Markus "Notch" Persson says Windows 8 could be "very, very bad for Indie games."
Mojang's Markus "Notch" Persson is the latest industry heavyweight to speak out against Windows 8, stating in a Reddit AMA that Microsoft's new OS will be a hindrance to freedom of development.
"I hope we can keep a lot of open and free platforms around. If Microsoft decides to lock down Windows 8, it would be very very bad for Indie games and competition in general," Persson responded to a question about the future of indie games. "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."
Earlier this month at the Casual Connect conference, Valve's Gabe Newell called Windows 8 "kind of a catastrophe for everybody in the PC space," expressing the fear that the industry will "lose some of the top-tier PC [original equipment manufacturers]. They'll exit the market."
Rob Pardo, vice president of design at Valve, took to Twitter to echo Newell's statement, claiming the OS is "not awesome for Blizzard either."
The issue appears to be, at least partially, about the upcoming operating system's built-in marketplace, Windows Store.
ArenaNet, CCP Games, CD Projekt Red, EA, Firaxis, Sony Online Entertainment, Trion Worlds, all either declined to comment about Windows 8 or said they didn't have enough experience with the upcoming operating system to discuss it.
Windows 8 is slated to launch on October 26th.