Windows 8 has come under some serious criticism from leading video game industry personalities like Gabe Newell, Notch and more recently, Alen Ladavac from CroTeam who thinks the Windows 8 Store idea is horrible.
The problem with Windows 8 is that it is becoming more like the Apple Store, a kind of a closed market place where everything needs to be approved by Microsoft. This has resulted in to developers criticizing it and Gabe Newell calling it a ‘catastrophe for everyone in the PC space‘.
Now according to an interesting article by EuroGamer, more and more developers are joining the bandwagon. Miles Jacobson, boss of Football Manager developer Sports Interactive believes it will be a difficult world for developing games if Microsoft was no longer welcoming.
“I actually think Gabe might have seen the internal email that I sent here on Windows 8,” he said. “Personally I don’t think they still want that market to exist.”
“If [Microsoft] were to remove Desktop mode from the operating system, we’d be turning around and telling people if you upgrade you won’t be able to play Football Manager any more. I would like to think, probably naively and arrogantly, that might stop some people from upgrading if it was to be the case,” he continued.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out. Over the last few months, majority of the frontline PC game developers have had a negative stance against this entire Windows Store scenario. Valve recently opened up beta applications for the Steam Linux platform and explained why it’s a better platform. It will be interesting to see what their strategy for the next couple of months will be.
Till then stay tuned for more news and updates.