Notch Refuses To Certify MineCraft For Windows 8

MineCraft creator, Markus “Notch” Persson, has refused to work with Microsoft to certify MineCraft for Windows 8.

“Got an email from microsoft, wanting to help ‘certify’ minecraft for win 8,” he tweeted. “I told them to stop trying to ruin the pc as an open platform.”

“I’d rather have minecraft not run on win 8 at all than to play along” Notch added in a follow up tweet. “Maybe we can convince a few people not to switch to win 8 that way..”

To be more precise, the certification mentioned in Microsoft’s email is not needed to get the game to run on Windows 8. It is however required only if the game is to be available through the Windows Store. While the X86 version of Windows 8 is able to run programs from any source, the ARM version is locked into running certified applications from the Windows Store only. Unsurprisingly, Notch and most of the indie community view this as a backward move from the (relative) openness of earlier Windows versions.