Whichever way it is going down, Valve screwed up big time here. They really should have had a ton of games ready to go from day one, but then release them over time so that this exact situation didn't occur. People were totally excited when Steam hit Macs, but now? It just feels incredibly weak. Sure we got some of the Valve games right off the bat, but it's mainly been small, indy games. Which is cool if you're into those, but many people simply are not. Wednesdays used to be exciting. Now they're just a source of disappointment when we see yet another day of nothing new to Steam.
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Steam running out of steam ?
- Thread starter Plutonius
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Whichever way it is going down, Valve screwed up big time here. They really should have had a ton of games ready to go from day one, but then release them over time so that this exact situation didn't occur. People were totally excited when Steam hit Macs, but now? It just feels incredibly weak. Sure we got some of the Valve games right off the bat, but it's mainly been small, indy games. Which is cool if you're into those, but many people simply are not. Wednesdays used to be exciting. Now they're just a source of disappointment when we see yet another day of nothing new to Steam.
Yeah, I'm really feeling the weakness in that my computer now has a Steam library where there was none before. I agree that it would have been nice had Valve could have lined up a few more bigger titles off the bat, or worked with publishers like Aspyr and others to get games like CoD and Bioshock up via Steamplay (guessing GameAgent and other things are getting in the way there), but otherwise this just reads like blustery entitlement. Why not go all the way with your disappointment? Go ahead and suggest that Valve close the whole shop up right now and roll on down the road.
I think that instead of just pining for titles of the past couple years to get quickly ported over, it's more hopeful and realistic to look forward and see that Valve is setting the table to make it really easy for developers/publishers to make their new games Mac-compatible from day one. I see that games like Darkspore and Sims:Medieval are listed as cross-platform, etc. It's a much easier sell to get those companies to jump on board Mac for projects in development than to get them to devote resources to games already out (as much as I hope that work does progress). Hopefully when a Dragon Age 2 comes out, it's Steamplay out the gate. That's the sort of metric I would at least hold out for to judge how successful Valve/Steam has been on the Mac gaming world.
I don't think anyone is saying that Steam is a failure (or even close) but many people (myself included) had very high expectations of Steam for the Mac. Our expectations are turning out to be unreasonable but that's not stopping many of us from feeling disappointed.
I think many of us would be less disappointed if Steam managed to get some of the older OS X games that still run under 10.6.4. I recently purchased "Rome, Total War" for OS X on cd and I think that it would have been a perfect title to get on Steam.
I think many of us would be less disappointed if Steam managed to get some of the older OS X games that still run under 10.6.4. I recently purchased "Rome, Total War" for OS X on cd and I think that it would have been a perfect title to get on Steam.
I agree with CasaRed; this disappointment with Steam comes from some ingrained entitlement. Valve not only ported most of their library but they even gave away Portal and people are still finding reasons to declare the whole venture a failure.
By the way, Steam lets you import non-Steam games into its library. I doubt it knows when updates for those games come out but it is a good way to organise you mac games collection.
That's kind of depressing, actually. I was hoping to see stuff like Sim City 4k go up on Steam as a dual platform release, but if Aspyr isn't seeing any money from Civ 4, that's kind of depressing. That should really get that worked out.
The Mac version of Sim City 4 is still unpatched, it never got past the beta universal binary patch..
And Cider isn't.. that bad, just EA worked with it horribly.
The user created and optimised wrappers are far, far better than EA's releases,
Your answer is here, folks...
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/08/05/valve-prophesise-mac-game-wave-in-2011/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/08/05/valve-prophesise-mac-game-wave-in-2011/
Can I just say that Apple should buy Valve? Look at the world of Portal. That is 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino in my mind. Seriously, Steam could be re-purposed to sell and update all kinds of applications. Both are if not perfect, perfectionists.
That couldn't really happen. Valve wouldn't agree to it, and Steam is the biggest distribution channel (i think?) for Windows games, the tiny amount of content we have on osX is just a drop in the ocean compared to the rest of the content available on Windows..
I really don't see Apple wanting to be the go-to guys for Windows games!
You may be right. Before the Mac version I did not use Steam at all. It has a lot of good features (automatic instillation, updating, statistics, etc) and as a distribution system it is superior to any alternative such as Mac shops or online retailers.
As for the games, I knew enough not to expect all Windows games to suddenly get OS X compatibility. There may be a relative trickle of games now but there are enough must-haves to keep me busy until the release pace increases.
Some of the responses are a little suprising. Thanks to Valve, Apple has taken gaming on the mac seriously and is actually working with them as well as Nvidia and ATi to improve performance on the platform.
I was really happy to hear Steam was coming natively to OS X. I had used Crossover previously but it just wasn't the same and truly wasn't playable.
The future is only going to get better as more and more developers take the platform seriously. I mean, we were told by Electronic Arts that from NFS Carbon, all EA releases would be cross-platform. Where is it? Now is there chance to sort it out and once the graphics drivers are worked out, I can see DirectX becoming extinct making cross-platform gaming damn near seamless.
