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Devotion Is a Brilliant Videogame—Too Bad You Can't Play It

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As it stands, if you don’t already own Devotion, you can't play it. The game, developed by the Taiwanese team Red Candle Games, is no longer on Steam. This is maybe, hopefully, temporary. But at this moment, it's a game mired in mystery and controversy, a messy geopolitical situation threatening to overshadow what is also […]

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The Streaming Wars Began in 2018—and They'll Only Get Worse

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It was one of the most hectic Twitter episodes of the year: The One Where Everyone Freaked Out About Friends Going Away. Earlier this month, a few Netflix users noticed that the beloved series, still one of the most-watched sitcoms in the world, was scheduled to depart the streamer in January. Twitter went into shock-and-aww […]

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Netflix’s Cam Is a Horror Movie for the Influencer Age

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Webcam models, who livestream erotic performances for a paying audience, can’t afford to be queasy about the risks or nastiness of internet culture. Their audiences’ gaze (along with covetous commentary) is the source of their livelihood, driving a 20-year-old, multibillion-dollar industry. To succeed, cam models walk a near impossible line: bringing voyeurs close enough to […]

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RIP Stan Lee, the Man Who Made Comics Cool

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Stan Lee, the avuncular, controversial longtime writer and publisher of Marvel Comics, died Monday in Los Angeles. He was 95 years old. Popping a big character death on people like that was just the kind of thing Lee liked. “Stan Lee—dead! No! No, it can’t be!” The man who first understood that with great power […]

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Disney Won't Stop Deadpool From Dropping F-Bombs

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Hello, dear reader, and welcome to another edition of The Monitor, WIRED's look at all that's new and news in the world of pop culture, from casting news to TV show renewals. What’s on the docket today? The Walking Dead is getting (another) new season, Anya Taylor-Joy and Edgar Wright are teaming up, and Disney […]

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Why Are Bear Cams So Magical? An Investigation

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Her name is Bear 409—Beadnose to her fans—and she had been crowned Katmai National Park’s Fattest Bear of 2018. On Tuesday, she edged out her competition, Bear 747—an ursidae so rutund his belly nearly scrapes the ground—by 4,000 votes in an online competition. GIFs of her impressive transformation from svelte salmon snatcher to a half-ton […]

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The 15 Games We're Most Excited to Play in 2019

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Unlike its screen-based sibling industries, gaming has seen relatively little technological upheaval in recent years. That's not to say that everything's great—because it is really not—just that games are as popular as ever, if not more so. Perhaps fittingly, game development feels like it's in a better place than just a few years ago; sure, […]

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Twitter Is Devouring Jeff Bezos' National Enquirer Fight

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Deep breath. OK, here goes. It would be hard to miss the news, but in case you did, here's the short version: Late Thursday, Jeff Bezos took to (of all places) Medium to detail what he called blackmail by The National Enquirer. In the post, the Amazon CEO alleges that he received threatening messages from […]

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Netflix Raises Prices to Stockpile for the Streaming Wars

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On Tuesday, Netflix announced that it would raise prices across all of its plans in the US. For most people, that means their $11 monthly rate will hop to $13 over the next few months. New customers will pay the higher price starting today. No one likes a price hike, especially given that Netflix just […]