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The Significance of Steam and Valve's Games for Mac
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I'll take the banana, if it's going spare.
Because kids where not violent before the game industry came into existence.
There have always and will always be violence in society, That is nature. Blaming it on a hobby you don't engage in yourself is pathetic.
Maybe I sould say it like this.
The drive to satisfy the high end advances the technological capacity in the mainstream market.
Valve is really one of the innovative companies in the gaming industry. They were the first to come out with a widespread content distribution platform that actually worked (Steam). I remember when steam first came out around the time of HL2, I bought the game on day 1 and it took forever for it to unlock, but it finally did. Since then Steam has come a long way and now is much more stable.
The original idea of Steam was to try and eliminate the middle man, which it seems to be doing pretty well.
I'm really hoping they actually ported the Source engine over, and it is not just a Cider port. Even if it is cider, it is still a step in the right direction.
The original idea of Steam was to try and eliminate the middle man, which it seems to be doing pretty well.
I'm really hoping they actually ported the Source engine over, and it is not just a Cider port. Even if it is cider, it is still a step in the right direction.
Hiya!
Stupid in your opinion. You really need to ensure you state this. What you say is not definitive nor the truth in any means. Again, you're generalising.
You've come full circle and completely avoided what I said to you. I agreed previously that spending money doesn't give you authority.
It's such a shame that you carry such an opinion and refuse to look outside of the cushy bubble it provides. Oh well.
It's all yours!
Or is it the drive to satisfy the mass, and the card manufacturers essentially let the enthusiasts beta test their bleeding edge hardware before releasing low power and low heat versions later? The direction of causality is a bit difficult to be certain of here, I think.
Of course, high end cards do not in and of themselves make a $5k gaming machine - one can purchase a merely somewhat stupid $400 or $500 card for an otherwise relatively modest machine.
Of course the card makers (or someone employed there, at least) is in it to make the most powerful card they can, and some people want to buy them. The real money is in the midrange, though; and they would likely do pretty much the same R&D to update their midrange cards even if there was no high end card market, as the games developers continue to make more technically strenuous games.
If true, you would have probably kept your mouth shut because you would have known that your purchases are largely indefensible.
What have I avoided? You haven't even bothered to engage with my original point.
By the way: this is the internet - it is all opinion.
It seems like some people have a misconception on what 'porting' is. Porting does not mean inefficient, crap and slow. Porting means moving software from one type of system to another type of system. Any software that starts its life off on a different platform has been ported at some time or another. Now sometimes porting can be done really well and sometimes it can be done really badly.
For example, lets look at Webkit. It started its life as part of KDE (A linux desktop environment) and was called KHTML. Apple ported it to the Mac, fixed up many of its bugs and the rest as they say, is history. It is a very fast render on MacOS X and has also been successfully ported to many other systems in the marketplace today. Open Source guys tend to be really good at writing code that is platform agnostic which was why it did not take Apple long to port Webkit over and to do it well.
Now lets look at iTunes. Originally a MacOS program it was ported to MacOS X (and done well), and then it was ported to Windows (not done so well). Why is the Windows version more bloated and buggier than its Mac counterpart? Simply because originally iTunes was built as a Mac program and as a Mac program only. There was originally no plans to release a Windows version so iTunes was not developed in a way that would be easy to put onto Windows into the future. Now if Apple wanted too I'm sure they could make the Windows version run as well as it does on the Mac but it would take a lot more resources then they are willing to commit.
This is why a lot of games are not ported well to the Mac. When they were originally being developed for the PC it was never intended for it to go onto the Mac so they use stuff like DirectX (windows exclusive) over OpenGL (platform agnostic), which makes porting the game much much harder and more expensive to do well. With Mac Games typically selling a lot worse than their PC counterparts, its just not economically viable to port these games well.
So lets hope that Valve are spending the money to port Steam and the Source Engine well and are not just throwing it in a cider wrapper and being done with it.
