Happy new year, Polygon readers! Each week, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.
17.12.2023 - 17:13 / polygon.com
For the past week, I’ve been watching Goodreads drama happen in what feels like slow motion. Debut author Cait Corrain admitted to fabricating at least six Goodreads user accounts, and leaving negative reviews (including one-star ratings) of other debut authors’ books — many of whom were authors of color. On Monday, her publisher dropped her book Crown of Starlight, and Corrain posted a mea culpa on X (formerly Twitter).
The coordinated efforts of fans and authors helped expose Corrain’s review bombing. Last week, Iron Widow author Xiran Jay Zhao tweeted a thread noting a series of one-star reviews on debut science fiction and fantasy authors’ Goodreads accounts, without naming any names. They also shared a 31-page document of unknown origin (which Polygon reviewed) that contained screenshots of accounts that added Crown of Starlight to a number of most-anticipated lists, and left one-star reviews on forthcoming books by Kamilah Cole, Frances White, Bethany Baptiste, Molly X. Chang, R.M. Virtues, K.M. Enright, and others.
This once again brings Goodreads’ moderation issues to the fore. When reached for comment, a Goodreads spokesperson sent Polygon a statement: “Goodreads takes the responsibility of maintaining the authenticity and integrity of ratings and protecting our community of readers and authors very seriously. We have clear reviews and community guidelines, and we remove reviews and/or accounts that violate these guidelines.” The company added, regarding Corrain’s one-star reviews, “The reviews in question have been removed.” Goodreads community guidelines state that members should not “misrepresent [their] identity or create accounts to harass other members” and that “artificially inflating or deflating a book’s ratings or reputation violates our rules.” But it doesn’t explain how those guidelines are enforced.
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Goodreads also pointed Polygon to an Oct. 30 post about “authenticity of ratings and reviews,” which said the company “strengthened account verification to block potential spammers,” expanded its customer service team, and added more ways for members to report “problematic content.” The company addressed review bombing and “launched the ability to temporarily limit submission of ratings and reviews on a book during times of unusual activity that violate our guidelines.”
Ostensibly, these measures were put in place after several especially high-profile instances of review bombing on the platform this year. But these new tools did not prevent Corrain from review bombing authors in November and December. The guidelines, including the October one, ask users to “report” content that “breaks our rules,” seemingly shifting responsibility onto the user base. It’s past time for
Happy new year, Polygon readers! Each week, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.
France's antitrust regulator, Autorité de la Concurrence, has handed Japanese tech giant Sony a fine of 13.5 million Euros ($14.8 million) after finding it used its dominant position to corner the market, specifically in the realm of third-party PS4 controller manufacture.
The Xbox Series S Toaster is somehow a real product that you can buy right now.
Gloriously grim stealth game A Plague Tale: Innocence - you know, that game with the rats - is currently free to keep over on the Epic Games Store. If you’ve somehow missed it before now, it’s well worth playing in my opinion - especially for the low price of nothing.
The Epic Games Store's holiday celebrations have extended into the New Year, with 2024's third free game being . It's available to download for free starting January 3, 2024, at 11 AM ET, and will be redeemable for 24 hours, at which point it will be replaced by the next day's offering. follows EGS's free game for January 2, .
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Following a drawn-out legal dispute with original publisher Nacon, Ukrainian studio Frogwares has announced that it is now the one true publisher of the Lovecraft-inspired detective adventure The Sinking City, and that a new version of the game «with all the latest bug fixes and optimizations» is coming soon.
The upcoming Star Wars Outlaws open-world adventure from Massive Entertainment is easily one of the most exciting projects on Ubisoft’s upcoming slate, but the French publisher has been somewhat sketchy about when the game may launch. The broad release window we’ve been given in 2024, but recent Ubisoft financial statements hinted an early 2024 release may have been pushed back.
Sony has been fined €13.5 million ($14.8 million) over claims that it damaged third-party PlayStation 4 controllers via a system update. French regulator Autorité de la Concurrence says that Sony abused its position in the industry to hurt the reputation of unofficial PS4 controllers, limiting their success.
Cryptocurrency market: Bitcoin price rose 3% to break above $45,000 on Tuesday for the first time since April 2022 as the world's biggest and best-known cryptocurrency started 2024 with a bang. Bitcoin rose to touch a 21-month high of $45,386 earlier in the day and was last up 2% at $44,980. Ether, the coin linked to the ethereum blockchain network, was 1% higher at $2,376.
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It was a comeback year for the world's wealthiest. The combined net worth of the 500 richest people surged by $1.5 trillion in 2023, fully rebounding from the $1.4 trillion lost the year prior, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Once again, their fortunes were closely correlated to the performance of tech stocks, which rose to fresh records this year despite recession fears, lingering inflation, lofty interest rates, and geopolitical turmoil. Tech billionaires saw their wealth grow by 48% or $658 billion, propelled by intense hype around artificial intelligence. No one did better than Elon Musk, who recaptured the title of world's richest person from French luxury tycoon Bernard Arnault. The Tesla Inc. chief executive officer netted an additional $95.4 billion through Thursday's close, bolstered by the success of Tesla and SpaceX, after losing $138 billion in 2022. His net worth is now more than $50 billion above Arnault's after a global slowdown in demand for luxury goods dented shares of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE.