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Valve Confirms Mac Versions of Steam, Valve Games
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Gamasutra:
"Valve will release a version of its Steam digital distribution service for Mac next month, along with Mac-native versions of its own games, the company confirmed today after days of hints — and owners of Valve games will have access to both platform versions. The Source engine, which Valve uses to develop all its internal titles and also licenses to third-party developers, will incorporate OpenGL in addition to DirectX, to allow Mac support for all Source developers. ... '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,' said Cook. 'Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates.'"
Will we be able to play online with PC people?
There aren't any games for Mac?
I'm all for games being available to as many people as possible. This is awesome news for Apple fans...I hope it signals a shift towards more games being available on the OSX platform. Have fun :-)
Living With a Nerd
Why is valve ignoring ps3?
Countdown to the start of blaming the Mac porting effort for the delay of HL2Ep3 starts in 3..2..1..
I read the internet for the articles.
3 cheers for *native* Mac development, instead of just Cider builds!
I'm sure someone will rush in to point out how a PC is still superior as a gaming rig but, as a Mac owner, I still say NICE!!
It's nice to see other game publishers figure out what Blizzard has known for a very long time.
Interesting.
Let's hope that they do actually properly go for native instead of the lameness that has been Cider wrappers around the windows version that we have seen in the past from some. EvE was interesting, and I can see the economy of scale issue (in writing a native client for a small platform) but the performance of the Cider wrapper really hurt.
The chicken and egg problem (no games, no dev support, thus no games...) has to be broken sooner or later - Blizzard certainly seems to be doing ok with a dual platform release format.
Linux support is coming when porting it to linux becomes profitable, stop asking.
Would be nice if they decided to release it for Linux as well, even though it might be a "tier-2" platform to them.
With the overall popularity of the Mac OS across a growing number of portable devices, there's growth to be had here. Smart of Valve to get its foot in the door early as a publisher/distributor of bigger-budget PC style gaming on Apple devices.
Thats awesome ... but I just hope they haven't forgot about Linux. Seeing as OSX is a Unix offspring hopefully one day they'll release a native Linux Client. Wine is good and all, but a native client will always be faster.
This is great for Mac users. But its also good movement for Linux users. An OpenGL based Source engine would be fairly trivial to port.
This is cool to hear. I don't use Macs, but hopefully any cross-platform implementation could eventually be extended to allow Linux support. That would be real news!
From the article:
"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 Portal 2 lead developer Josh Weier. "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."
The article also mentions that Portal2 will be a day 1 release for the Mac alongside the PC.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
If the source engine is going to be running with OpenGL too now I suspect that these games will suddenly be much easier to get working in Wine.
This sig wasn't worth reading, was it.
A big win for gaming on macs. Valve has a cannon of some of the best FPSs the PC has to offer. I've been exclusively buying and playing my titles through Steam for about 2 years now (the sales are spectacular). Hopefully with native Steam support, more developers will take time and expense to make their new offerings dual-platform.
It might automate code generation but it doesn't automate debugging or QA testing which in my experience take significantly more effort then running the build system....
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I know, I know, in the foreseeable future Linux will not be an officially supported platform for Valve, but does this move have implications for (potential) Linux compatibility of Source games? OpenGL is readily available under any desktop oriented distro I have come across so far, and porting from OS X to Linux (or emulating needed parts of the former under the latter) should be easier and give much better results than dealing with Wine. Or am I missing something?
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
I don't own a Mac, but today seems like a good day if you do.
One of the things I don't like about Mac (and there are a few) is that many games are not released for Mac or if they are, they are released way after they are released for everything else.
This seems to be a nice step in the right direction, and I got to say so far as a fit goes, Valve and Steam seem to me a great fit for Macs. Makes me think of the App store on their iPhones.
As much as I like to bash Macs, this is a very astute move for Apple and for Valve. More competition the better I say, Windows has had much the world bent over a bench for long time now and pretty much a monopoly over the gaming market outside of consoles (and a big chunk of that also with the Xboxen). Next step, price Macs more competitively?
