Blizzard Entertainment are the latest Windows 8 dissenters
Ryan Martin / 12 years ago
We have already seen Valve’s Gabe Newell tear into Windows 8, describing it as a catastrophe for the PC Platform. Blizzard Entertainment are the latest company to make a similar move. Blizzard executive vice president, Rob Pardo was the man who announced Blizzard’s disdain for the upcoming operating system.
“I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space—not awesome for Blizzard either.”
With gaming giants Valve and Blizzard now both anti-Windows 8 this marks an important point in time for the gaming community. Although there is still no viable alternative to Windows right now, there have been attempts to shift gaming towards the free linux OS Ubuntu in recent times by Steam.
It is no secret that the ability to play almost every game has kept Windows alive. As Gabe Newell has stated:
“People don’t realize how critical games are in driving consumer purchasing behavior.”
Gaming is perhaps one of the main reasons why Linux has never been able to take off, even though it is free and just as usable as Windows.
Microsoft’s Windows 8, although something new, lacks a unique PC identity. Trying to cater for the world of tablets and desktops at the same time sees it failing to do either that well.
This could be the beginning of a paradigm shift in the way games are developed, distributed and played. Or this could force Microsoft to rethink Windows 8 before it launches it to the PC platform on October the 26th.