For example, lets look at Webkit. It started its life as part of KDE (A linux desktop environment) and was called KHTML. Apple ported it to the Mac, fixed up many of its bugs and the rest as they say, is history. It is a very fast render on MacOS X and has also been successfully ported to many other systems in the marketplace today. Open Source guys tend to be really good at writing code that is platform agnostic which was why it did not take Apple long to port Webkit over and to do it well.
Now lets look at iTunes. Originally a MacOS program it was ported to MacOS X (and done well), and then it was ported to Windows (not done so well). Why is the Windows version more bloated and buggier than its Mac counterpart? Simply because originally iTunes was built as a Mac program and as a Mac program only. There was originally no plans to release a Windows version so iTunes was not developed in a way that would be easy to put onto Windows into the future. Now if Apple wanted too I'm sure they could make the Windows version run as well as it does on the Mac but it would take a lot more resources then they are willing to commit.
This is why a lot of games are not ported well to the Mac. When they were originally being developed for the PC it was never intended for it to go onto the Mac so they use stuff like DirectX (windows exclusive) over OpenGL (platform agnostic), which makes porting the game much much harder and more expensive to do well. With Mac Games typically selling a lot worse than their PC counterparts, its just not economically viable to port these games well.
So lets hope that Valve are spending the money to port Steam and the Source Engine well and are not just throwing it in a cider wrapper and being done with it.
Nope.
If that were true, the mass market cards would be heavily advertised. They're not, the High end ones are.
We all know most of the money is in mass market goods, but the competitive nature of Humans leads to the "Crown" competitions. Companies always want to beat their competitors. Midrange is usually an afterthought.
Take for example Cmaier, he worked for AMD. He didn't start out going... Oh, this would make a nice midrange CPU. His team had a brain fart and designed the Opteron Line first. And according to what he was posting, the design team was more interested in making a new great technology than saying how great of a mid end line this would make. Discussing creation of technology while being in the mindset of a marketer or economist doesn't work. Scientists/Engineers are naturally creative and curious, We also have massive complexes.
MacOSX was "ported" from PPC to x86. Was it slower? or worse? did my ppc mac mini perform better than my core duo mac mini?
A properly done port would be indistinguishable from the original. The reason people think it's going to suck is because a very large chunk of game developers do really half assed ports. A "port" just means you're rewriting the application to run on a new platform, if you do it right it's not any different than developing the application for that platform originally.
Keep in mind every single OS-X application we are currently using that existed prior to 2006 was ported to run on x86.
PS. Everything I just said is, of course, an over simplification. Please don't get all technical and correct me
Do we know how much money they make on high end cards vs midrange? I am not aware of any numbers, do you have any? As I said, I am not certain one way or the other, but a flashy flagship product does often sell lower priced items. They are going to make the stuff anyway, why not put some out in the market?
It is quite clear, however, that game developers have been favoring the mass/casual gamer for some time now. I would prefer this not be the case, actually, as I feel it tends to dumb down the product, but money talks.
MacOSX was "ported" from PPC to x86. Was it slower? or worse? did my ppc mac mini perform better than my core duo mac mini?
A properly done port would be indistinguishable from the original. The reason people think it's going to suck is because a very large chunk of game developers do really half assed ports. A "port" just means you're rewriting the application to run on a new platform, if you do it right it's not any different than developing the application for that platform originally.
Keep in mind every single OS-X application we are currently using that existed prior to 2006 was ported to run on x86.
PS. Everything I just said is, of course, an over simplification. Please don't get all technical and correct me
Actually, A lot of old mac users think the the Intel ports suck arse.
I think it was kept intel-native from the NeXT buyout until the osx intel rollout - opendarwin was x86 native in 2000 and was based on NeXTSTEP code: wiki
Go for it Valve
Since the majority of the Steam games play on mainstream PCs with fairly unimpressive graphic standards, it seems highly likely that they could be successfully be ported to the Mac, or at least hardware is not the limitation.