Can I assume that they will be porting games like Left 4 Dead, Halflife and Team Fortress to mac was well?
Will linux get any love as well? With an OpenGL implementation, most of the heavy lifting should hopefully be taken care of. If it does, I will go out of my way to buy each and every one of their games.
Although getting Source on Mac is fine, Steam is the much bigger deal. Although I don't expect PC game developers to shift their production away from PC as their "first target platform", it does make it easier if one is also interested in distributing games on Mac. It doesn't matter the size of game developer, the Mac platform is a tough nut to crack due to scales of market shifted so far to the PC where an online one can help equalize. For instance, [i]World of Goo[/i] is an excellent game that works great on Mac but it must be hell to sell to just Mac owners. Your best bet in this situation for many publishers is to "combine distribute" the PC and Mac version on one disk which isn't totally efficient and desirable.
With Steam this gets a lot simpler. You now have a marketplace that goes directly to Mac owners and they get a bunch of the bonus support of Steamworks like version updates and achievement systems. Source on Mac for some games but I really see Steam as the big deal here. Steam opens up a lot to game developers.
And as a side though: Did Apple dropped a ball here where they could have used their gigantic online store to sell MacOS games? iTunes works great for updating games on iPhone and iPod...would it be so difficult to do the same for desktop games?
Still looking for that linux support. Linux users tend to be the most tech savy and thus can be helpful in the process, create mods, and have a high percentage of those interested.
The biggest objections to Apple's computers over the last few years have been a) The cost and b) no games available.
The cost issue has become pretty meaningless to anyone who is willing to compare oranges to oranges: the cost of a Mac laptop or desktop with X features is pretty comparable to a Windows laptop or desktop with the same feature set, its just that usually the PC side has lower features by default and you can buy the components to raise the level of functionality, whereas Apple doesn't operate in the low end of the computer spectrum and even their base systems have great features and very high quality.
With this change by Valve it will hopefully signify changes in the attitude of the rest of the games industry and Mac support will grow to the point that its treated as well as Microsoft's products with regards to gaming. I am perfectly content with my iMac 20" desktop for the gaming I am doing, and I would love to play more games under OS/X rather than dualbooting to XP.
Lastly, if the Mac gains in acceptance, perhaps Linux will follow down the road. Having implemented all of this stuff for OS/X it can't be as far a stretch to include Linux as it was to make the original jump from Windows to OS/X (being a kind of unix after all)?
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
and owners of Valve games will have access to both platform versions.
In an age where publishers are doing everything in their power to tie your hands when it comes to their software, this simply amazes me.
We've got publishers who user DRM that renders a game useless after a half-dozen installs... And valve is going to let you run your games on two entirely different platforms?! Not two different computers... But wholly different platforms. Amazing.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
I would love to see a Gentoo release!
Now, you too can have the privilege of being told "The Steam servers are too busy to process your request." when trying to play a game you paid for!
I guess the one up-side to this is that it may decrease Microsoft's market share a bit.
The way he describes it is Continuous Integration, not hybrid code generation..
Hopefully the availability of Mac OS games doesn't kill some of the epic sales that happen on Steam. I've taken paying $1-10 for some nice 2-3-year-old games for granted over the years. Examples: Mass Effect? $5. GTA IV? $7.50. Portal? A few dollars. Batman: Arkham Asylum? A few dollars as part of a company's package sale. X-com games? $1-2 a piece, etc.
If Mac OS users are used to paying a higher premium for software then any cross-platform game available may have its rock-bottom discounts killed.
I don't understand the "no games" argument. Sure, there are far fewer games, but NO games? Hogwash. Bioshock, Dragon Age, Prince of Persia, CoD4, Lego Batman/Indiana Jones, Civ4, Neverwinter Nights 2, Quake Wars...The list isn't as impressive as PC, but there are plenty of top-tier games to keep a gamer interested.
You missed his point. It wasn't about code generation, it was about testing: You still need to test and debug on both platforms.