As for Valve's progress with OS X, yes, I agree it is a little slow and has been a learning curve for all involved but you've got to applaud their hard work and to even consider us since the mac is viewed as a professional tool and not a toy. My games library is quite limited on OS X but I'm glad I can still get my FPS fix with some relatively recent releases.
NOW HURRY UP AND GIVE ME L4D2 AND PORTAL 2
I was really happy to hear Steam was coming natively to OS X. I had used Crossover previously but it just wasn't the same and truly wasn't playable.
The future is only going to get better as more and more developers take the platform seriously. I mean, we were told by Electronic Arts that from NFS Carbon, all EA releases would be cross-platform. Where is it? Now is there chance to sort it out and once the graphics drivers are worked out, I can see DirectX becoming extinct making cross-platform gaming damn near seamless.
As for Valve's progress with OS X, yes, I agree it is a little slow and has been a learning curve for all involved but you've got to applaud their hard work and to even consider us since the mac is viewed as a professional tool and not a toy. My games library is quite limited on OS X but I'm glad I can still get my FPS fix with some relatively recent releases.
NOW HURRY UP AND GIVE ME L4D2 AND PORTAL 2
That sounds very positive and upbeat. Good to hear. Nice too that they mention world-wide Mac sales/interest rather than US only. Obviously that's a benefit of digital distribution, it's easier to sell worldwide.
Look back on the post when Steam first came out. Many people even thought they would finally be able to delete bootcamp off their Macs
Not me, I did not fall for that. I've got too many games in my Steam library I wanted to keep access to.
Pre-Mac Steam compared to post-Mac Steam, it's had an impact. How many new native Mac games now that were not there before? It was a 100 or so. That is significant. I agree, a substantial part of the problem is over expectations. I expect there are a ton of games that won't ever see the light of day running under Mac Steam, so I'll just keep PC Steam tucked away in a corner. The thing is if you are hurting bad enough, most of you guys could crank up PC Steam and play that way for a fix.
So how does that work exactly? You have a PC Publisher and a Mac Publisher (Aspyr) of the same game. If it's going onto Mac Steam, but is controlled by Valve, what if the PC Publisher who all ready has a PC Steam version of the game wants to bring it to Mac Steam? When can Aspyr say "no you can't"?
The problem I see is that Mac ports typically are different in capabilities than the original PC game, either no cross platform game play (mostly, not always), it's not kept up to date like the PC version, it's lacking subsets of toolkits, mods, things of those nature. If it's going to go onto Steam, I believe they want a higher standard for cross platform compatibility. Should I go as far as say they want a mirror image of capabilities?
And I've always had an impression that Mac ports have a performance hit as compared to their original PC version. Is this still the case with games running under Mac Steam, or has it improved now that Valve is bringing over it's games to Mac Steam? I wonder if anyone has done some side by side comparisons?
Your disappointment seems to stem from an apparent confusion between "Steam" and "Valve". Valve develops games. They also own Steam, which is basically a distribution system, essentially a store/shop. Valve has done an extremely good job of getting their key existing game library to the Mac since the announcement. But why would the fact that, essantially, Valve is allowing Mac titles in their "store", automatically mean the other independent developers/publishers that stock the store would suddenly do Mac ports? A few have, but the existance of a new retail outlet by itself is not enough to entice all these companies to make a large new investment in ports.
Personally, I had more tempered expectations. I expected a ruch of Valve titles, then a trickle of others. Unless you are developing in the Valve environment, Steam for Mac made a Mac port more attractive merely by making distribution easier-- no additional kits, inventory, etc. That's significant, but it makes the Mac port more attractive only on the order of 20-30%, not 200-300%. That will push some developers, but nowhere near as much as 5 points of Mac market share would.
True that distribution is key. What do you base the 20-30% on?
Valve can do this with games and Apple could be doing it with OS X applications but they are not for an unknown reason. It would be a good test-bed for their rumoured music (and video?) streaming service.
Based on my business experience, I did a very crude estimate of the full cost of distribution, including the fixed costs of designing/creating alternate packaging (assuming PC and Mac versions released separately), stocking and related costs, as well as the incremental cost of each kit. Then I added a swag on the value of having Steam as an additional distribution channel. It's a crude guess, but the point is that Steam for Mac by itself may push developers who were already on the fence into doing a Mac port, but it isn't going to change the fundamentals that much. In contrast, going from a 5% to 10% share would have a much greater influence.
I realize the difference
and think that Valve did a great job on releasing their titles (i.e. I'm somewhat disappointed in the Steam service but I'm very happy with the Valve titles that made it to OS X).I'm just hoping (although doubtful) that Steam is actively going after the Mac developers/publishers. I agree that many developers/publishers would not want to spend money to port a game to Steam but, they should be able to put many of the current OS X games on Steam for little / no cost and time.