The logic of doing this is multi-fold. First, Apple OWNS the high-priced computer market, with the exception of the highest end graphic machines. To ignore this market seems silly -- but gaming companies have been doing that for a long time.
Second, iTunes has evolved from its humble beginnings as a music distribution system into an application and gaming giant. So far the threat is minimal and mostly targeted at hand-held devices, but it could soon evolve into a total platform solution essentially locking out Steam-like solutions forever. It is best to get in before this happens and try to establish a loyal fan base. In other words the window for Steam on the Mac is a narrow one.
Third, Apple continues to gain market share in all segments except cheap netbooks. Sooner or later they may dominate the entire market, making Mac gaming an important marketplace too.
Since the majority of the Steam games play on mainstream PCs with fairly unimpressive graphic standards, it seems highly likely that they could be successfully be ported to the Mac, or at least hardware is not the limitation.
The logic of doing this is multi-fold. First, Apple OWNS the high-priced computer market, with the exception of the highest end graphic machines. To ignore this market seems silly -- but gaming companies have been doing that for a long time.
Second, iTunes has evolved from its humble beginnings as a music distribution system into an application and gaming giant. So far the threat is minimal and mostly targeted at hand-held devices, but it could soon evolve into a total platform solution essentially locking out Steam-like solutions forever. It is best to get in before this happens and try to establish a loyal fan base. In other words the window for Steam on the Mac is a narrow one.
Third, Apple continues to gain market share in all segments except cheap netbooks. Sooner or later they may dominate the entire market, making Mac gaming an important marketplace too.
I wonder if Valve was turned around a bit by anything Apple said/did/promised. Just curious. Didn't Valve have some harsh words against Apple not that long ago?
More likely to me, Valve is making a forward thinking move to compete with Blizzard's Battle.net. Before the end of this year, there will be many games available -- Starcraft 2 custom games -- on an easily manageable social/download system. Soon, those games will also be for sale. The battle.net infrastructure backed up by WoW and SC2 and D3 will be a real competitor if/when Blizzard allows for other devs to sell non-SC2 games and buy into the infrastructure.
Maybe Valve is just making sure it also supports Mac when that time comes.
Also, I have to agree that the teasers given would be odd if Source games weren't coming to the Mac as well as the service.
More likely to me, Valve is making a forward thinking move to compete with Blizzard's Battle.net. Before the end of this year, there will be many games available -- Starcraft 2 custom games -- on an easily manageable social/download system. Soon, those games will also be for sale. The battle.net infrastructure backed up by WoW and SC2 and D3 will be a real competitor if/when Blizzard allows for other devs to sell non-SC2 games and buy into the infrastructure.
Maybe Valve is just making sure it also supports Mac when that time comes.
Also, I have to agree that the teasers given would be odd if Source games weren't coming to the Mac as well as the service.
Mac OSX now and NeXT then have very little in common. Even then there was no Intel Cocoa libraries. They practically make up OSX.
This could be a great thing for the mac platform, as many others have said here it'll suit the casual gaming market first, but the costs of porting a Popcap game would be a lot cheaper than some multi million dollar AAA title.
I personally think Steam is fantastic, I've found myself gaming more since installing it, and those christmas sales have given me enough games for the next year at least.
Also, I've been reading plenty of "Please port HL1 too", who knows if that will happen, but if the source engine is ported all those HL1 fans can (if it's ever released) give this a go.
I really do hope though that all the PC games I've bought (if available) will be installable and playable on the mac without any additional costs.
That's if this isn't all some HL2 Ep3 rouse
I personally think Steam is fantastic, I've found myself gaming more since installing it, and those christmas sales have given me enough games for the next year at least.
Also, I've been reading plenty of "Please port HL1 too", who knows if that will happen, but if the source engine is ported all those HL1 fans can (if it's ever released) give this a go.
