Earlier this year, the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement added Microsoft to its list of priority targets due to the company’s entanglement with the Israeli military via Azure cloud and AI services. A recent Guardian report revealed the grisly details of said arrangement, claiming that Microsoft’s “cloud-based storage platform has facilitated the preparation of deadly airstrikes and has shaped military operations in Gaza and the West Bank.” Now game developers at Microsoft-owned studio Arkane, creator of Dishonored and Deathloop, have lent their voices to the chorus demanding that the company stop powering Israel’s assault.
As part of an open letter to leadership at Arkane, Zenimax, Microsoft Gaming, and Microsoft more broadly, workers unionized under French union STJV did not mince words about Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians, lending their support to BDS and the Microsoft-worker-led No Azure For Apartheid campaign.
“Arkane Studios’ STJV section joins BDS and the No Azure for Apartheid in their demands for Microsoft to stop supporting the Israeli regime,” Arkane workers wrote. “We think that Microsoft has no place being accomplice of a genocide, and as Microsoft employees, we don’t want to be part of this sinister project for Gaza. Moreover, we think it’s our responsibility, as tech workers, to raise the alarm, and to ensure that our technologies are used to make the voices of the oppressed heard, and not facilitate their demise. Finally, in a more direct manner, we think this could very well affect our life directly, by reducing the audience for our games, thus directly compromising the viability of Xbox Games, and, in the long run, our very own jobs.”
The letter includes a list of specific demands, which echo those of No Azure For Apartheid: an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, termination of all ongoing or future contracts with Israeli occupation forces, disclosure of all ties to the Israeli military, protection of pro-Palestinian speech within the company, and “a transparent, independent and public audit of Microsoft technologies, contracts, services and investments to make sure they are not used to violate the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, and Microsoft’s own Human Rights Statement, in Palestine or anywhere else.”
Ultimately, Arkane workers believe that Microsoft should put its money where its mouth is.
"Microsoft has a responsibility toward its employees, as we have one toward the company,” Arkane workers wrote. “As stated in the company’s commitment to human rights, and regularly used in the company talk points, ‘Microsoft is committed to protecting fundamental rights.’ But so far, Microsoft has failed both its teams [and] its customers by being actively complicit of the invasion and war crimes happening in Gaza. If those core values are more [than] just talking points to sell more products, it is now more than due time for Microsoft to commit to them."
Of course, this is just an open letter. As it stands, nothing here is compelling Microsoft to turn over a new leaf that even comes close to matching the intoxicating aroma of ill-gotten cash. But these things have a way of snowballing. When Badru, the creator of open-world tactics RPG Tenderfoot Tactics, removed his game from Xbox in solidarity with BDS earlier this year, he told Aftermath: “Whether we're able to make Microsoft change or not directly, part of the point of targeting them is to be able to advocate around this and show these connections. Otherwise, nobody's interested in Azure Cloud. Nobody wants to talk about whatever Microsoft's bullshit AI is doing. These boycotts create opportunities for us to shine a light.”
Now news organizations are investigating Azure Cloud, and mainstream coverage is shifting more and more to critique and decry Israel’s actions, especially its long-term starvation of Gazans. Meanwhile, international sentiment continues to turn against Israel. A letter like this both arises from and contributes to that slow cooker of pressure, as do possible future actions like work stoppages or strikes, which STJV-affiliated game workers have employed before. Eventually, even a behemoth like Microsoft will cave.
