A BDS-driven Xbox holdout
House House, the Melbourne studio behind Untitled Goose Game, has said its co-op game Big Walk will not come to Xbox while Microsoft remains a target of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
We would love for people to be able to play the game on Xbox, but not until Microsoft and/or Xbox have been removed as BDS boycott targets.
House House, statement on Big Walk
In the statement, reported by GamesIndustry.biz, the studio says it made the decision “in accordance with the Palestinian-led BDS movement’s call to boycott Microsoft, and their designation of Microsoft Games (and Xbox) as a priority boycott target.” It also acknowledges the cost to its own players: “This decision means that some people will miss out on playing Big Walk with their friends, and we understand the disappointment we’re causing. We are disappointed too.”
Why Microsoft is on the list
PC Gamer points to a report last year that Israel’s military used a specialised subset of Microsoft’s Azure cloud to store intercepted communications from Gaza and the West Bank, which led to employee protests and to Xbox being added to the boycott targets. In May 2025 Microsoft said an internal review found “no evidence to date” that its technologies had been “used to target or harm people” in Gaza, while acknowledging it supplies Israel’s Ministry of Defence with software, cloud and AI services.
Big Walk is a bigger commercial bet than a protest by a tiny indie. It launched on August 4 on Steam at $19.99, and PC Gamer says around a million players picked it up in its first week.
House House pointed players who want its reasoning to the BDS campaign’s own explainer and to an introductory video by People Make Games.
House House says keeping Big Walk off Xbox “runs counter” to a game designed for groups of friends. Image: House House / Panic, via Steam.
Other developers taking the same line
- Dan Dilorio, maker of Luck be a Landlord, asked players not to buy the game on Xbox and said he would donate $10,000 to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund to offset what it earned Microsoft.
- Ice Water removed Tenderfoot Tactics from Xbox.
- Speculative Agency, developer of All Will Rise, said it wants to join the No Games for Genocide campaign, which would mean asking Microsoft to let it break a funding contract.
- Union members at Arkane Studios published an open letter to the heads of the studio, ZeniMax and Microsoft.
Most of those are small catalogues. Big Walk is a current hit from an established studio, and it’s also exactly the sort of co-op game Game Pass usually chases.