Unlike Ubisoft's system, Steam has an offline mode. Steam requires access to the DRM server when you install the game, not every time you play.
True, but in this case the relatively small subset of hardware supported by OSX makes things easier. Once they have it running at all it will only need to be tested against two or three OS revisions (10.5 Leopard, 10.6 Snow Leopard and possibly 10.4 Tiger) and a half dozen video cards. In many ways I suspect that the testing will be far easier than what is needed for a console. A few more hardware versions to deal with but at the same time there is so much higher margin in terms of RAM and processor power that there is a lot more room to play with.
I doubt most developers are going to do both Windows and OS X. They'll pick one or the other. This will lead to platform fragmentation, and drive people away from computers as a gaming platform, (after all, console exclusivity isn't as common as it once was) and DRM issues being propagated by companies like Ubisoft will only accelerate the process. This is going to cause long-term issues, or it is going to fail.
Before anyone gets overly excited, please remind yourself of what video card your shiny $1k computer is running.
It's not stated, but I assume by "Mac" he means "Intel Mac" and not "Intel and PPC Macs". Anyone know any different? (I have a PPC mac and never intend to buy another.)
I hate grammar Nazi's.
Actually, I can see a system where the Source engine isolates the game developers from the hardware completely, as such platform dependent QA & Testing is only done by the source engine developers and not the game developers. Abstraction is a great thing.
Waiting to see what the min sys requirements are -- I'd expect Intel only, no PPC.
The big question is on minimum requirements on the video side -- will early MacBooks and Minis be left in the cold? The wrappers used for Spore really screwed a lot of people by not supporting the early Intel video chipsets like the GMA950 on the old MacBook I'm using.
Might be time to upgrade to a newer MacBook Pro!
It might automate code generation but it doesn't automate debugging or QA testing which in my experience take significantly more effort then running the build system....
They most likely use some kind of "compatibility layer" on which they develop the games. Something to handle the rendering, audio, input, networking, etc. (all interactions with the outside) in a cross-platform manner. It's also likely that most of the bugs in the compatibility layer are already fixed, because most of them will be pretty obvious (it's not very complex code, after all). The rest of the bugs, such as bugs in the game logic, will most likely have the same result on any platform.
Supporting Macs requires a big initial effort in building this compatibility layer and properly testing it, but once that's done, you can just have your coders use it transparently. As for your beta testers, just have some of them use macs, some of them use PCs, to be on the safe side, but they most likely all would experience the same bugs, because most of the code is the same on either platform. The more games you crank out using your cross-platform API, the better tested it is, the less likely it becomes for people to find flaws in the said API.
A few years ago, a friend an I coded a rendering API that could use either Direct3D or OpenGL as its target. It took us some effort to find clever tricks to keep the performance good. We had to find ways to have the GPU transform between coordinate systems as needed. For our modest 3D engine, it wasn't an impossible effort though. We did discover some cases where both targets didn't perform exactly the same down the road, but those bugs were easily fixed.
I am pretty sure it will be way simpler and easier to test on a console since they said the primary console will be the 360. No variation in that.
I do hope that they test it more than a once over saying "well, it loaded find for me" and then just release it.
I think the person that was talking about testing was talking about a situation like this:
Example (No Spoilers, I am making up an example): You are at a boss fight where there are lighting effects, a bunch of stuff to shoot (like bats in the air). Think the final boss of Gears of War but you can shoot the bats.
They would need to not only test for just compatibility, but for the game not freezing or messing up based on the actions you choose (like shooting one bat while walking over a mine that you set that is right next to the boss) which would trigger you hitting the boss, you making a kill on a bat, and you getting blasted by your own mine. Crazy stuff like that to make sure that game triggers the correct enemy (or yourself) dying.
The same software based testing that is going to happen for Windows and 360 really should happen to Mac as well. It would be very unfortunate if a bunch of errors started coming up by assuming it works just fine.
