‘Minecraft’ Creator Shuns Windows 8

Markus ‘Notch’ Persson spoke out against Microsoft on Twitter last Thursday after the company asked him to “help ‘certify’ “Minecraft”” for Windows 8.

“I’d rather have “Minecraft” not run on win 8 at all than to play along,” Notch said in a following tweet. Maybe we can convince a few people not to switch to win 8 that way..[sic]”

The Swedish video game designer and owner of Mojang (the makers of the aforementioned, insanely popular “Minecraft”) said that Microsoft was ruining the PC as an open platform, a sentiment that has been shared by many independent developers since the announcement of Windows 8.

Notch is well-known for being incredibly outspoken about his opinions on the games industry, often using very public soapboxes such as Twitter, Reddit and media interviews in order to keep his ideas in front of the eyes of fans and journalists. In an industry that is notoriously secretive, Notch stands out as at least one personality that’s not afraid to say what he thinks.

However, his comments do at least partially contradict his statements about working with Microsoft back in May, when “Minecraft” was being ported to Xbox Live Arcade. Notch said that while Microsoft was “a big and scary American company that likes secrets and meetings and such,” he still loved working with them.

However, Notch’s opinions of Windows 8 have been markedly different.

Back in August, Notch commented on Windows 8 during a Reddit Q&A session. The love he showed the company concerning their work on Xbox Live Arcade was nowhere to be found.

“I hope we can keep a lot of open and free platforms around,” Notch Said. “If Microsoft decides to lock down Windows 8, it would be very, very bad for Indie games and competition in general. 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.”

It is worth noting that the division of Microsoft in charge of the Xbox platform, and the division heading Windows 8 are not run by the same individuals with the same policies.

Mojang is by no means the biggest game developer in the industry. Despite its millions of dollars in software sales, the company has still only shipped one game and remains a totally independent development company. However, Notch and his company have acted as rallying points for popular opinion concerning where game design is, and should be, headed.

A lack of support from Notch could represent a wider issue with independent studios for Microsoft. With independent game development becoming more profitable and widespread every month, this could end up being a significant blow to Microsoft’s position in the video game space.

We won’t likely immediately notice what implications, if any, Notch’s refusal to certify “Minecraft” will have when Windows 8 launches next month. However, unless one of the companies decides to change their policies, the future of the relationship between the two may be very different than anyone expected.