Serious Sam developer rails against “Walled Garden” of Windows 8
Croteam chief technical officer Alen Ladavac has spoken out strongly against Microsoft’s Windows 8 certification system, which he believes represents a dangerous step towards the world of console gaming.
“Gabe Newell did not overreact. What you don’t see here is that, under the hood, the new tiled UI is a means for Microsoft to lock Windows applications into a walled garden, much like the one on iOS,” Ladavac said, letting loose on the Steam forum.
“There is this ‘small detail’ that Microsoft is not advertising anywhere, but you can find it dug deep in the developer documentation: one cannot release a tiled UI application by any other means, but only through Windows Store.”
Calling this rule “horrible”, Ladavac said it’s not just that users will not be able to source software directly from creators or third-parties.
“If it was just about ‘being downloaded from Windows store’, it would not be a problem. It would be nice to have a common hub to download things from,” he said.
“But to get an app onto that store, it has to be certified by Microsoft. This means bringing the ‘console experience’ onto your desktop. Each app that you will get through the Windows Store will have to adhere to certain requirements imposed by Microsoft.”
The dev said Microsoft has already banned modding, and he harbours fears for Open Source, but even if it did not impose such restrictions, Microsoft’s new process would still introduce all the pitfalls of certification.
“Uncertain release dates, rare and late patches, and everything turning out to be more expensive and sucking more,” he said.
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Valid concerns or over-reaction? Is this good or bad for gaming and gamers? If it's bad, is there any hope of stopping it? Ladavac also said, “certification is a broken concept and should be abolished,” which is interesting, though I cannot possibly see Apple or Microsoft giving up on the control and money-making that the certification process brings.
