The first video game studio in the US to unionize is shutting down. On Wednesday, Beast Breaker developer Vodeo Games announced it had failed to secure funding to produce an additional release beyond its debut title. “Despite a year of avid efforts, we’ve been unable to secure funding for our next project from publishers and investors,” Vodeo Games said in a tweet spotted by Polygon. “As such, we’ve run out of funds and aren’t able to keep the team together — and there simply is no Vodeo without our incredible team.”

Vodeo Games was founded in 2021 by Threes! designer Asher Vollmer. The studio released its first game that same year. According to Vodeo’s website, it had been working on a new project before today’s announcement. The studio will complete work on the Steam version of Beast Breaker before closing shop.

At the end of last year, Vodeo’s all-remote team of 13 successfully unionized with Code-CWA, the Communication Workers of America's Campaign to Organize Digital Employees. Despite the management of Vodeo Games recognizing the studio’s union, the two sides never came to a bargaining agreement. According to Vodeo Workers United, negotiations came to an end when it became apparent the studio could not secure additional funding. The group said it would share what it learned with other industry workers to help them organize their workplaces. 

Since workers at Vodeo unionized, employees at other studios have attempted to follow suit. Most notably, there’s the QA division at Activision's Raven Software, which voted in May to form the Game Workers Alliance. More recently, quality assurance staff at Blizzard Albany, formerly Vicarious Visions, filed for a union election.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, 4,000 of people who work in Google’s cafeterias have joined unions, according to a new report in The Washington Post. According to the report, “about 90 percent of total food services workers at Google” are now unionized. 

That number is particularly significant as the company’s cafeterias, like many of its peers, are overwhelmingly staffed by contract workers who don’t get the same benefits as full-time employees. Contractors across the company have pushed for higher wages and increased protections in recent months.

Cafeteria workers at Google’s Atlanta office could soon be the latest to join the ranks of unionized workers. Workers employed by a contracting firm called Sodexo reportedly told their manager they plan to unionize, and Sodexo said they would not block the move if “a majority” of workers supported it.

It’s unclear when an official agreement may be reached but a spokesperson for Unite Here, the union representing Google’s cafeteria workers, told The Post they were “hopeful that we can quickly reach an agreement on a union contract.” Other cafeteria workers at Google have already seen significant benefits since joining Unite Here. According to The Post, “the average unionized worker at a Google cafeteria makes $24 an hour, pays little to nothing for health insurance and has access to a pension plan.” By contrast, the Sodexo workers in Atlanta make $15 an hour and can spend “hundreds” on health insurance.

Amazon lockers are already supposed to fend off package thieves, but some now perhaps have an extra layer of security. Washington DC is the first city in the US to test Amazon lockers at police stations. This week, Metropolitan Police Department installed the lockers at two sites in the city. The department and Amazon plan to position lockers at more stations if the pilot goes well, according to Washingtonian.

On the surface, it's a logical move to vex porch pirates. It's unlikely that anyone would try pinching a package from a police station. It's a little odd to imagine someone being released from custody only to pick up a package before they leave a police station.

Amazon already has several ties to law enforcement agencies. Earlier this summer, it emerged that the company has given police footage from Ring cameras on at least 11 occasions without a court order or user consent. Law enforcement was also able to use Amazon's facial recognition tech for a time. The company enacted a one-year ban on police use of Rekognition in 2020, and it extended that measure indefinitely last year.

Back in 2018, former Apple employee Xiaolang Zhang was arrested at San Jose International Airport where he was going to board a last-minute flight to China. Zhang was accused of transferring a 25-page document that includes the engineering schematics of a circuit board for the company's self-driving vehicle, along with technical manuals describing Apple's prototype, to his wife's laptop. He was also accused of stealing circuit boards and a Linux server from the company's development labs. Now, Zhang has pleaded guilty to a felony charge of theft of trade secrets in San Jose federal court, according to CNBC.

The news organization has obtained a court document (PDF) summarizing the proceedings in which Zhang changed his plea — he originally pleaded not guilty when he was indicted in 2018. In it, the court has noted that his plea agreement is under seal and that his sentencing is scheduled on November 14th. Zhang faces up to ten years in prison and could pay up to $250,000 in fine.

Before his arrest, Zhang worked as a hardware engineer in Apple's autonomous vehicle division and was part of the team that designs and tests circuit boards for sensors. As CNBC notes, circuit designs are typically considered some of the most valuable trade secrets in electronics. Apple reportedly first suspected Zhang of stealing from the company when he turned in his resignation following a paternity leave and a trip to China. He told the company that he was resigning so he could move back to China and take care of his mother. 

