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Mac Steam has been released. Steam Play for cross-client ownership. TF2 out on Mac!

B

brain_stew

Member
Update:

Valve PR confirming Steamworks for Mac, free Windows/Mac interoperability, an OpenGL renderer for Source and the arrival of all of Valve's Source based games on Mac in April:

Valve said:
March 8, 2010 – Valve announced today it will bring Steam, Valve’s gaming service, and Source, Valve’s gaming engine, to the Mac.

Steam and Valve’s library of games including Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series will be available in April.

“As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients,” said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. “The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services.”

“Our Steam partners, who are delivering over a thousand games to 25 million Steam clients, are very excited about adding support for the Mac,” said Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development at Valve. “Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge. For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac. We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play.”

“We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation,” said John Cook, Director of Steam Development. “The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows.”

Portal 2 will be Valve’s first simultaneous release for Mac and Windows. “Checking in code produces a PC build and Mac build at the same time, automatically, so the two platforms are perfectly in lock-step,” said Josh Weier, Portal 2 Project Lead. “We’re always playing a native version on the Mac right alongside the PC. This makes it very easy for us and for anyone using Source to do game development for the Mac.”
Click to expand...

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/03/08/steam-and-im-a-mac/#more-26656



Update

The 6th image has been found and its hilarious:

b3vg3d.jpg




Whilst not "officially" confirmed, Valve have sent a few images around the internet that give more than a little hint that Steam, The Orange Box and Left 4 Dead (and possibly more) are set to arrive on the Mac very shortly.

Here's the images collected so far:

image-o-matic_x.jpg


500x_05_francis.jpg


5bnz88.jpg


2gt9a2o.jpg


9tllza.jpg


And the Mac Rumours story on it:

http://www.macrumors.com/2010/03/03/valve-teases-upcoming-half-life-release-for-mac/


There's still one image left to find it would seem.
 
A

A Twisty Fluken

Member
Huge news, Valve PR amazing, OMG @ the font on the ad, blah blah blah, can't wait for Steam + source on my Mac. :D

Can I preorder an iVich yet?
 
Q

qwerty2k

Member
yay....i mean i don't like valves games or steam but anything that may increase the likelihood of other games being ported to mac is good news in my eyes :)
 
G

gregor7777

Banned
With this and the recent Portal ARG stuff Valve's marketing has been blindingly awesome. The Portal mystery stuff is just awesome.
 
A

Auron_Kale

Member
Please be true.

I want to play all my Valve games again and access my Steam account (it's been a while). This will be the best thing to happen once I decide on whether to get a new 13-inch MBP or 15-inch MBP to replace my 12-inch G4 PowerBook...
 
O

overthehill99

Member
I better be able to play my Mac ported Steam games that I already own on OSX. I'm not re-buying games, and it would be so much easier for me not to use the Windows partition anymore.
 
G

Gowans

Member
I always wondered why Apple haven't started selling games and programs for Mac over iTunes, seems to be working well on iPhone/iPod (& iPad in future).

Still can't see a reason they wouldn't.
 
Z

Zzoram

Member
Gowans007 said:
I always wondered why Apple haven't started selling games and programs for Mac over iTunes, seems to be working well on iPhone/iPod (& iPad in future).

Still can't see a reason they wouldn't.
Click to expand...

Nobody bothers to port games to OSX so there is nothing to sell.
 
X

Xater

Member
Oh snap! This being Valve I guess I will jus be able to play my library without paying again right? I think this would finally make me get L4D2.
 
H

Hot Coldman

Banned
brain_stew said:
There's still one more image left to find. Could be L4D2 (though I'd imagine the single L4D image encompasses both), could be CS:S.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's why I mentioned CS:S. Has to be the last image.
 
Acidote

Acidote

Member
Something probably stupid since I'm not familiar with the mac world just came to my mind:

How to manage secondary fire?
 
C

crimsonheadGCN

Banned
Baha said:
Congrats to Mac owners everywhere, now if they can confirm cross platform play...
Click to expand...

You mean cross platform between Mac and Windows? They wouldn't need to confirm it. I do not think anything would get in the way between the two clients interacting with each other.

Edit: If they are going to port their whole source-base catalog, do you think that Valve would update every game to the Orange Box engine for both Windows and OSX?
 
C

ClovingWestbrook

Banned
Xater said:
Oh snap! This being Valve I guess I will jus be able to play my library without paying again right? I think this would finally make me get L4D2.
Click to expand...

Honestly, I would be surprised if you DIDN'T have to re-buy the game on Mac. Then again, the fact that you can take your PC game disc and use it on a Mac through Boot Camp, who knows.
 
Macmanus

Macmanus

Member
Cheeto said:
If they can do Mac, why not Linux?
Click to expand...

Do Linux users actually play video games? I thought they all just sat around debating the importance of packaging/not packing PHP on Debian.
 
B

brain_stew

Member
Xater said:
Oh snap! This being Valve I guess I will jus be able to play my library without paying again right? I think this would finally make me get L4D2.
Click to expand...

There's not been any word on how it works, but like you say, this being Valve, I wouldn't be surprised if that's how it works. There's an impending update waiting for the original HL2 (the ahivements showing up in the UI beta confirm it) so maybe they'll add Steam cloud support to their games at the same time. Being able to seamlessly move from Mac to PC with your saves and control schemes all stored in the cloud would be pretty damn awesome.
 
V

Vinterbird

Member
Acidote said:
Something probably stupid since I'm not familiar with the mac world just came to my mind:

How to manage secondary fire?
Click to expand...

We've had right mouse button for some time now in Apple mice and on laptops.

cjelly said:
I don't get the Gordon Freeman one.

What's it supposed to be?
Click to expand...

Just Gordon in the classic Apple colors. I don't think it's spoofing a commercial.
 
O

overthehill99

Member
LovingSteam said:
Honestly, I would be surprised if you DIDN'T have to re-buy the game on Mac. Then again, the fact that you can take your PC game disc and use it on a Mac through Boot Camp, who knows.
Click to expand...
If it is Steam that's coming, and not just Mac ports of Source games, I would fully expect my library to work fine (at least the compatible games) on my Mac. As soon as I log into Steam on my Mac, my whole library should be there. What difference does it make of what OS you're on?
 
C

ClovingWestbrook

Banned
cjelly said:
I don't get the Gordon Freeman one.

What's it supposed to be?
Click to expand...

Mac logo on his chest :)

Blu_LED said:
If it is Steam that's coming, and not just Mac ports of Source games, I would fully expect my library to work fine (at least the compatible games) on my Mac. As soon as I log into Steam on my Mac, my whole library should be there. What difference does it make of what OS you're on?
Click to expand...

Good point.
 
NekoFever

NekoFever

Member
Pleeeeeease let me play the Windows Source games that I already own on the Mac. Blizzard puts both versions on the same disc and that's with the malign influence of Activision behind it, so there's no excuse for Valve not to.

Those teasers are awesome, though.
 
Z

Zzoram

Member
Blu_LED said:
If it is Steam that's coming, and not just Mac ports of Source games, I would fully expect my library to work fine (at least the compatible games) on my Mac. As soon as I log into Steam on my Mac, my whole library should be there. What difference does it make of what OS you're on?
Click to expand...

Your whole Steam library wouldn't just work on OSX if they port Steam and Source. Only the client and Source engine games they port will work.
 
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