On Tuesday, Ice Water Games, the developer behind Tenderfoot Tactics, removed the open-world RPG from the Xbox digital marketplace in a show of solidarity with the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (BDS) movement, following the inclusion of Microsoft on their boycott list two weeks prior.
In a statement shared on Bluesky by Tenderfoot Tactics designer Badru, the studio expressed, “We hope that Microsoft will heed the concerns of their employees and customers and cease all business dealings with the Israeli military, which we have observed engage in open genocide in Gaza over the past 18 months. We encourage the wider community to join this pressure campaign to seek an end to occupation and apartheid in Palestine and globally.”
The BDS movement claims that Microsoft provides Azure cloud and AI services to the Israeli government, which are said to be “critical in facilitating Israel’s genocide of 2.3 million Palestinians in the illegally occupied Gaza Strip.”
During a July 2024 presentation at the “IT for IDF” conference, Colonel Racheli Dembinsky of the Israeli Defense Forces commended the “very significant operational effectiveness” gained through partnerships with cloud companies, showcasing logos of Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud in her presentation. Leaked documents reported by The Guardian in January 2025 indicated that Microsoft increased its collaboration with Israel after the attacks of October 7, 2023, provisioning the country with computing and storage services and entering a $10 million agreement for extensive technical support.
Ice Water Games marks the first video game studio to attract widespread attention for endorsing the BDS movement’s recent boycott campaign. The BDS organization has proposed various methods for consumers to express their support, including canceling Xbox Game Pass subscriptions, boycotting major Microsoft franchises like Candy Crush, Minecraft, and Call of Duty, as well as refraining from purchasing all Xbox-branded consoles, accessories, and games released by Microsoft-owned publishers.
