Developers for several top videogames have joined unions under the Communication Workers of America — including Call of Duty, Fallout, Overwatch, Diablo and World of Warcraft. Last month workers on the online game Magic: The Gathering Arena team announced their own CWA union. The gaming news site Aftermath shares some interesting details: Owner Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast could have voluntarily agreed to the union, but instead the issue is going to an official vote with the National Labor Relations Board in June... [O]ne Arena developer shared on Bluesky that one of the reasons they were inspired to organize was because Wizards changed its remote work policy, requiring them to move across the country or to a more expensive state to remain employed. (Changes to remote work have been one of the big drivers of unionization and union action among video game developers.) If the union is successful, the company wouldn't be able to unilaterally change working conditions like remote work; it would have to negotiate with the union over the decision. There's no guarantee unionized employees would get what they want, but they'd have more of a say, and the opportunity to directly influence their work situation, than they would without a union.

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It's "the curious case of... the Pokémon Go pro who celebrated too hard," reports the gaming news site Aftermath. It all started on the first weekend in April... Firestar73, a competitive Pokémon Go player who placed seventh at last year's world championships, managed to narrowly cinch a game-five finals win at the 2026 Pokémon Orlando Regional Championships after battling his way out of the dreaded losers' bracket. As stress and adrenaline gave way to relief, Firestar73 stood up from his chair, threw off his headphones, raised his arms in a sort of victorious flexing motion, and then fist pumped for good measure. Immediately afterward, he politely shook his opponent's hand... [T]he tournament's staff went on to deem Firestar73's conduct "unsportsmanlike" and stripped him of his win. "After weeks of fans flooding The Pokémon Company's social channels to demand a repeal of the ruling, the company has finally issued a statement," reports Kotaku. "Spoilers: It will not be reverting its decision." Their official statement? "[D]uring game one of the bracket reset series, a player was issued a Warning for the action of hitting and shaking the table during gameplay. Actions such as these can have a negative impact on the experience of participants and disturb the match in progress. Then, during game five, this same player's behavior continued to be disruptive, including shaking the table to the point that there was a disruption to the broadcast experience. These repeated infractions resulted in a penalty that was escalated to Game Loss. " Meanwhile, Aftermath now reports, Firestar73 "has disputed Play! Pokémon's account of events entirely "The 'incident' you are now, for the first time, claiming was the basis of the decision did not affect the gameplay at all, yet decided the whole tournament," he wrote on Twitter. "Section 2.1 requires a 'clear explanation of any infraction and its penalty,' and I was never given this as the basis at all." NiteTimeClasher, who won the tournament by disqualification, doesn't seem pleased either. "Was not my decision," he appears to have written in a Pokémon Discord. "Firestar is the Orlando regional champion. Hope you all understand." Others have attempted to divine what the company meant by a "disruption to the broadcast experience," and what they've found doesn't look all that severe. Not long after Play! Pokémon handed down its edict, one judge who was not involved in this particular match, Professor Rex, publicly voiced his outrage. "As a judge I'm not supposed to discuss ruling[s] publicly," he wrote. "However, I also believe that as a judge my job is to give players a fair space to compete. If a player in a high stakes battle can lose out on thousands of dollars for shaking the table, what kind of space have we built? If the table can't handle the intensity of the competition, that's not the players' fault. I've judged multiple Go regionals, [and] I just can't support how this was handled." After posting internal correspondence meant for judges and asking "some questions they didn't like" in the Discord for those who judge and otherwise help out at Pokémon events, Rex was banned from the Discord. That's when, to the extent they had not already, things spun out of control. Rex went on to share judges' personal information in a perhaps-misguided attempt at forcing transparency, which caused other judges — some of whom mostly agreed with him — to call him out and take issue with his conduct. As of now, almost no one is happy.

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Amazon's Luna cloud gaming service is making some changes, reports Engadget: It's no longer possible to buy Ubisoft+ and Jackbox Games subscriptions or standalone games through Luna. Amazon will automatically cancel any active subscriptions bought through Luna at the end of customers' next billing cycle. If you have a Ubisoft+ subscription that you bought directly from Ubisoft instead, you'll still be able to access games on that service through Luna until June 10. The Bring Your Own Library option — which allows users to play games they own on the likes of EA, GOG and Ubisoft on Luna — is going away too. You won't be able to access games from those storefronts via Amazon's streaming service after June 3. If you bought any games outright on Luna, you'll still be able to play them there until June 10. Unlike Google did when it shut down Stadia, Amazon isn't offering refunds for those purchases. However, you'll still have access to them through the respective third-party platform that's linked to your account, be it the EA App, GOG Galaxy or Ubisoft Connect. That doesn't exactly help folks who don't have powerful-enough systems to play more demanding games and were relying on Luna. For those users, Kotaku complains, "you'll essentially lose access to your purchased games in June unless you buy some hardware to play games like Star Wars Outlaws or set up a different streaming option..." They describe Luna as Amazon's "barely talked about, struggling game streaming service"... On April 10, Amazon announced that it is "always looking for ways to better serve our players" and that "feedback" has made it "clear" that gamers who use Luna want "easy access to great games." And because more of that content is now offered via Amazon Prime, the company has decided that the best way to "serve" you and other users is to rip out most of Luna's gaming options and remove access to paid games you bought in the past. Do you feel better served...? Launched in 2020, Amazon Luna has never been much of a big hit for the company, which has struggled to even figure out what to do with it. Initially, it was offered up as a Stadia competitor, providing access to big and small third-party games. This apparently didn't work out for Amazon. So in 2025, Amazon officially announced plans to pivot Luna to a service focused on Jackbox-like casual games. This latest shake-up for Luna further focuses the service on these kinds of games and will put everything available on the service behind different sub tiers, similar to Game Pass. Their conclusion? "This is all just a great reminder to never, ever, ever, ever buy a video game through a streaming service. At least you can download digital games offline and make backups for later."

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Valve has released a native Steam Link beta for Apple Vision Pro, letting users stream their existing Steam games onto a large virtual screen in visionOS. It supports up to 4K resolution and will let you dynamically adjust the curve of the display. The Mac Observer reports: Steam Link does not support VR titles in this beta, and Valve clearly states that the app is limited to 2D game streaming, but this still opens up a large library of games that users can play on a massive virtual screen inside Vision Pro. At the same time, Vision Pro already handles 2D media very well, and this update builds on that strength by turning the headset into a portable gaming display that connects directly to your existing setup without needing extra hardware. You can join the Steam Link beta through TestFlight right now, and this early release shows how Apple Vision Pro continues to expand beyond media into more practical and everyday use cases like gaming.

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