After a challenging year in 2016, crowdfunding for games rose sharply on Kickstarter this year. That’s according to a tweet from Luke Crane, head of games at the leading crowdfunding platform. In 2016, Kickstarter crowdfunding as a whole was down significantly with 5.8 percent less in backer revenue than the year before. Video games in particular were hit hard, with a nearly 60 percent decline. It’s not known at this time what the breakdown is within the games category, with regard to video game

Spider-Man: Homecoming was funny, touching, promising and, with the help of Tony Stark, further connected the webslinger to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That twist helps Homecoming stick out from Marvel movies before it, and the other superhero movies this year. But for the first time in over a decade, I am excited for another Spider-Man movie. Spider-Man: Homecoming isn’t one of the more daring superhero movies of the year, and it’s not one of the more avant-garde. Spider-Man: Homecoming felt

Amazon is running a one-day-only sale in honor of “Digital Day,” offering shoppers one last chance of the 2017 holiday season to get in on some discounts. Starting tonight at midnight ET until midnight ET on Saturday, Dec. 30, the online retailer will sell a variety of games from the past 12 months and beyond at steep discounts. We’ve singled out 25 of the best deals, which you can find below. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may ea

Amazon is running a one-day-only sale in honor of “Digital Day,” offering shoppers one last chance of the 2017 holiday season to get in on some discounts. Starting tonight at midnight ET until midnight ET on Saturday, Dec. 30, the online retailer will sell a variety of games from the past 12 months and beyond at steep discounts. We’ve singled out 25 of the best deals, which you can find below. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may ea

With the release of Alpha Patch 3.0.0, Star Citizen’s persistent universe (PU) has received a major upgrade. When you drop into the PU, you’re placed on board the Port Olisar space station, above the planet Crusader. The color choices and various bugs in the display mean you can hardly read it at times. All of these bugs were found, with evidence of them being repeatable either in part or in whole, on the Star Citizen bug-tracking system. Right now, Star Citizen’s other features, including its i

With the release of Alpha Patch 3.0.0, Star Citizen’s persistent universe (PU) has received a major upgrade. When you drop into the PU, you’re placed on board the Port Olisar space station, above the planet Crusader. The color choices and various bugs in the display mean you can hardly read it at times. All of these bugs were found, with evidence of them being repeatable either in part or in whole, on the Star Citizen bug-tracking system. Right now, Star Citizen’s other features, including its i

George Lucas wrote and re-wrote the original script for the first Star Wars film, and he barely seemed to know how to tell the story or where it would take him. Paul Hirsch edited the film, but you rarely hear his name when people talk about the quality of the first film. The creators of the video even had to state in the comments that they weren’t trying to attack Lucas. “That was never the goal, nor the intent of this video,” they wrote. “It should go without saying that George Lucas supervise

George Lucas wrote and re-wrote the original script for the first Star Wars film, and he barely seemed to know how to tell the story or where it would take him. Paul Hirsch edited the film, but you rarely hear his name when people talk about the quality of the first film. The creators of the video even had to state in the comments that they weren’t trying to attack Lucas. “That was never the goal, nor the intent of this video,” they wrote. “It should go without saying that George Lucas supervise

Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland has a new PlayStation VR game from Crows Crows Crows and Squanch Games, and what better way to get the word out than a hype track with some of the best SoundCloud rappers? “WhosThatInTheTree” is a song about a mysterious creature in Accounting+, shown in the video above, who hides in a tree. The video that accompanies the song takes place entirely in-game, and Roiland can be heard voicing the creature throughout. Roiland is joined by game developer Willia

Sonic Mania remixes the franchise’s legacy with creative surprises, like a DJ breathing new life into a classic track with modern elements. The fight plays on decades of Sonic games, subverting expectations while also rewarding folks like me who remember the series’ many diversions. By the end of the act, I had regained the muscle memory of classic Sonic games. Previous Sonic games have the odd flow of hurrying through acts to an awkward conclusion. In Sonic Mania, that destination is just as en