The world is how you make it
Support Ubuntu 10.4. ALSA and pulse audio for audio. Other distros would probably work for free, even without an 'official' declaration of support. In terms of 'on what hardware?' the QA process is no more convoluted than Windows. Some bitching and moaning might be had for not explicitly embracing various pet distros, but ultimately the communities do a good job of covering any technical gaps between officially supported platforms and their own distribution.
FYI, quake3 binary from years ago still execs on modern distributions.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS. It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.
Shiny. Let's be bad guys...
two or three OS revisions (10.5 Leopard, 10.6 Snow Leopard and possibly 10.4 Tiger)
Someone mentioned below that they are planning to support OpenCL (assuming they didn't mean simply OpenGL). If that is the case, I wonder if they will only support Snow Leopard. This provides several benefits:
If that is true, they will probably disappoint quite a few Mac users, who haven't upgraded for one reason or another.
Of course, Apple will be happy about it... ;-)
This might be their first move into apple territory to eventually get into the app store like idSoftware
You're just missing the previous 200 comments.
Liar! Not having an Internet connection is never an issue! Ubisoft told me so!
Shh.
Apple hasn't sold a powerpc computer in roughly 4 years (2006). A decent number of programs no longer support powerpc at all (and this has been a growing problem for several years--I think it was the 2008 olympics that required Silverlight to stream, which didn't officially run on PowerPC). I think it's 100% safe to say there will be no powerpc support for Steam.
These are the only two companies I currently still buy games for my computers from. This basically allows me to stop having to use Windows for anything but work. Anything else I want is generally out for the consoles I own. Thank you Valve! I've been waiting for this!
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
I really hope that this means it’s a small step towards getting it to run on Linux. Because then we have the 3 biggest gaming platforms on the PC running on Linux, and there finally is no excuse anymore. :)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
The only real reason at this point to not be on SL is that your hardware doesn't support it (or you've got some odd software that still hasn't been updated for SL). Given that the upgrade to SL is dirt cheap, for those who actually want to game on their Macs, the hurdle is low.
Initial titles on sale are Breakout ... Super Breakout ...
(and Photoshop)
That's what it says on the wikipedia page, and they provide sources that check out. Postal III is also on the source engine. The game doesn't excite me, but I'm assuming that means that a linux port is in the works as well (though it may be a bit behind), and that is exciting. Sometime this year, they say.
But then, I've been disappointed by "sometime this year" announcements before.
coughblackmesasourcecough
Do I see open source and MAC in the same sentence?!
On the other hand, if you assume there is any market for games on Linux at all, then it would be a very good idea for Valve to port Steam to Linux, as it would be the solution to everything you said - it would provide a consistent installer, updater, dependency manager, and DRM for the platform so the individual developers wouldn't have to.
The main problem with gaming on Linux is simply the small size of the market. Any other complaints are minor and solvable.
Now I know for sure that breakout, and super breakout will live on in the finest of Mac traditions!
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Yeah, but how much effort did they expend to get their build process to that point, and how much of that could have been spent on HL2 Ep3 instead? My guess is "a hell of a lot of work", and "not much since Ep3 is mostly new content not new software".
Also that puzzle game with the Apple logo. I beat it, but it's still fun.
(i.e.: 64-bit support is required for Snow Leopard.)
I realize I'm nitpicking, but 64-bit support is not required for Snow Leopard. It runs just fine on my 2006-era 32-bit Core Duo MacBook.
64-bit is not required for snow-leopard. There are some Intels that were 32 bit and shipped with tiger initially. These machines are also capable of running snow leopard.
I could be wrong (i.e. I haven't checked too closely), but I am pretty sure there is Intel-only software that runs on 10.4. I will have to dig a bit and see if I can find an example, but I'm fairly sure many of the recent game releases (such as WoW and Plants vs. Zombies) can run on 10.4, but still require an intel Mac. My Mini came with an Intel proc, but is currently running 10.4...
{checks PopCap.com for PvZ info}
Yup. 10.4.11 and Intel proc combo required. It could be done. No PowerPC support required.
Mess not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
I know a lot of parents that got their kid macs to keep them form using them for gaming. It is going to piss them off. Well there is always Linux to full back on.
