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The Significance of Steam and Valve's Games for Mac

So here's my big question: If Portal and the other Steam games I've purchased get ported to the Mac, will I have to buy it again in order to switch the platform on which I play?

Man, now all I need is for Rockstar to make GTA games for the Mac, and I'll never have to boot Windows again (...so long as Apple supports this-generation GPUs, that is...)

-Clive
 
Does Anyone Think That After Steam Has Moved Over To mac, It Will Open The Flood Gates To Mac becoming A Gaming Platform?
 
Eidorian said:
Apple's hardware doesn't even fit the majority of Valve's market.
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Couple things to keep in mind ex id alum Grahaem Devine is in a lead position at apple working on games and developer relations. Apple is finally implementing full OpenGL 3.0 in the upcoming 10.6.3 update. Carmack has said that since Devine started at Apple things have changed dramatically with gamer relations.
 
roocka said:
I didn't know what steam or valve was. This is great news. Maybe Apple should buy this company so that google doesn't buy it and port it to android. This is precisely the kind of company that google would buy to deliberately kill just so apple couldn't have it and dominate the gaming industry.

Apple needs to invent a way to use you iPhone like a joystick to control whAt happens on your television screen.
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Buy Valve, haha you really did just hear about them.
Valve would not let itself be bought out if it means bankruptcy. (which they are definitely going in the opposite direction of.)
 
Clive At Five said:
So here's my big question: If Portal and the other Steam games I've purchased get ported to the Mac, will I have to buy it again in order to switch the platform on which I play?

Man, now all I need is for Rockstar to make GTA games for the Mac, and I'll never have to boot Windows again (...so long as Apple supports this-generation GPUs, that is...)

-Clive
Click to expand...

I can't be sure, of course, but the Steam client has always been a free download. Whatever you own under Steam has always be usable on any PC. It would be very reasonable to expect this "buy it once" platform to extend the same benefit to the Mac.

If Valve wants it to be successful, they had better keep the "buy it once" policy. Because if they charge again, existing Steam users won't adopt it on the Mac platform, which would be counter to a strategy of gaining quick acceptance on that platform. So if they charge again, they shoot themselves in the foot. If they don't charge, then PC to Mac switchers, like myself, will start buying new games on Steam (and enjoy the old ones we already own).
 
Partly, combined with some decent GPU power in the next refresh of Mac Pros, and MBP's, yes.
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I think that is a good point. Apple keep talking about the iPad and iTouch being such great gaming platforms. If they embrace Steam we may see some serious effort put into making the macs good games machines. I haven't played a game on my mac in four years, using a console instead, but I would love the chance to !
 
aneks said:
I think that is a good point. Apple keep talking about the iPad and iTouch being such great gaming platforms. If they embrace Steam we may see some serious effort put into making the macs good games machines. I haven't played a game on my mac in four years, using a console instead, but I would love the chance to !
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I try on this 2.8 9600m GT'r
and it does ok.....
but the $2299 price tag makes me think it should do awesome.
Glad it's a work comp or I would throw it through a window(s).
 
tcrown said:
Couple things to keep in mind ex id alum Grahaem Devine is in a lead position at apple working on games and developer relations. Apple is finally implementing full OpenGL 3.0 in the upcoming 10.6.3 update. Carmack has said that since Devine started at Apple things have changed dramatically with gamer relations.
Click to expand...

He should advise Apple to just bite it and license DirectX. It would be like building a 10-lane freeway into Mac gaming town.

-Clive
 
Voidness said:
Maybe this isn't just Steam coming to Mac, maybe Apple actually bought Valve? Apple has nearly $25 billion in cash, and I doubt Valve is more than $100 million.

This could be one of the "big, bold risks" Steve Jobs referred to.
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Wow, you're wayyyyyyyy off, 100 Million? I find it humorous that you think apple can buy a company that you clearly know nothing about. Valve is easily in the billions... Not only do they make insane profits on their own software, but Steam, their digital distribution channel has exploded over the last couple of years. I'm sure they get a cut of every game sold on it and with 25 million active users and over 1,000 games thats huge. They account for over 70% of the digital distribution gaming market, a market that that will have an estimated revenue of 25 billion in 2013.
 
MorphingDragon said:
Blah Blah,

Everybody is using laptops now.
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Laptops are gaining share but Apple's line is still stagnant. We already have enough complaints in other threads but my main point is we're still limited to good, better, best with minimal differentiation expect in price tag.

Someone might want a 13" notebook but want a better GPU. You get dragged along to the second tier 15" MacBook Pro for that.

Micro ATX is more than enough anyways.
 
AidenShaw said:
...or even a new, affordable mini-tower.
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Here we go again...

rmbrown09 said:
I feel like that's a mac mini
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HAH. Good one. The Mac Mini is an immobile laptop.

MorphingDragon said:
Blah Blah,

Everybody is using laptops now.
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What planet are you living on? Business professionals and flash-gamers use laptops because their computing needs are easily met by those systems. A MacBook's GPU, however, would barely handle Half Life 2 on low settings and how many years old is that game?

"Gaming laptops" spiral into an over-heating mess extremely quickly. Unless you're playing StarCraft: Brood War or flash games, you can't count on a laptop to do the job. The only solution for even moderate gamers like myself is to have a tower with a desktop-class GPU.

-Clive
 
Clive At Five said:
Here we go again...



HAH. Good one. The Mac Mini is an immobile laptop.



What planet are you living on? Business professionals and flash-gamers use laptops because their computing needs are easily met by those systems. A MacBook's GPU, however, would barely handle Half Life 2 on low settings and how many years old is that game?

"Gaming laptops" spiral into an over-heating mess extremely quickly. Unless you're playing StarCraft: Brood War or flash games, you can't count on a laptop to do the job. The only solution for even moderate gamers like myself is to have a tower with a desktop-class GPU.

-Clive
Click to expand...

Student City.

I'm serious, Im the only person in the youth hostel with a desktop computer.
 
Clive At Five said:
What planet are you living on? Business professionals and flash-gamers use laptops because their computing needs are easily met by those systems. A MacBook's GPU, however, would barely handle Half Life 2 on low settings and how many years old is that game?

"Gaming laptops" spiral into an over-heating mess extremely quickly. Unless you're playing StarCraft: Brood War or flash games, you can't count on a laptop to do the job. The only solution for even moderate gamers like myself is to have a tower with a desktop-class GPU.

-Clive
Click to expand...

Although I agree that notebooks will never do for "Serious" gaming needs, i.e Fallout 3, Crysis, Bioshock or any really graphically intensive game, they're more than perfectly fine for the casual market, and Steam has a ton of casual and indie games, so for an average person they're fine, but any core "PC gamer" will still be wanting a desktop. I wouldn't trade my quad core rig with a GTX260 for anything (except mabe an i7 with a GTX480 :cool:)
 
Clive At Five said:
What planet are you living on? Business professionals and flash-gamers use laptops because their computing needs are easily met by those systems. A MacBook's GPU, however, would barely handle Half Life 2 on low settings and how many years old is that game?
Click to expand...

Joke post? My 2008 Macbook runs HL2: Episode 2 (a more demanding Source version than HL2's) on high just fine under XP.
 
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