In the wake of comments from Valve co-founder Gabe Newell calling Windows 8 "kind of a catastrophe," Blizzard's Executive Vice President of Game Design, Rob Pardo, shared a similar sentiment on Twitter.
Calling Windows 8 "not awesome for Blizzard either" is far from a condemnation out of Pardo, but for a company focused so squarely on a PC audience with huge PC titles like World of Warcraft and Diablo III, any sign of discontent could mean real trouble ahead.
Both Newell and Pardo have remained quiet as to the particulars of their disappointment in Windows 8, although it may be that the bugs still outstanding in the release preview are causing coding issues.
One software developer did, however, come forward a while back to shed some light on the pessimism surrounding the tablet-friendly Windows, and his insights may very well be indicative of other developers' issues with the platform.
Windows 8 my desktop
In a post on Kotaku, Brad Wardell, president and CEO of Stardock (known for Sins of Solar Empire and OfficeDock) discussed his beef with Windows 8.
Most of Wardell's gripes stem from what he described as the central confusion of Windows 8 - that it's been half-developed for desktops and half-developed for tablets.
"It tries to be both," said Wardell, "and neither."
The example he gave is of the simple act of booting a game, where, in the current framework, users with mice have to scroll to the left of the start screen, wait for the Metro tile to be displayed, click on the tile which then goes to the Metro desktop where the game can be found.
As it turns out, there are ways around this cumbersome method, but the point is well-made. Windows 8, out of the box, is designed with touchscreen precisely in mind, and that may cause some frustration for desktop users.
Valve and Blizzard aren't delving into the details of their challenges with Windows 8, but it's a safe bet that they've had to, like Stardock, learn to accommodate for this new, less accurate type of input.
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