Steam is coming to Mac

[DarkeSword]

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/03/steam-mac/

Now all you OSX users have no excuse. Play TF2 with us!

Highlights from the article:

• If players already own the PC versions of Valve games, they’ll get Mac versions at no extra charge through a feature called Steam Play.
  
• By using the Steam Cloud feature that the company introduced in 2008, players can save in-progress games online, then call up those saved games no matter which version they’re playing. If you’re playing Half-Life 2 on your home PC but then head out on the road with your MacBook, you can continue your game-in-progress.
  

Emphasis added.

[Schwaltzvald]

Curiously for OSX users how would TF2 play with just one mouse button, or have they finally gotten around to using two buttons and I happen to miss that..?

[atmuh]

Curiously for OSX users how would TF2 play with just one mouse button, or have they finally gotten around to using two buttons and I happen to miss that..?

heck i dont know how i could play without 5

[Vivi22]

heck i dont know how i could play without 5

I have to agree with you here actually. I only use four mind you, but I map voice chat and last weapon used to my mouse on top of primary and secondary fire. There are other games where I might map another action to my mouse, but I find all I need is the four in TF2.

Still, this is good news for Mac owners, though I won't be surprised if the Mac version of every game will have huge issues on day one.

[Level 99]

I'm really interested to see what products they will offer on both platforms, and furthermore, how all this will actually end up functioning. Great to see Valve taking note of the whole 5.02% of people in the world using Macs

No really, I'm actually glad they're doing this. The more people gaming, the better.

[KieranCarden]

Curiously for OSX users how would TF2 play with just one mouse button, or have they finally gotten around to using two buttons and I happen to miss that..?

Macbooks don't have two buttons and it's safe to assume they never will. I have a year old macbook pro (the model before the most recent models) where it still had the one button... but the latest models don't have a button at all (for laptops anyway)... the trackpad acts as the primary mouse button now. Mac users will probably have to buy a mouse outside of the standard apple one - I went out and bought a logitech mouse a while ago because it's just easier to have more mouse buttons when doing graphics and 3d modeling.

Anyway, woohoo! Can finally play Portal without having to sit at my PC

[DarkeSword]

I'm pretty sure anyone who's planning on playing games on their mac is going to get a real mouse.

[SoulinEther]

I'm pretty sure anyone who's planning on playing games on their mac is going to get a real mouse.

ouch.

and as far as i know, it all depends on where you click. if you click on the left side of the mouse, it'll be a left click. right side -> right click. Not sure how well it will recognize a left/right click in split second decision making situations and stuff, because i've often thrown it off and it's awfully frustrating just for interacting with files and folders..

[cobaltstarfire]

The stock mac mice suck alot these days anyway so alot of mac users that don't need more buttons still end up buying a different mouse just so they don't become filled with murderous intent.

I swear if I could incinerate all the mice at the university art labs I would. (And yes apple does make mice that have one button but can behave like they have two, they still suck, and it's not just the buttons!)

[KieranCarden]

ouch.

and as far as i know, it all depends on where you click. if you click on the left side of the mouse, it'll be a left click. right side -> right click. Not sure how well it will recognize a left/right click in split second decision making situations and stuff, because i've often thrown it off and it's awfully frustrating just for interacting with files and folders..

Knowing from experience, that setup sucks for anything complicated or when you really need it to work. Better off using using the Command(Apple) + Click option for right click at that point.

[Rozovian]

Knowing from experience, that setup sucks for anything complicated or when you really need it to work. Better off using using the Command(Apple) + Click option for right click at that point.

Yeah, but that doesn't quite work so well when you need your left hand for other things. Like running for cover. I'm a longtime mac user in a long-time mac using family, and I'll be the first to say that the default mac mouse sucks. Scroll ball gets full of crap, mouse doesn't always discern between left, middle and right "buttons", side buttons must be off or else you can't do anything without being interrupted by whatever "convenient" function they're set to by default, you can't lift the mouse while holding the button down (without changing your grip to hold on to the aforementioned side buttons), etc..

Anyway, this is a thread of good news.

[The Pezman]

How many actual games do they intend to port, along with Steam itself?

[SoulinEther]

Anyway, this is a thread of good news.

and malcontent expressions concerning apple's mice.

alright, i've fulfilled my quota of partially quoting you for the day.

