Många utvecklare är missnöjda med den riktning Microsoft valt för Windows 8, men att för den sakens skull hoppa över till Linux är långt ifrån någon självklarhet. Deels är marknaden betydligt mindre, och dessutom riskerar utvecklingen att bli betydligt mer resurskrävande. Det påstår åtminstone Braid-utvecklaren Jonathan Blow i en post på Ycombinator.
Blow skriver bland annat: "I really dislike what Microsoft does, especially what they are doing now with Windows 8. But today, the cost of switching to Linux is too high. I have a lot of things to do with the number of years of life I have remaining, and I can't afford to cut 20 per cent off the number of years in my life."
Det största problemet med utveckling till Linux beskriver Blow såhär: "The main reason is that debugging is terrible on Linux"
Blow avslutar: "Productivity is crucial. If the lack of a reasonable debugging environment costs me even 5 per cent of my productivity, that is too much, because games take so much work to make. At the end of a project, I just don't have 5% effort left any more. It requires everything. (But the current Linux situation is way more than a 5 per cent productivity drain. I don't know exactly what it is, but if I were to guess, I would say it is something like 20 per cent.)"
