Minecraft not coming to Windows Store on Windows 8

Posted in minecraft

Notch has been very vocal about the new Windows Store coming with Windows 8. He's not a big fan of the digital distribution platform and says that he'd rather not have Minecraft run on Windows 8 than to play along with the Microsoft certification program.



There's a certain element of confusion about his statement. Essentially the Windows Store has nothing to do with programs that users choose to run outside of the Store in a traditional desktop fashion. Gamers can play any game they like and install anything they like, they just take the risk that the software hasn't been certified and may come with security flaws and possibly malware.

Microsoft's store is a digital platform intended to distribute certified software that meets Microsoft's guidelines. It's kind of like Apple's certification of apps that get released for iOS, nothing different. In the past, Notch has also refused the Steam distribution system.

You can understand why Notch would prefer to avoid distribution systems, just look at the Xbox version of Minecraft. Countless delays whilst Microsoft certify the game before an update can be released. It'll never be as dynamic as the PC snapshots we're getting on a weekly basis from Jeb and Nathan.

In any case, we're not sure why Notch is taking this approach that the Windows Store is a terrible thing. If Microsoft certify software and provide users with a way to trust applications, is that a bad thing? Is there any difference between this and Apple's certification of the Minecraft app for iOS??

There may be more to this story than meets the eye, does the PC version of Minecraft contain security flaws that would fail security testing? Only Mojang know, but in any case we can all download Minecraft for Windows 8 anyway, with or without the Windows Store.