The creators of gloriously unearthly anti-capitalist deckbuilder All Will Rise have announced that they’re joining the No Games For Genocide boycott against Microsoft’s business links with the Israeli military. As such, developers Speculative Agency will be returning funds provided by Microsoft as part of a “developer acceleration programme deal” in 2025. They also won’t be releasing the game on Microsoft platforms.
If you’ve yet to play All Will Rise – there’s a Steam demo – it takes place in the fantastical city of Muziris, and is about suing a billionaire for the murder of a river god. You’ll manage a legal team and play cards corresponding to legal gambits, as you try to win support inside and outside the courtroom.
The game’s narrative director is Meghna Jayanth of 80 Days, Thirsty Suitors and Sable fame, who comments on Bluesky that joining the boycott on Microsoft is “a difficult thing to do when funding and attention are scarce commodities for indies like us, but we hope more of our fellow devs and indie studios will join us in taking a stand”.
Launched late last year, the No Games For Genocide boycott is a response to Microsoft’s sale of Azure cloud and generative AI technologies to Israel during the country’s apocalyptic assault on Gaza since October 2023, when Palestinian armed groups crossed the border and killed or captured hundreds of Israelis. Israel’s subsequent invasion has killed over 70,000 people, the majority reportedly non-combatants, including over 20,000 children. UN Human Rights Council and Israeli civil rights groups have accused Israel’s government of carrying out a genocide. UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese has also castigated the international tech sector for enabling the killing and oppression of Palestinians by providing services to Israel.
We reported on these events at length last year, while talking to a few of the developers who have joined the Palestinian-led Boycott Divest Sanctions campaign against Microsoft, including the makers of Tenderfoot Tactics and STREET UNi X.
Microsoft have now blocked Israel’s access to certain technologies, but have not broken off their business relationship entirely. Israel and Gaza’s Hamas government agreed a truce in October, but as the AP report, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes since.
In a statement shared with PCG, Speculative Agency say they started talking about boycotting Microsoft late last year, following the launch of No Games For Genocide, but were concerned about the financial impact. They had received “some funding” from Microsoft as part of the accelerator deal, which they signed last year. “We were at that point self-funded, and we are—like so many other indies—eager and hungry for funding opportunities”, the devs write.
Joining the boycott doesn’t just mean returning the cash to Microsoft, but giving up on access to the Xbox audience, “increasing our financial risk and decreasing our potential player pool” at a time when funding for more unusual indie game ventures isn’t exactly abundant. Still, the desire to join the picket line prevailed. The devs thank “individuals at Microsoft that we have corresponded with for their understanding”.
“This is personal for me as an Indian, given that India is the largest buyer of Israeli military equipment and the two countries are exchanging technology & methodologies of occupation, surveillance & repression,” Jayanth writes on Bluesky (I’ve added some punctuation and capital letters).
“As workers in the games industry we are — willingly or not — complicit in how mainstream games launder military and imperial fantasies as entertainment,” she continues. “It feels so important for us to take a stand of conscience and speak up and say if we believe in humanity & better futures.”
“As we said in our All Will Rise team statement: we refuse the idea that commercial success is worth the price of our consciences,” Jayanth concludes. “We hope that Microsoft will reconsider its participation in enabling Israeli genocide. If enough of us boycott, we hope we can be a tipping point for real change.”
It’s worth noting that No Games For Genocide (disclosure: I’m one of the signatories) isn’t just about Israel and Palestine. “The games industry’s complicity in normalising the presence of the military, and even in the development of military technology, has gone on for too long,” the boycott’s organisers write. “Whether it be through the racist, militaristic content of the games themselves, having military recruiters at eSports events, or games being developed as military training simulators, there is a deep connection between games and genocide that needs to be broken.”
