For those of you who haven’t heard yet…there are many people who think Windows 8 will be bad for the gaming industry. Very bad. Gabe Newell (the powerful, rotund personality behind Steam, the world’s largest digital video game distribution platform), one of the designers of Starcraft (pretty much the most popular real time strategy game ever made), and the founder and CEO of Mojang (the company behind Minecraft) all feel that Windows 8 might just kill video games on the PC.
But why? Why are they so vehemently against it? What is it about Windows 8 that makes it terrible for game developers?
The key lies in openness. There’s been a lot of talk lately about how Windows 8 is going to be a closed environment. About how, by infusing its mobile and desktop offerings into one operating system and opening up the Windows Store, Microsoft plans to monitor and regulate all applications that are to be seen on the platform. While these are simply rumors at the moment, things don’t look good. Even if they don’t kill game development outright, it’d be very easy for them to force licensing fees on anyone who wishes to develop for their operating system.
Openness is what brought the PC to where it is today. If Microsoft kills it, what would that mean for the platform and its users? Newell has already stated that he’s hedging his bets and going with Linux. How many other developers will follow suit and jump ship? And what about independent developers? Where will they stand? If Microsoft makes Windows 8 a more controlled, closed system, they could effectively neuter the independent gaming industry.
Closing off Windows 8 in such a fashion might well end up coming back to bite Microsoft in the rear- and if they do what everyone seems to believe they will, they be shooting themselves in the foot. But will they actually go that far?
It’s hard to say. They’ve already demonstrated that they’re willing to throw their allies to the wolves- how do you think their hardware partners felt about the unveiling of the Windows Surface tablet? What about all the competition they’ve received from Apple in the hardware and mobile space? And what of their current CEO?
Still, in light of all this, the Unreal Engine 3 has already been debuted on Windows 8 and Windows RT. They’re obviously not going to ignore the gaming industry – it’s far too large a chunk of their user base for them to do that. But it’s still difficult to say what they will do. At this point in time, all we can really do is wait and see. We won’t have to wait long- Windows 8 arrives in a few months’ time.
Hopefully the rumors will be false.
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This seems a lot of hysteria over nothing. Who says Windows 8 will be closed? Maybe MS is setting it up so that Windows 9 (or whatever) will be closed, but Windows 8 will already be backwards compatible, which means it has to be open. Unless you’re referring to the RT version…
And on the other note…why would Microsoft shoot itself in the foot? It needs games, and won’t be running them off. A good bit of the success of iOS and Android have been as a gaming platform (if different from the hardcore PC games).