Zhang also told Apple that he was planning to work with XPeng Motors, an electric vehicle manufacturer that's also developing its own autonomous driving technology. His access to Apple's resources was cut off after he resigned, and an investigation followed soon after. It was through that investigation that Apple discovered that he transferred gigabytes' worth of top secret files via AirDrop and saw him physically taking hardware from the company's labs via CCTV footage.

Meanwhile, the tech giant remains as secretive about its autonomous vehicle development progress as ever. Last year, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported that Apple decided to focus on developing full self-driving capabilities and that the company is aiming to launch its autonomous electric vehicle in 2025. 

The following article discusses the themes explored in the documentary, which includes substance abuse, mental health, gun violence and suicide.

We all know, or knew, that guy. Not in your social circle, but known nonetheless; someone’s older brother, cousin or drinking buddy. Whenever they had a captive audience they tell you tales of their exploits when they’re not kicking around suburban Lowestoft. In between puffs of cigarette smoke and the cheapest whiskey available, they’ll say they tried to join the army, but the recruitment people told them they were just too brilliant to waste in an infantry unit. Or they are an off-duty bodyguard who was lying low because The Mafia was looking for them (don’t ask why, shut up). Or that they had just signed a contract to replace The Undertaker at The Wrestling™ and would be jetting off to the US in the near future. The intensity of their testimony may, for a brief second, sucker you in, but you’ll soon realize that these people are more Walter Mitty than Walter White. Now imagine what that guy would look like if they’d been handed $100 million, and you’ll get a fairly decent pen portrait of John McAfee in his later years.

Running with the Devil: The wild world of John McAfee is a new documentary, arriving on Netflix on August 24th. It harnesses footage from the lost, unreleased Vice documentary On The Run with John McAfee, as well as film McAfee commissioned himself. It attempts to chronicle the life of the antivirus software pioneer from when he was named as a person of interest following the death of his neighbor Gegory Faull in Belize, through to his death in 2021. McAfee would spend his last decade on the run from pursuers, both real and imaginary, become embroiled in a cryptocurrency scam, try to run for US president (twice) and loudly declare that he refused to pay his taxes, which attracted the attention of the IRS. Arrested in Spain on charges of tax evasion, he died by suicide in his prison cell.

Devil is broken into three rough parts, each told from the perspective of the people in McAfee’s orbit at the time. Part one focuses on then-Vice editor-in-chief Rocco Castoro and legendary photojournalist Robert King, who accompanied McAfee on his escape to Guatemala. Part Two covers McAfee’s backstory and his relationship with ghostwriter Alex Cody Foster, with whom he sat for a series of interviews. Part Three shows how McAfee would eventually reconnect with Robert King, and asked him to become his personal biographer as he sailed on his yacht, mostly around South America. The footage is interspersed with commentary from McAfee’s partners, as well as Foster, Castoro and King.

Something that’s clear from both the footage and the contributors is that McAfee was obsessed with truth, but not always as you or I would understand it. There are several times when he fixates upon his legacy, his reputation, his image, his story and how he would be perceived. And yet the story was malleable, the facts unclear, and his behavior erratic – while on the run, he would buy a disguise and then proudly tell everyone in the store his name, and pose for photographs. McAfee’s behavior mirrors the cult leader who’s gone all-in on the grand deception, both in his use of charm, and his propensity for violence. More than once he’s pictured or discussed pointing a gun at friends and allies for what feels like nothing more than the pleasure of being a bully, or at least to remind everyone who had the power.

If you’re looking for some sort of truth, or grand coherent narrative to help you grasp who John McAfee was, however, you won’t get it here. That’s not a criticism of the documentary – McAfee loved to hint about who he was without ever saying it out loud, and always muddying his own water. There are scenes where he implies he is responsible for the death of both his abusive father and Faull, but never to anyone’s satisfaction. But it’s similarly clear that much of his bravado disappears when he’s faced with real consequences for his actions. Much is made, too, of his substance abuse, which seems to have supercharged his paranoia and delusional thinking.

Netflix

Much of the footage shot by King is low-res, untreated first-person digital video, although there’s little shakycam here. It instantly dates the footage back to the start of the last decade, and sets the scene perfectly given the turn-of-the-millennium anxieties it creates. It works here, too, because it captures the unpleasant stale air in rooms that haven’t had their windows opened for too long. Rooms scattered with dirt and loose tobacco flakes, a half-empty whiskey bottle resting on its side next to some bath salts and a loaded handgun. It helps capture the smallness of the man in his decline, especially as he rages against not the dying of the light, but to the world’s seeming indifference. I imagine that anyone trying to dock a yacht in a foreign country with a cadre of automatic weapons and mercenaries on board would be greeted with a frosty reception from the local police. But, for McAfee, it’s all part of the grand conspiracy the world has contorted around him, and it’s sad. But you can’t feel too much sympathy for him given the trail of destruction left in his wake, and there’s little closure offered for his victims here.

