The best time to stop supporting Microsoft was when the BDS Movement asked all of us to. The second best time is now.
One day, I’m going to wake up and the world isn’t going to be worse than it was yesterday. I don’t know when; I don’t know how; I don’t know what needs to change to make that happen. But I have to believe it to be true. I have to believe that a better world is possible through collective action. When you start to fight for lasting change, one of the first things you realize is that it’s like planting a tree. The best time to do it was ten years ago; the second best time is now. You’ll probably never get to see that tree in all of its glory, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t dig a hole and put a sapling in the ground.
I have to believe that a better tomorrow is coming. That together we can make it real. It’s the only way I can wake up in the morning and get out of bed. But it’s not today. I was talking to a writer today about Microsoft, and whether or not we should cover their games because of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement. It’s a hard call; do you review the game and talk about the controversy, as we tried to do? Or do you just refuse to cover it at all, which was what the writer in question was arguing for? I don’t know if there’s a right answer here, and there certainly isn’t a lot of precedent for it. Many video game publishers are guilty of some truly awful things; one only is actively abetting a genocide.
As I was struggling with this, some other news crystallized my thought process. It wasn’t a last straw; just a clarifying coincidence. Let’s talk about that first.
If you’re unaware, mass layoffs hit Xbox and Microsoft today. Over 9,000 people have lost their jobs. Combined with the 6,000 people laid off in May and June, and the total comes to a staggering 15,000 people in three months. I hate the way we write about layoffs; it’s always in the passive voice. We write about them like they’re inevitable, a force of nature, and not an intentional act. That’s what the passive voice does. It removes responsibility. It obscures. It obfuscates. It is designed to make you forget that these are decisions made by people so shareholders are happy. All it took was upending a paltry 9,000+ lives.
So let me try this again: today, the bigwigs at Microsoft fired more than 9,000 people to make their stock price go up. They did this after promising not to do this when they acquired Activision Blizzard. This is like the fourth time they’ve lied through their teeth about this, and they’ve become exceedingly efficient at it. We’re still learning which studios and how many people are affected because Xbox is (cruelly) doing this in waves, but this is what we know right now (in active voice, this time): Microsoft has canceled Perfect Dark and shuttered The Initiative; Microsoft has canceled Rare’s Everwild; Microsoft has canceled an MMORPG codenamed Blackbird from ZeniMax Studios, the developer behind The Elder Scrolls Online; Microsoft has laid off staff at Call of Duty developer Raven Software and Turn 10, which develops Forza Motorsport (according to Jason Schrier, Microsoft has laid off nearly 50% of Turn 10’s staff); Kotaku’s Ethan Gach reports that Microsoft has also laid off folks at Undead Labs, the developer of the State of Decay series; IGN, which obtained an internal email from Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty, says Microsoft is canceling several unannounced projects, as well. The blood will continue to flow until the ghouls are satisfied and the line goes up.
All of this is happening despite a CNBC report that “Microsoft reported nearly $26 billion in net income on $70 billion in revenue for the March quarter. The numbers were well ahead of Wall Street’s consensus, keeping Microsoft ranked as one of the most profitable companies in the S&P 500 index, according to data compiled by FactSet.” Microsoft is one of the most profitable companies in the world. But that’s not enough. There always has to be more. And more always comes at the cost of workers, because companies view workers the same way they view furniture: as something you use, wear out, and replace.
The guys who are presiding over all of this incredible, consistent mismanagement? They’re fine. They’re still making more money in a year than you and I will see in our lifetimes. Nothing bad will happen to them. I know this because Microsoft has been mismanaging Xbox for more than a decade and a lot of those guys are still there, greenlighting games that will never release and buying up and closing studios whether they release a critically acclaimed, successful game or not. You could fill a cemetery with the headstones of studios Microsoft has acquired and closed (or tried to). Remember Lionhead? Ensemble? FASA? The list goes on. Tango Gameworks’ story is the exception. For most studios under Microsoft’s hilariously, stupidly, it-should-have-been-illegal-for-them-to-buy-Activision-Blizzard-and-Bethesda big umbrella, it’s not a question of if the axe will fall, but when. Phil Spencer talks a big game about wanting to revive StarCraft and Guitar Hero, but Microsoft can’t even ship Perfect Dark or a finished Halo game.