[Arcana]

Great to see Valve taking note of the whole 5.02% of people in the world using Macs

More than double that in North America, actually:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/03/mac-os-x-north-american-installed-base-almost-11.ars

I know you were joking but its market share is improving quite a bit.

And yeah, all computer users know that only idiots stick with the default Apple mice; similar idiots make fun of Mac users for using one-button mice when even Apple's abandoned them in favor of the Magic Mouse. Chances are that I use the exact same mouse that you do.

[Vivi22]

How many actual games do they intend to port, along with Steam itself?

The Valve stuff is obviously a given. I'd imagine anything that already has a Mac port might make it as well, but otherwise, it'd take a lot of Mac owners buying a ton of Valve games to make any other developer care any more than they already do. Maybe developer attitudes will change if Steam gets installed on enough Macs, but I don't see the big devs caring all that much, at least for now. Smaller companies on Steam may be another story.

[Arcana]

I believe the Valve stuff only is confirmed. However there's a lot of other games that are already on Macs or are being ported to Mac in some way or form.

There's more than a few technologies that make it possible to port Windows games to Mac. For example http://www.transgaming.com/ is a huge player in this area. EVE Online uses transgaming technology for their Mac port.

Aspyr is also popular for doing ports from Windows to Mac. http://www.aspyr.com/

Both id software and Blizzard Entertainment are also known as being very Mac-friendly companies, coming out with Mac versions simultaneously with Windows versions.

And, I honestly have to plug PopCap for making Mac versions of all of their games as well.

Mac gaming is much more dominant than Linux gaming. I believe that TransGaming initially wanted to (and I think still can) port games to Linux, but it appears that they are more involved in Mac ports nowadays.

Like Rozovian I'm a mostly full-time Mac user. I have a Windows 7 installed on my alternate partition so I do play a few games once in a while on that side but I am excited about Steam for Mac.

[Vivi22]

Both id software and Blizzard Entertainment are also known as being very Mac-friendly companies, coming out with Mac versions simultaneously with Windows versions.

Except that Blizzard games aren't on Steam.

[Arcana]

Except that Blizzard games aren't on Steam.

Fair enough. Still, I guess a big part of my post is to illustrate that, yes, people do release games on a Mac and yes, people do buy them.

[Rozovian]

I miss the days when Bungie made games for mac.

Or actually, I miss Bungie making games for mac. Marathon's a classic, but I prefer current-gen graphics.

Should just save up for a PC for my non-mac, non-console gaming needs. Now if only I also had time for gaming...

[JJT]

this is gonna destroy my productivity.

[metalsnakejuice]

Well i am very excited about this. I missed playing Counter Strike back in the day when i had a PC.

[OceansAndrew]

this is good news all around

If players already own the PC versions of Valve games, they’ll get Mac versions at no extra charge through a feature called Steam Play.

means i can start playing TF2 right away!

Also, i've had a 5 button mouse with my mac forever. It's a lot more common that you guys would think.

[Petara]

Hell yeah! Fantastic news. I can playz moar viddygames?

[Cerrax]

Yeah, but that doesn't quite work so well when you need your left hand for other things. Like running for cover. I'm a longtime mac user in a long-time mac using family, and I'll be the first to say that the default mac mouse sucks. Scroll ball gets full of crap, mouse doesn't always discern between left, middle and right "buttons", side buttons must be off or else you can't do anything without being interrupted by whatever "convenient" function they're set to by default, you can't lift the mouse while holding the button down (without changing your grip to hold on to the aforementioned side buttons), etc..

Anyway, this is a thread of good news.

You should really check out the new Magic Mouse. I just got one and its a hell of a lot better than the old Mighty Mouse. They got rid of the side buttons (which were more frustrating than actually useful) and replaced the scroll ball with a multi-touch surface. I am loving it so far.

Steam coming to OS X is great news. I usually buy for consoles because I have such little space on my computer (especially now that it's dual-booted with Windows 7) but there are a few gems that are only available on Steam that might be for Mac now.

[q-pa]

From what I hear, Apple itself isn't doing much to support gaming on the Mac.

So I'm hoping that this will be the kick in the pants that Mac gaming needs.

Now for a question: Should I wait until the Mac versions come out to replay Portal and continue through HL2? I'm not sure if I can...