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Steam platform and Valve games coming to the Mac?
One of the images showed Half-Life character Gordon Freeman wearing iMac colors and a partially obscured Apple logo on his chest, while another starred Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2 reenacting Apple's iconic 1984 super bowl commercial by throwing a crowbar at a screen portraying the series' villain Dr. Breen. There's also Francis from Left 4 Dead talking about "hating" different, Heavy from Team Fortress 2 appearing in the classic iPod ad silhouette, and a Portal sentry next to a TF2 turret parodying the "I'm a Mac... and I'm a PC" adverts.
It seems likely that all of these titles will make their way to Mac systems along with the Steam client. What's more, this might be an indication that Valve has ported their Source game engine over to OS X, which would allow any future games based on this engine to be easily launched for the Mac. A formal announcement is expected during the 2010 Game Developers Conference, scheduled for next week, from March 9th to the 13th.
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User Comments (45)
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DaMak420
on March 4, 2010 10:13 AM |
Its about time. I am not a mac fan honestly... but Steam has grown so much, why should they not reach out to an entire user group that currently DOESNT have access. Good move for them IMO. |
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TorturedChaos
on March 4, 2010 10:14 AM |
Have a better selection of games for Mac's I think would help them sell their computers. Right now if you want to game you pretty much have to have a windows PC, but if steam brings a good selection of games to the Mac they will have a whole new market to sell their computers to. |
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Vrmithrax
on March 4, 2010 10:38 AM |
@TorturedChaos - I'm not so sure that logic would work. Upgrading a Mac to leading edge graphics and processing powers that are needed for gaming seems like a bit of a dead end - and even if you could, based on Apple's pricing, you probably couldn't afford it. Don't get me wrong, Macs will run lighter mainstream games just fine, but as the hardware specs ramp up, few will be able to afford the steep upgrade / new build cycles that PC gaming follows. We already get consolized and often simplified PC game ports, I'd hate to see the games get ratcheted down even more so they could limp along on a Mac too. |
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Wagan8r
on March 4, 2010 10:42 AM |
Well, seeing as how the Source engine is pretty easy on systems, it makes sense for Valve. However, when it comes to gaming, Macs are just a prohibitively expensive and closed platform. |
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Guest
on March 4, 2010 11:01 AM |
"Macs are just a prohibitively expensive and closed platform." OpenGL which OSX uses to render 3d is hardly a closed platform. Much less so than the proprietary DirectX. |
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osuebucks
on March 4, 2010 11:10 AM |
Hallelujah! Steam is making progress where others have failed. I will definitely get more use out of my Mac once Steam is available. This is great to hear. |
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Guest
on March 4, 2010 11:28 AM |
As a mac user who has to use Windows in Bootcamp to play steam games, i can safely say the mac hardware works just fine. Looking forward to this though, without the update drivers I can't get sound to play in windows. makes playing TF2 a little difficult. |
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pyari
on March 4, 2010 11:29 AM |
take it positively.....its a great news for mac lover......thumps up for all mac users.....one step ahead for hand shaking with new platform.....I'm with valve.....there is no force M$ installation for gaming purpose on mac.... |
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gobbybobby
on March 4, 2010 12:08 PM |
Yer great for Mac users, But I have strong Anti-mac Views which I shall not share (this time). Now Y not have a Client Fully Compat. with Linux, Ubuntu and the like! |
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Vrmithrax
on March 4, 2010 12:12 PM |
Good point, gobbybobby... If you take the above OpenGL argument about Macs not being closed systems, and apply that to Linux, there's no reason why Linux shouldn't be able to get good gaming ports. |
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justin1278
on March 4, 2010 12:13 PM |
As Mac gains market share, this move makes sense. Only thing I wonder about is why they didn't do this sooner. |
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ryan29121
on March 4, 2010 12:32 PM |
I am not a big fan of mac, but the Steam network is great. I love how you can buy games and it stores them. The friends network is great as well. I love the TF2 and Portal reference in the picture. |
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Docnoq
on March 4, 2010 12:43 PM |
My friend will be happy to hear this. I had to put Windows on his Mac through bootcamp so we could play together. This removes a lot of the hassle. I will agree that trying to keep a Mac updated hardware-wise to run games will not be the easiest thing to do, however. Thus, PCs will remain dominant for gamers for some time to come. |
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cyrusjumpjet
on March 4, 2010 12:54 PM |
This is huge news. The Mac has needed something like this for far too long. Hopefully it'll be a success and other developers will follow in their wake. |
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Relic
on March 4, 2010 1:08 PM |
Great ads from Valve |
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Tekkaraiden
on March 4, 2010 1:08 PM |
Excellent news, hope this means a lot more available mac games at a decent price. |
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DaMak420
on March 4, 2010 1:14 PM |
Vrmithrax said: @TorturedChaos - I'm not so sure that logic would work. Upgrading a Mac to leading edge graphics and processing powers that are needed for gaming seems like a bit of a dead end - and even if you could, based on Apple's pricing, you probably couldn't afford it. Don't get me wrong, Macs will run lighter mainstream games just fine, but as the hardware specs ramp up, few will be able to afford the steep upgrade / new build cycles that PC gaming follows. We already get consolized and often simplified PC game ports, I'd hate to see the games get ratcheted down even more so they could limp along on a Mac too. Subsequently, Maybe it will cause Apple to reduce some of their ridiculous pricing and make it more affordable to own a decent Mac. Probably not, but one can dream. |
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Tizzlejack
on March 4, 2010 1:44 PM |
Good news for Mac users. Just having Steam alone opens up a door for small developers. I don't see it turning Mac into a viable platform for big name titles in the future though. |
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TuesdayExpress
on March 4, 2010 2:07 PM |
This is great news for all of my Mac friends, but I'm really curious if this is going to open the door to Linux as well. If you read the copy on the first teaser, it ends with '"There's different types of computers though,' said one guy. 'We'll figure that out later,' said another guy." 'Different types' makes me hope, though I realize that I'm probably staring at the tea leaves a little too hard on this one. |
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manintech
on March 4, 2010 2:22 PM |
just curiosity, how many pc games work on mac? |
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NeoFlux
on March 4, 2010 3:10 PM |
Almost all Mac users whom I know have PC's and do not play any serious computer games at all ... I wonder, if its worth the trouble? |
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AmpFeare
on March 4, 2010 3:49 PM |
Glad to see that the Mac is getting more games, the lack of games on Macs kinda makes linux+wine look good. |
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Serag
on March 4, 2010 4:21 PM |
Neat move by steam, now they'll own this market segment of "mac gamers" if it succeeded.. |
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Timonius
on March 4, 2010 4:59 PM |
hmmm...maybe the increased access to steam and therefore a greater cashflow will help 'speed' the development of half life 2 episode 3. Episode 3 is really the only news I want to hear from Valve right now. |
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eafshar
on March 4, 2010 5:04 PM |
i'll take a tf2 sentry over portal turrets.. tf2 sentry cant be knocked over! |
. While I personally don't have a Mac and don't plan on getting one anytime soon as I have no need, it's good for them. And as some are pointing out hardware I don't think it'll be to big of an issue given that Valve games are rather hardware friendly similar to Blizzard games. Just curious to see if they'll look at Linux too since they are going with OpenGL.Most Popular
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