On Tuesday, Tenderfoot Tactics developer Ice Water Games took down its open-world RPG from the Xbox digital storefront in support of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (BDS) movement. This decision follows the movement’s recent addition of Microsoft to its list of boycotted companies.
In a statement shared on Bluesky by Tenderfoot Tactics designer badru, the studio expressed, “We hope that Microsoft will heed the calls of their employees and customers and cease all dealings with the Israeli military, which has perpetrated an ongoing genocide in Gaza over the past 18 months. We encourage the wider community to join in this pressure campaign to aspire for an end to occupation and apartheid in Palestine and around the globe.”
The BDS movement criticizes Microsoft’s provision of Azure cloud and AI services to the Israeli government, claiming that these services are “central to accelerating Israel’s genocide of 2.3 million Palestinians in the illegally occupied Gaza Strip.”
At a July 2024 presentation during the “IT for IDF” conference, Colonel Racheli Dembinsky of the Israeli Defense Forces highlighted the “very significant operational effectiveness” gained from partnerships with cloud companies, showcasing Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud in her presentation. Reports from the Guardian in January 2025 revealed that Microsoft had strengthened its collaboration with Israel following the events of October 7, 2023, by providing computing and storage support, along with a $10 million agreement for extensive technical assistance.
Ice Water Games stands out as the first video game studio to gain notable attention for openly supporting the recent boycott advocated by the BDS movement. The organization has also suggested various measures for consumers to demonstrate solidarity, which include canceling Xbox Game Pass subscriptions, boycotting major Microsoft franchises such as Candy Crush, Minecraft, and Call of Duty, and refraining from purchasing all Xbox-branded consoles, accessories, and games published by Microsoft-owned labels.
