Blizzard agrees with Gabe Newell about Windows 8 being a 'catastrophe'

Recently, CEO of Valve, Gabe Newell had come out against Windows 8 , saying that the new release of the popular operating system will be a ‘catastrophe’. Blizzard VP Rob Pardo has recently agreed with Newell’s negative outlook on Microsoft’s upcoming operating system.

“[N]ice interview with Gabe Newell,” Pardo wrote on Twitter. In reference to Newell’s prediction that Windows 8 would be a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space, Pardo said, “[N]ot awesome for Blizzard either.”

Blizzard has been very popular in the PC gaming market for groundbreaking games such as the science fiction strategy game franchise Starcraft and Warcraft - their strategy games set in a fantasy world.

Blizzard’s most recent release has been Diablo III, which has been a very controversial game. The game has many unpopular ‘features’ such as the requirement to always be online, even when playing single player, and the real money auction house where players can spend real life money to get better equipment for their in-game characters.

Blizzard shares Newell’s opinion about Windows 8

In an interview, Gabe Newell had said that many don’t realize how “critical games are,” when it comes to choosing an operating system for a consumer. “The big problem that is holding back Linux is games. People don’t realize how critical games are in driving consumer purchasing behavior,” he had said. “We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It’s a hedging strategy." He also said, “[W]e’re trying to make sure that Linux thrives. Our perception is that one of the big problems holding Linux back is the absence of games… I think that Windows 8 is kind of a catastrophe for everybody in the PC space. I think that we’re going to lose some of the top-tier PC [original equipment manufacturers]. They’ll exit the market. I think margins are going to be destroyed for a bunch of people.”

Valve has recently announced that they are working on a Linux version of their popular digital distribution platform, Steam. To complement Steam, they are also working on porting their co-operative zombie shooter Left 4 Dead 2.

Valve has started a new blog dedicated to the development of their platform on Linux. The blog states that Gabe Newell, head of Valve, had been interested in the possibility of moving Steam and the Source Engine to Linux. It says, “At the time, the company was already using Linux by supporting Linux-based servers for Source-based games and also by maintaining several internal servers (running a 64-bit version of Ubuntu server) for various projects. In 2011, based on the success of those efforts and conversations in the hallway, we decided to take the next step and form a new team. At that time, the team only consisted of a few people whose main purpose was investigating the possibility of moving the Steam client and Left 4 Dead 2 over to Ubuntu”.