. Users are currently having difficulty reaching the Store and Community pages. An unnofficial website that monitors publicly available data shows the service is recovering, but still has less than half of its connections available. Polygon has reached out to Valve for comment. It’s unclear if…

Facebook expects to launch oversight board this summer

Facebook expects its long-simmering oversight board to begin hearing cases this summer, with board members to be announced “in the coming months.” The announcement came on Tuesday, as the company released a set of recommended bylaws for the body and gave new details about how it will be structured. According to Facebook governance director Brent…
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Xbox Games With Gold provides Myth Heroes, Call of Cthulhu in February

Xbox Live Gold subscribers and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers will get access to four free games in February as part of those subscriptions, thanks to Xbox Games With Gold, including ‪Cyanide Studio’s Call of Cthulhu on Xbox One and Lionhead Studios’ Fable Heroes on Xbox 360. Rounding out the list of free games for…

Why cancer-spotting AI requires to be handled with care

These days, it might seem like algorithms are out-diagnosing doctors at every turn, identifying dangerous lesions and dodgy moles with the unerring consistency only a machine can muster. Just this month, Google generated a wave of headlines with a study showing that its AI systems can spot breast cancer in mammograms more accurately than doctors.…

Witcher spin-off Thronebreaker gets here on Nintendo Change today

Just over a month after announcing the end of support for Gwent: The Witcher Card Game on consoles, CD Projekt Red will launch another Witcher spin-off for the Nintendo Switch. Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales arrives on the hybrid console on Jan. 28. Gwent itself has an interesting history. Originally implemented as a mini-game inside The…

How video game designers make the best noises

Everything sounds better in video games. This summer, I became hyper-conscious of the sound of gathering, or looting, or “picking things up.” I was editing a gameplay video from an pre-release build of The Outer Worlds, and I heard this Sound. To be fair, it’s several sounds all played in succession, when the player loots…
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The mass Twitch exodus: Why streamers are leaving

A few years ago, if you were a streamer, you were on Twitch — simple as that. Outside of a few select content creators, everyone who wanted to be a streamer had to use Twitch’s platform. It was the only viable game in town. But over the last year, the streaming landscape has changed. Twitch…

Spaceship Earth reveals the goodness hidden in the ordeal of Biosphere 2

Polygon’s entertainment team is on the ground at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, bringing you first looks at what are sure to be some of the year’s best blockbuster-alternative offerings. Here’s what you need to know before these indie films make their way to theaters, streaming services, and the cinematic zeitgeist. Logline: Documentarian Matt Wolf…

Studio Ghibli films will hit Netflix internationally next month– simply not in North America

Netflix is the new home of the Studio Ghibli collection, the company announced out of Singapore on Monday. But if you live in North America, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Beginning on Feb. 1, 21 films from the Studio Ghibli collection will begin rolling out on the streaming service globally — excluding the U.S., Canada,…

How World of Warcraft was born from turmoil

When John Staats landed his first job in the game industry, he was surprised to learn he’d be working — in a central role — on one of the biggest games ever made. His new employer was Blizzard Entertainment, and this was early 2001. The project was a top-secret MMO based on fantasy real-time strategy…
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Ubisoft files suit against Rainbow Six Siege DDoS assaulters

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege publisher Ubisoft has filed a lawsuit against the owners of an alleged distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack website. Multiple people from across the globe are listed in the lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in a California court and obtained by Polygon. DDoS attacks in Rainbow Six Siege have been a big…

Overwatch’s Lunar New Year begins today, with all-new skins

Overwatch’s annual Lunar New Year event kicks off today, Jan. 16, with a batch of fresh skins and a semi-new game mode called Capture the Flag Blitz available in the game’s arcade. Lunar New Year will run through Feb. 6 in Overwatch. Players will get access to seven new skins during Overwatch Lunar New Year.…

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is an OK game, but a terrific DBZ experience

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot takes the Dragon Ball Z video game franchise where it’s always needed to go: into the filler. The outside world may see the Dragon Ball Z series as an explosive, ridiculous anime all about punches, energy balls, screaming, and power levels over 9,000. Fans certainly recognize that a good, over-the-top battle…

Mobius Final Fantasy players devastated by server shutdown

Square Enix will shut down Mobius Final Fantasy’s global servers on June 30, the mobile game’s operations team announced on Jan. 15. Players received notice this morning that the game’s “Warrior of Despair” story will conclude with the server shutdown in June. “It is with heavy heart that we must now bring you this sad…
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