I really do hope though that all the PC games I've bought (if available) will be installable and playable on the mac without any additional costs.
That's if this isn't all some HL2 Ep3 rouse
From Gabe Newell
http://kotaku.com/304730/gabe-newell-explains-why-valve-hates-the-mac
But I think from Valves viewpoint this is more to do with digital distribution as a part of their Steam service, as there is a killing to be made.
My main question will be "what happens to my existing Orange Box purchase", which I've played under Crossover Gaming and VMWare Fusion and Boot Camp. I know how to copy save files and settings between steam installs, but will they be compatible? Will I have to buy the Mac version again, or will it be a cheap/free update?
Definitely exciting news for Mac gaming.
Definitely exciting news for Mac gaming.
What did I say about over simplification and not getting all technical? pfft!
Just because they kept the darwin base and kernel running on x86 the whole time doesn't mean there wasn't a lot of porting involved. I doubt they had a fully working x86 Mac OS-X with all applications from the very beginning. They had to port a lot of stuff and yes they probably had it in the works for a long time it's really just an example for people who don't know what we're talking about.
The point, which still stands, is that a properly done port will perform just as good as the original and a half assed port will suck. End of story.
Yeah, and I used to hear a lot of "Win98 is better for games!!!" too. Some people are just stupid and dislike change. Though I'm sure a good 5% of the people you just mentioned have legitimate valid reasons for thinking it "sucks arse".
I've found most OS-X users have this kind of inflated view about their technical expertise. Kind of like 15yr old ubuntu users who think because they can click around in KDE they're now UNIX admins. I'm sure there are completely legitimate reasons for disliking the x86 transition, my only point is that I take technical advise on the internet about as serious as I take Fox "news".
No imagination. Yeah go outdoors and do the usual **** like walking and looking at scenery. Family fun is for kids and old people, like those "family movies" about big shaggy dogs that aren't funny. Wii Sports is for people who have never played a computer game before.
No not like that, I actually want a new mac. But, whenever I go to an Intel mac running leopard, Its magically more buggy. Eidorian has made similar claims before.
EG Safari never crashes on my G4. Thats why I cant understand why poeple keep on complaining that Safari kept on crashing on Leopard. I even have adblock and Glims installed.
So.. Excited.. This is massive.
I have (pretty much) weekly LAN get-togethers. 3 of my 4 Steam running machines are Macs. Recently the games we play most are L4D and L4D2.. But until now we've all had to use Bootcamp.
I have 250GB of other steam games on an external drive, it will be AMAZING to not have to reboot to play the Source engine games, and I'm looking forward to not having to run crossover for the steam contact list too.
Really can't wait for the 11th! This will make porting games make so much more sense for smaller devs. Bring on Killing Floor, Tripwire.. (I believe it's based on UT2004's engine?)
The people saying macs can't compete with PCs for gaming are totally missing the point. A lot of people already have powerful Macs they'd be happy to run games on. I have a gaming PC too, but my current iMac outperforms it (I only upgrade the PC every few years).
Who's going to set up a MacRumors Steam group/clan thing then?
I have (pretty much) weekly LAN get-togethers. 3 of my 4 Steam running machines are Macs. Recently the games we play most are L4D and L4D2.. But until now we've all had to use Bootcamp.
I have 250GB of other steam games on an external drive, it will be AMAZING to not have to reboot to play the Source engine games, and I'm looking forward to not having to run crossover for the steam contact list too.
Really can't wait for the 11th! This will make porting games make so much more sense for smaller devs. Bring on Killing Floor, Tripwire..
(I believe it's based on UT2004's engine?)The people saying macs can't compete with PCs for gaming are totally missing the point. A lot of people already have powerful Macs they'd be happy to run games on. I have a gaming PC too, but my current iMac outperforms it (I only upgrade the PC every few years).
Who's going to set up a MacRumors Steam group/clan thing then?