Creator of Minecraft agrees Windows 8 will be bad for gaming

Gabe Newell, CEO of Valve, had recently talked about Windows 8 and how it would be a catastrophe for gaming. Some time after that, Blizzard weighed in on the discussion and agreed with Newell. Now, in an AMA (Ask Me Anything) thread on Reddit, the latest game developer to share the same opinion is Markus Persson, better known as Notch. He is the creator of the extremely popular sandbox game Minecraft and head of game studio Mojang.

"If Microsoft decides to lock down Windows 8, it would be very, very bad for Indie games and competition in general," Notch said during the AMA on Reddit. "If we can keep open platforms around, there's going to be a lot of very interesting games in ten years, mixed in with the huge AAA games that we all love."

Windows 8 is bad for gaming?

Gabe Newell had talked to VentureBeat about the future of gaming. Newell said that many don't realize the importance laid upon games by consumers when choosing an operating system. “The big problem that is holding back Linux is games. People don’t realize how critical games are in driving consumer purchasing behavior,” he said. “We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It’s a hedging strategy." He goes on to say, "[W]e’re trying to make sure that Linux thrives. Our perception is that one of the big problems holding Linux back is the absence of games... I think that Windows 8 is kind of a catastrophe for everybody in the PC space. I think that we’re going to lose some of the top-tier PC [original equipment manufacturers]. They’ll exit the market. I think margins are going to be destroyed for a bunch of people.”

Valve had announced last month that they are working on a Linux version of their popular digital distribution platform, Steam. To complement Steam, they are also working on porting their co-operative zombie shooter Left 4 Dead 2.

Valve has started a new blog dedicated to the development of their platform on Linux. The blog states that Gabe Newell, head of Valve, had been interested in the possibility of moving Steam and the Source Engine to Linux. It says, “At the time, the company was already using Linux by supporting Linux-based servers for Source-based games and also by maintaining several internal servers (running a 64-bit version of Ubuntu server) for various projects. In 2011, based on the success of those efforts and conversations in the hallway, we decided to take the next step and form a new team. At that time, the team only consisted of a few people whose main purpose was investigating the possibility of moving the Steam client and Left 4 Dead 2 over to Ubuntu”.

Blizzard VP Rob Pardo has also agreed with Newell’s negative outlook on Microsoft’s upcoming operating system. "[N]ice interview with Gabe Newell," Pardo wrote on Twitter. In reference to Newell's prediction that Windows 8 would be a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space, Pardo said, "[N]ot awesome for Blizzard either."