I own a MacBook Alu with the new no-button-touchpad mouse. I'm using that one and it's working very well - in fact, I find trackpad/touchpad implementations on other laptops in comparison unusable. However, the acceleration of normal computer mice (which I would say are essential for gaming) is so bad on MacOSX, it's unbearable. I've also tried various software trying to correct that problem, but somehow I couldn't come close to the Windows mouse acceleration profile. For that reason I play all games on Windows, even those directly supported by MacOSX.
As in design an interface you don't have to be a kid with perfect vision to read?
(I don't care you can - I can't, and they don't give a shit. Great way to treat customers)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I'm offering 10:1 I get modded flamebait for not drinking the Linux Kool-Aid.
You sneaky little reverse psychologist... BTW I'm offering 10:1 I get modded troll for using reverse psychology myself.
Mac owners that don't have a PC for gaming or s PS3/360 probably represent 2% of the market. Valve should have spent that time on a better PS3 port or an enhanced version of Source for next gen GPU's, etc.
Complete waste of time and not newsworthy.
way too late?
...
Ogre supports both on Windows and OpenGL in MacOSX and Linux. And OpenAL also supports the three OSes.
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Since the iPad is also marketed as a gaming device I wouldn't be surprised if this is the first step towards releasing games on the ipad.
I've always disliked the idea of steam, online login to validate, locking your games to an account so you can't resell, etc. But valve just keeps throwing in so many perks it's hard to fight all the great advantages Steam offers. It really is DRM done about as right as it can get.
Kudos to Valve!
now apple needs better hardware a $2500 tower with a weak video card does not cut it and a $200 upgrade for ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB is a joke on top of that also you only have 3gb ram with that.
The mini and under $1800 laptops are a joke as well 9400m at that price?
I've only been using an apple for a couple years, an old G4 iBook, and up until then it was Windows/Linux strictly on an Intel-esque processor. I love this iBook, but there are reasons I had a HUGE bias against Macs when I was younger, and it's still one of the reasons I'm not as happy as I could be with this thing: lack. of. games. Support has been poor, and while I won't be able to play Steam on PPC (I presume), it doesn't help ME, but it does HELP. I'm even more interested in a new MBP if I can play Half-Life and enjoy the user experience (and more!) that I enjoy with my current, very very very old, laptop.
Any of their retail games can be registered on Impulse (their service like Steam) and redownloaded as needed.
While there are some publishers being morons with DRM, there are other publishers that are being much more pragmatic.
The segment you see a lot of gamers in is totally missing. Most gamers go for a tower computer with separate monitor. There are various reasons for this, upgradilbility being one since games often like new hardware.
This is an area where you've got nothing from Apple. They go straight from all-in-ones up to workstations. Ok well their workstations are too expensive for most gamers. Gamers don't want to spend that kind of money on dual CPUs that games can't use. However their all-in-ones are not ideal either. As such there is a gap.
This doesn't mean all Steam games are coming over. This means that Valve's titles are coming over. Ok, Valve makes some cool games, however there are always a few games available for the Mac. It isn't as though the Mac has no games, it is that is has not near as many as the PC. While this is a few more, it is not the complete shift you are hoping for.
As for Linux? I'm kinda doubtful. Linux has two things working against it:
1) A lack of standards. Game developers want something standard they can develop to so that support is easy. They do not want to try and support all the random permutations out there.
2) A userbase that seems to think everything should be free. There is a definite attitude among many Linux users that information shouldn't cost money. That is not a market ripe for games.
apple better not go back to i5 / i7 on board video in there new low end system as it IS Weaker then the 2 year old 9400m and is a joke at $800 , $1200 , $1500 , $1800 as well.
Well ok, not crap necessarily, but extremely different. The Cell processor is very unlike what you find in computers or the 360, so it takes a different set of skills to make good use of it.
