Why is an up-and-coming indie developer returning Microsoft’s money? games

VIntellectual games are suffering from a funding crisis. Investor money flowed freely during the pandemic gaming boom, but now the well has run dry. It has become increasingly difficult, for independent developers in particular, to obtain the capital needed to make games. It is very unusual to hear about a developer Return Investor money. However, that’s what the speculative agency, the developers of All Will Rise, have just done.

Last year, All Will Rise, a deck-building game about a team of activists fighting for the future of their oligarch-run city, received money from Microsoft as part of its developer accelerator program. However, in late 2025, the team became aware of No Games for Genocide, a group of developers, journalists, union organizers, and others who had come together as a result of the Israeli attack on Gaza to protest “the physical and commercial links between the games industry and the enabling of genocide, war crimes, and the military-industrial complex.”

No Games for Genocide urged the gaming industry and gamers to boycott Microsoft and Xbox over the US tech giant’s ties to the Israel Defense Forces and the technology it provided during the Israeli war on Gaza, which a UN panel last year declared genocide. As The Guardian reported last August, the Israeli spy service was using the Microsoft Azure cloud to conduct mass surveillance of Palestinian civilians. (Microsoft responded by terminating the IDF’s access to this service, although the IDF remains a customer and still uses other Microsoft services.) The company’s ongoing relationship with the Israeli military has led to widespread protests, including from its employees — some of whom have been fired — and Microsoft is on the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) list.

“It felt right to us – the game we’re making is about making people feel empowered, empowered, and not succumbed to cynicism and despair,” says Meghna Jayanth, narrative designer at All Will Rise. “It wasn’t an easy decision, but it’s worse to live in a sense of helplessness. We’re not naive – we know that our action on its own won’t move things around. But if enough developers and studios in this province join us, [we] “They have the ability to pressure Microsoft to end its involvement in the Israeli genocide.” (Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment on its refinancing.)

There is strong anti-war sentiment evident in the gaming community. Game developers have raised more than $1 million to help Palestinians in the past few years through charity game bundles like Play for Peace and Palestine Relief Bundle, and players have raised money through charitable streams — like the one under the Palestinian Streamers 4 banner, who have raised €1 million collectively, according to Streamlabs. But the biggest companies in gaming have remained silent on the issue, and many of their employees consider it risky to speak out. Signatories to “No Games for Genocide” are mostly individuals, developers, and small companies.

A No Genocide Games spokesperson told The Guardian: “About four months after our launch, we have approached 2,800 subscribers to our pledge. This includes nine organisations, three of which are studios that have agreed to refuse or return funding to Microsoft as long as they remain complicit in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people (and its ongoing attacks on the peoples of Lebanon and Iran).” “We are working with these studios to support them in navigating the challenges and risks of taking a stance like this, and we are very proud of them for doing so.”

Jayanth says the response to the All Will Rise boycott, from developers and players, has been overwhelming. “We were also pleased to see the gaming press covering the reality of the Israeli genocide so clearly, in talking about this. I think people are tired of the hypocrisy, and they are ready to embrace people of conscience and principles.”

The No Games for Genocide campaign will not begin and end with Microsoft. “The BDS list includes Intel, the processor in most of our computers, Amazon, which owns Twitch, Dell and HP… Gaming is also closely linked to the US Department of Defense and even the UK military, in the use of video games as simulations for military training and their increasing integration into military recruitment lines. There is a lot of work to be done.”

The nature of global capitalism means that it is impossible to distance oneself from companies and governments involved in wars and human rights abuses. There is no area of ​​entertainment untouched by corporate and government influence — EA will soon be owned partly by a Saudi sovereign wealth fund, and partly by a private equity firm owned by Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law. Thanks to its acquisitions over the past decade, Microsoft in particular now owns a large percentage of the Western gaming industry, from Minecraft to Call of Duty, and from World of Warcraft to Fallout. But doing something, say the organizers of the No Games for Genocide campaign, seems better than doing nothing.

“We feel hopeful, based on the initial response to our campaign, that there are many people in the gaming industry who care about this and want to do something — and we hope to empower people to do just that,” No Games for Genocide says. “None of us can do it alone, but we can all do it together.”

What are you playing?

Gaming reporter Keith Stewart introduced a Greek mythology-themed match-three puzzle game legend Great review this week, oh my goodness, it’s so cute and compelling.

You play as Artemis as she auditions for the role of Goddess of the Hunt, making herself indispensable to humans by solving their city and their problems, while tackling frenetic puzzles like Olympian trials by night. It’s beautifully drawn, written and animated – one of those games that promises you 20 minutes of fun, then hooks you for hours.

Available on: PC, Mac
Estimated playing time: 10-12 hours

What are you reading?

• The past week has been just one letter after another for gaming executives and companies. First: after purchase Subnautica Unknown Worlds developer and publisher Krafton’s president, Changhan Kim, has fired the founders in an alleged attempt to avoid paying them a $250 million bonus. Now a judge in the US state of Delaware has forced Crafton to give back their jobs Respect their contractual right to compensation. Court documents revealed that Kim was following the legal advice of… ChatGPT. Crafton said in a statement that she disagrees with the ruling and is evaluating her options.

• Meanwhile, Nvidia has revealed a new AI tool that “improves” the game’s visuals… by making its characters look like completely different people, and adding a bunch of extra lighting. The developers in my timeline called this “garbage,” “accumulating garbage,” “creative parody,” and, well, racist, because it radically changes the facial features of non-white characters in the sample screenshots. Nvidia called this criticism “completely false” and insisted that developers would still have control over their own artistic direction.

• In better news, BAFTA game Awards Nominations are out. Unsurprisingly, Clair Obscur: Expedition featured heavily 33, with 12 nominations, followed by narrative superhero animated game Dispatch with 9. Clair Obscur has already won all four other major Game of the Year awards, so a Bafta statue would make it a clean sweep. The concert is on April 17th

• I was on The Guardian’s Today in Focus podcast last week talking about my new book about it Nintendo historyAnd why video games are important. Give it a listen!

What to click on

Question block

reader atmosphere He asks:

“I’m 45 years old He continues To play online multiplayer FPS games (mainly Battlefield) while most of my friends have given up on quieter gaming experiences. Military shooters really come to life when playing with a coordinated team via voice communications. However, I am deeply saddened and angry by the disproportionately high level of racists and misogynists who play these games. So I tend to play with interrupted voice communications. Can you? Recommend a friendly and inclusive community where I can find decent people to play with?

I haven’t played games with public voice communications since 2003, when I played the aerial combat game Crimson Skies on the new Xbox Live network and was questioned about my age and gender by a group of American men. Unfortunately, a lot of people’s behavior in voice communications hasn’t improved, especially in military shooters, so your only option is to find a friendly clan or Discord server with people who aren’t the worst, and play with them instead. I did a little research specific to Battlefield 6 and found Battlefield Elders, a clan for “mature players 25+” (!!??) – but I can’t vouch for them as I don’t play online games much.

Readers: Are you part of a friendly, shooting-oriented community that welcomes the atmosphere? What are some non-toxic clans/servers that Pushing Buttons readers might enjoy participating in? Is it finally time for us to fight over push buttons?

If you have a question about the Question Pack – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us at pushbuttons@theguardian.com.