Spider-Man: Homecoming was funny, touching, promising and, with the help of Tony Stark, further connected the webslinger to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That twist helps Homecoming stick out from Marvel movies before it, and the other superhero movies this year. But for the first time in over a decade, I am excited for another Spider-Man movie. Spider-Man: Homecoming isn’t one of the more daring superhero movies of the year, and it’s not one of the more avant-garde. Spider-Man: Homecoming felt

Before Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk came out this summer, the director spoke about how much influence the movie took from the bygone era of silent films. A new edit of Dunkirk from YouTuber “Like Stories of Old” reimagines Nolan’s war epic as an eight-minute silent film, removing all of that unnecessary dialogue and exposition. The goal was to showcase how powerful Nolan’s directing and shaping of the film was; how conversation was an added bonus for Dunkirk viewers but not necessary. Nolan said

Marvel Create Your Own is a digital platform that will give users the ability to create their own comics using Marvel Characters, kinda. Put it all together and users will be able to make their own comics with Marvel Characters and share them with other users of the app (and anybody who wants to look at screenshots of the app, presumably). Everything created on the app will belong to Marvel Comics, according to the terms of service — a pretty common clause for any service inviting fans to create

Okay, so we may be emotionally done with 2017, but technically there are still a couple days left. YOUR HOSTSThe Polygon Show will be available for you to listen to every Friday on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher. If you like what you hear, don’t forget to rate and review The Polygon Show on Apple Podcasts — seriously, every little bit helps! Have any serious or just plain strange questions that you want answered on the show? Email us at polygonshow@polygon.com and we might read it on the next episo

Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, the survival shooter that has emerged as the most popular PC game of the year, has just beaten its own record for most concurrent players. Early this morning Battlegrounds eclipsed 3 million players. To put that into perspective, the game in second place right now, Dota 2, has only ever had a maximum of 1.29 million players at one time. But it didn’t hit 1 million concurrent players until September. The move into China, as well as the launch of the formal 1.0 versi

Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, the survival shooter that has emerged as the most popular PC game of the year, has just beaten its own record for most concurrent players. Early this morning Battlegrounds eclipsed 3 million players. To put that into perspective, the game in second place right now, Dota 2, has only ever had a maximum of 1.29 million players at one time. But it didn’t hit 1 million concurrent players until September. The move into China, as well as the launch of the formal 1.0 versi

Nintendo Switch has had a huge December over in Japan, with nearly 900,000 systems sold by Dec. 24. Based on the most recent cumulative sales data from Famitsu, the country’s biggest gaming publication, Nintendo has now sold just under 3.3 million Switch consoles in its homeland — both edging out PlayStation 2’s first-year sales numbers and matching Wii U’s lifetime sales to date. But while the Switch sold an impressive 520,000 units in its first month, the PS2 blasted it away: Sony sold almost

Nintendo Switch has had a huge December over in Japan, with nearly 900,000 systems sold by Dec. 24. Based on the most recent cumulative sales data from Famitsu, the country’s biggest gaming publication, Nintendo has now sold just under 3.3 million Switch consoles in its homeland — both edging out PlayStation 2’s first-year sales numbers and matching Wii U’s lifetime sales to date. But while the Switch sold an impressive 520,000 units in its first month, the PS2 blasted it away: Sony sold almost

The Crew 2PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox OneA sequel to Ubisoft’s open-world auto-racer from 2014, this isn’t just about racing cars. Dragon Ball FighterZPlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox OneArriving on Jan. 26, Dragon Ball FighterZ is a 2.5D fighter from Arc System Works. ExtinctionPlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox OneDeveloper Iron Galaxy is best known for fighting games like Killer Instinct and Divekick. Grasshopper Manufacture’s combat game will once again star Travis Touchdown, the star of the

To find one of Pokémon Go’s new region-exclusive Pokémon, you may have to take a vacation. With just around six million people living in these countries combined, not many Pokémon Go trainers have seen the coveted water- and rock-type. The ones that have, though, are piping up on The Silph Road to confirm their sightings. That makes Relicanth the fifth new region-exclusive Pokémon as of Pokémon Go’s last major update. For Zangoose and Seviper, that separation is explained in-game; the two Pokémo