If there’s one thing I wish the film did better, it’s helping the audience keep track of who, and where, everyone is at each point. I’m not always a fan of documentaries with hand-holding narrators, but this is the sort of film that really needs you to have Wikipedia to hand. That’s not to say it’s not worth watching, both if you knew of McAfee or if the original saga had passed you by. But if it lacks something, it’s enough of a sense of place and time to help you keep track of all of the things that McAfee was up to, and when.

It’s funny, several of my colleagues met with McAfee over the years – including this Engadget Show segment back in 2013. (Back then, McAfee said that he was parodying and leaning in to his insalubrious reputation while he made his viral videos. The documentary makes it clear that there was perhaps more truth than he was prepared to admit.) I’d even walked past McAfee several times at CES, often sitting alone in a sparsely-attended corner of one of the smaller show halls. I often wondered if I should go and speak to him, but there was something of the That Guy even when he was ostensibly on his best behavior. I could imagine him clamping his hand on my shoulder, fixing me with his dark eyes and spinning a fresh bewitching tale of mystery and intrigue, although as it turns out, the truth was probably wilder.

Nintendo may respond quickly to allegations of sexual discrimination and harassment at its American division. A Kotakusource has reportedly shared a company-wide message from Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser revealing that the Switch creator is "actively investigating" the misconduct claims. The firm "will always" look into assertions like these and encourages workers to report violations, Bowser reportedly said.

We've asked Nintendo for comment. The company has previously reacted to incidents elsewhere in the industry, however. In November, Bowser said the accusations behind the Activision Blizzard scandal were "distressing and disturbing." Days later, Nintendo pledged to increase the number of female managers.

Several female game testers told Kotaku that they'd faced multiple forms of harassment and discrimination at Nintendo. Senior-ranking testers allegedly made unwanted advances and comments. Anti-LGBT remarks, pay gaps and attempts to suppress criticism were also part of the workplace culture, according to the allegations. Female workers are believed to be underrepresented at Nintendo as a whole (37 percent), and particularly among contract-based game testers (10 percent).

It's too soon to know if any investigation will lead to firings or reforms. If accurate, however, the scoop is a reminder that misconduct complaints haven't been limited to one developer. Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft and others have had to address concerns as well — it may reflect cultural issues across the industry.

Workers at an Amazon warehouse in a town located southeast of Albany, New York have filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to hold a union election. The warehouse, with the codename ALB1, is hoping to join the Amazon Labor Union, which successfully convinced majority of workers at the company's JFK8 facility in Staten Island to vote in favor of unionizing earlier this year. An NLRB spokesperson told CNBC that the agency's office in Buffalo is currently verifying whether the group has truly met the minimum number of signatures needed to hold an election.

Unions typically need to get signatures from 30 percent of eligible members to be able to hold a vote. According to The Washington Post, the ALU previously said that it had passed that threshold for the Albany warehouse. Union organizers at the facility have been working on joining the ALU for months. After Amazon noticed their efforts, the company reportedly held meetings to discourage workers from unionizing. An employee also sent us photos of digital TVs at the Albany facility displaying anti-union messages. To be precise, the messages discouraged people from signing a "card" from the ALU, pertaining to the authorization cards workers have to sign for the warehouse to be able to hold a vote.

The ALU has been demanding for higher pay and safer working conditions for warehouse workers and has previously accused the company of retaliation. A few weeks after it won the election in Staten Island, Amazon fired two of the employees who were involved in its organization efforts. Their fellow organizers believed that it was a retaliatory move by the e-commerce giant. Heather Goodall, a lead organizer at ALB1, said: "The main concerns I hear from workers are about wages and safety. Besides that, there’s no job security. There’s no way to rest on a 15-minute break. Workers want to be able to use the bathroom freely."

Amazon has long made it clear that it is against workers' unionization efforts. A spokesperson told The Post: “As a company, we don’t think unions are the best answer for our employees. Our focus remains on working directly with our team to continue making Amazon a great place to work." The company also appealed ALU's victory in Staten Island, accusing organizers of pressuring workers to vote in favor unionizing. A hearing for Amazon's appeal could be announced sometime this month.

Nintendo is famous for having a family—friendly image and game that people of all ages can enjoy. But a report by Kotaku paints the picture of a company that's not so different from other gaming giants that had previously been accused of fostering a "frat boy" workplace culture. The publication talked to several female game testers who recounted how they were harassed by colleagues and how they were paid less than their male counterparts.

One of Kotaku's main sources is a former game tester called Hannah, who was allegedly told to be less outspoken after she reported the inappropriate behavior of a full-time Nintendo employee in a workplace group chat. The employee reportedly posted a copy of a Reddit post detailing why Vaporeon was the best Pokémon to have sex with and justified why it was OK to be sexually attracted to Paimon, a Genshin Impact NPC with a child-like appearance. 

