Minecraft developer and Mojang head honcho Markus 'Notch' Persson has refused to help Microsoft get the open world block-building game running on Windows 8 in protest over the closed nature of the new operating system.
Windows 8, which launches next month, has drawn ire from the PC game development community for its attempt to create a 'walled garden' ecosystem with the built in Windows Store. Much like Apple's mobile operating system, this will require software to go through its own certification process and will feature restrictions on the sort of content that can be submitted.
'I told them to stop trying to ruin the PC as an open platform,' Tweeted Notch. 'I'd rather have Minecraft not run on Win 8 at all than to play along. Maybe we can convince a few people not to switch to Win 8 that way.'
The Minecraft creator has previously reported on Mojang's excellent experience working with Microsoft for the Xbox Live Arcade release of the title. When it launched, the game sold 400,000 copies in the first 24 hours.
Other notable PC developers to criticise the new Microsoft operating system include Blizzard and Valve, with Gabe Newell going as far to say that it was 'a catastrophe for everybody in the PC space. The closed nature of Windows 8 is apparently one of the incentives behind Valve's push to work more with Linux systems.
Microsoft recently fought back with an argument that Windows 8 is actually a good thing for gamers as with the operating system, it is much harder for people to hack and cheat at multiplayer games. The new Windows is due to launch on October 26.
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