As I said at the start of this piece, laying off 9,000+ people isn’t even close to the worst thing Microsoft has done recently. It’s probably not even the worst thing they’ve done today. I say that because Microsoft is still complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. In February, the Associated Press reported that US tech companies, Microsoft among them,“have quietly empowered Israel to track and kill many more alleged militants more quickly in Gaza and Lebanon through a sharp spike in artificial intelligence and computing services. But the number of civilians killed has also soared, fueling fears that these tools are contributing to the deaths of innocent people.”
Microsoft claims that its technologies have not been used to “target or harm the people in the conflict in Gaza.” Don’t worry, y’all. You can trust them. They investigated themselves and found that they didn’t do anything wrong. But referring to the Israeli military’s mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza as “the conflict in Gaza” should tell you everything you need to know. This is the same Israeli military that ordered its soldiers to fire on unarmed civilians at aid distribution sites. We know exactly what they’re using Microsoft’s technology for. So does Microsoft; they either don’t care or are trying to convince themselves that they’re not the ones at fault for how their products are being used once they sell them. If your technology aims the gun pointed at the head of an entire people, your hands aren’t clean because you didn’t personally pull the trigger.
The best time to stop giving Microsoft your money was when the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS) asked all of us to. The second best time is now. Some of you might be asking, “But Will, didn’t Skybox just publish a review of Doom: The Dark Ages earlier this week?” That we did, hoping to use that review to draw attention to the BDS Movement and argue that no game, no matter how good (and our writer found Doom: The Dark Ages pretty mediocre) was worth your soul. It’s why we specifically asked folks not to buy or play it in the review itself.
It is clear to me now that that’s not enough. After consulting with several of our writers and the rest of Skybox’s editorial team, Skybox will no longer cover games published or developed at Xbox, or any Xbox or Microsoft products, until they are no longer being targeted by the BDS Movement. We will not write about their games or their shiny new handheld. We will not talk about them on our podcasts. We will not post about them on social media. We will use what little power we have to deny them oxygen. If we must talk about Microsoft, we will say as loudly and as clearly as we can that what they are doing is monstrous. I wrote about standards earlier this year. We intend to follow our collective conscience. You have to draw a line somewhere. This is ours. Here we stand.
I do not blame any person or website that chooses to cover Xbox’s games. Everyone has to eat, and I will have to do a different kind of calculus when I am inevitably offered the opportunity to cover one of their games as a freelancer. Capitalism makes monsters of all of us. But Skybox is an independent, worker-owned publication, and the beauty of owning something is that you get to do whatever you want with it. We’re still figuring out how that works, but this seems like a good place to start.
Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it makes absolutely no difference at all. But Autumn Wright has written about why those of us who work in games journalism cannot ignore this. With Skybox, we have a space that we have carved out for ourselves, and we can use it to do the right thing. And when you think about it like that, the choice is remarkably easy. I very badly want to play Ninja Gaiden 4. I have been waiting for that game for 12 years. If I don’t have to cover it for work, I won’t be purchasing or playing it until this is over. I’ve already waited twelve years. Waiting a little longer is a small price to pay to save a piece of my soul.
My challenge to anyone reading this piece is this: do not buy games developed or published by Microsoft. Cancel your Xbox Games Pass subscriptions. Do not post about their products. Do not talk about them. If you’re in a position where you can choose not to cover them, do so. If you must, write and speak loudly and clearly about what Microsoft is abetting in Gaza. Report on how Microsoft has treated its workers. Make it clear that it is one of the richest, most profitable companies in the world. Microsoft does not need to do any of this. The people in charge chose to. We are who we choose to be, and no one will be free until we all are.
Plant that fucking tree.