Hannah, who was a contractor, also found that she was being paid $3 less than a junior male tester and struggled to get her contracting agency to agree to a pay increase. As a queer worker, she was subjected to inappropriate comments by male colleagues whose advances she'd rejected, as well. "Oh, you’re a lesbian. That’s kind of sad," a significantly older colleague told her shortly after starting to work at the company. 

Hannah's experiences are similar to what many of the other female testers Kotaku had interviewed went through. Some of them talked about how Melvin Forrest, a product testing lead at Nintendo of America, "went after all the associate girls" and frequently commented on their weight and appearance. They said Forrest was in charge of deciding on contractors' schedules and on who gets to return after a project, so female testers were forced to get along with him. Another contractor was stalked by a more senior tester for months, but the well-connected perpetrator threatened to get her fired if she reports him. 

One common complaint between the sources was the lack of advancement opportunities. "Your chance [of being converted to full time] was probably worse as a girl. It's usually guys [who get promoted]. They’re usually all friends. They watch the Super Bowl together," one product tester who worked on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild said.

As Kotaku notes, one of the main reasons why these problems persist is that women are underrepresented in the company. Sources believe that the percentage of female contractors testing games for Nintendo is only around 10 percent, and it's not often that they're transitioned into full-time employees. The company's data also shows that female employees only make up around 37 percent of all full-time workers at Nintendo of America.

While the gaming giant didn't respond to Kotaku's questions, company chief Doug Bowser previously addressed reports about Activision Blizzard's sexist "frat boy" culture in an internal memo. "Along with all of you, I've been following the latest developments with Activision Blizzard and the ongoing reports of sexual harassment and toxicity at the company. I find these accounts distressing and disturbing. They run counter to my values as well as Nintendo's beliefs, values and policies," he said. 

The testers who talked to the publication for this particular report are just some of contractors who've recently decided to speak out against the company. Two former workers even filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing Nintendo of America of retaliation, surveillance and coercion. We've reached out to the company for a statement, and we'll update this story if we hear back.

Activision Blizzard is still receiving complaints over alleged labor violations. The Communications Workers of America union (CWA) has filed an unfair labor practice charge accusing the game developer of illegally surveilling workers during a July walkout protest over gender inequity. The company also denied access to a chat channel discussing working conditions and otherwise cut off internal avenues for discussing labor, the CWA said.

We've asked Activision Blizzard for comment. The company previously said it was cooperating with investigations into its workplace practices and has argued that employees could speak freely about their workplace situations. However, the CWA maintained that the Call of Duty publisher has made "continued efforts" to stifle labor organizers, such as refusing to recognize a quality assurance union and hiring the union-busting law firm Reed Smith.

The charge is the latest in a string of labor-related accusations beyond the sexual harassment scandal that began much of the current uproar. The CWA filed a charge in June claiming Activision Blizzard broke labor law by firing QA contractors. In May, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) determined there was merit behind allegations the company was threatening labor organizers. Multiple reports have also circulated claiming that the gaming giant has been pushing anti-union messages.

The new complaint doesn't necessarily change Activision Blizzard's predicament. The company risks penalties and mandatory policy changes if it's found to be violating labor law. The charge adds further pressure, however, and could shape potential punishment.

Dozens of workers at a key Amazon Air cargo hub in California walked out mid-shift on Monday to protest pay and safety conditions. More than 150 of the 1,500 employees at the San Bernardino facility took part in the stoppage, according to The Washington Post. Amazon has disputed that figure by claiming that roughly 74 people walked off the job.

This was said to be the first coordinated labor action in the company's air freight division, taking place at the largest Amazon Air hub in California. The action was led by workers who are organizing as a group called Inland Empire Amazon Workers United.

The alliance has urged Amazon to increase the base pay rate from $17 per hour to $22 at the facility, which is known as KSBD. Amazon said that full-time workers have benefits and can earn up to $19.25 per hour.

Inland Empire Amazon Workers United has also called out working conditions, claiming that temperatures reached 95 degrees at the airport on 24 days in July, as CNBC reports. Managers are said to have opened more rest areas after previous complaints about the heat. “They say there is air conditioning, but you can only feel it in some sections," Daniel Rivera, a leader of the stoppage, told the Post. An Amazon spokesperson claimed the highest recorded temperature in the hub is 77 degrees.

The workers who walked out don't currently have plans to file for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board, but they are open to the idea amid a wave of unionization efforts across the company. Amazon has appealed against a union victory in Staten Island, New York. The results of a second election at a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, were too close to call and hundreds of votes have been challenged.