The 360 and the PC are essentially an identical development environment, despite the different CPUs. You do everything in Visual Studio and MS makes it extremely easy to go cross platform. So, makes sense there. The Mac is a different platform with different tools, but fundamentally it is the same hardware as a PC and things work in the same way. There are also tools, like OpenGL, that work on both. So while it might be more effort to add support for it than to add 360 support (for a Windows developer), shouldn't be too terribly bad.
The PS3 though? Completely different dev tools AND a different architecture. Your programmers would have to learn a rather different way of doing things. Makes port costs higher. Couple that with the fact that the PS3 is the minority console and you can see why they might give it a miss.
One thing people have to remember is that Valve does their own game engine. Many other companies license an engine, and that engine already supports multiple platforms. Unreal Engine 3, which is extremely popular, runs on the PC, 360 and PS3. Gamebryo, another popular one, runs on all those and the Wii too. Well this means less time for the game developers in terms of porting since some of the heavy lifting has already been done.
Not so for Valve, Source is their own thing (well, it does have a bit of legacy form Quake 1 but not much). They have to do all the work in porting it. So, that means that all the problems with dealing with a PS3 fall on their shoulders.
This might be worth it, if they made a lot of money on engine sales. That's why Epic ported UE3 to the consoles. They make their money on all the licenses of their engine. However Valve doesn't. When you look UE3 has around 150 games out or in development using it, all of 3 of those are from Epic (UT3, GoW 1 and 2). Looking at Source, you see that there's maybe 30 games, and around half are Valve's own. They do license their engine out, but it doesn't happen all that much. As a practical matter, Epic has superior tools and that makes Source a hard sell to 3rd party developers.
Sadly, there's no indication that the original Half-Life engine will be ported as well. That's a shame, especially since the GoldSrc engine had a mature, Quake-derived OpenGL renderer that just screams to be taken cross platform.
Valve may not have any financial interest in furthering such an old codebase, but there's nothing stopping them from giving the community access to it. People are still working on Doom, Hexen, and Quake today because id and Raven were thoughtful enough to open up their code. Valve is one of the last PC developers of real import these days; it's sad to see them let their Microsoft roots hold them back.
Just the games I've played:
That's just off the top of my head. It's not terribly difficult -- just statically-compile, follow the FHS, ignore the distro, and give the full executables with the demo, with a license that allows redistribution.
End result: Even if you can't do that demo part, a tarball will work. But if you can, your demo will be included in every distro's repository. Worst case, people have to download other pieces of the full game (or buy it in a store, like with id games) and drop the files into place -- but it's not terribly difficult to automate that, either.
But really, I haven't seen any more problems than people have with Windows. If it's really that bad, say "Works with Ubuntu or Fedora" and let other distros work around it.
Also, open source your old games. There will be Linux ports, and people will likely buy the game to run it on Linux.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
then you don't have to worry about offline mode again!
New Economic Perspectives
Have you seen the hardware survey Valve has? Most Mac users have higher end hardware than that. No go spout your bullshit somewhere else.
-- Linux user #369862
I used to play WoW on my PowerPC Mac Mini. It didn't exactly have superb performance but it did run.
It seems this is just a matter of time.
The question is to know which kind of time scale we talking about...
You know no gamers with a Mac, but claim to know that Mac owners pirate games. How do you know?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Simply sell me a bootable CD, that boots the game on the PC in its own environment. Release a supported hardware list and I will simply buy from that. Do that anyway for linux. I have no particular need to run games on my linux desktop, just on the same hardware.
I have hopes that Valve might one day do something for Linux. If they get good experiences with this, then they might just do a cost analysis "how much does it really cost to make our build system do a linux version" and see where it leads. Don't forget that game servers are often linux based, so the FPS market is not entirely unfamiliar with coding for Linux.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
> they will probably disappoint quite a few Mac users, who haven't upgraded for one reason or another.
If you're buying $80 games you already bought a new $600-$1200 Mac within the last 4 years and can handle the $29 for Snow Leopard if you don't have it already. There really isn't anyone to disappoint. What few PowerPC machines are still out there are valued for running legacy software that won't run under Mac OS X for Intel, such as software that uses PowerPC plug-ins, not for running current software.
Snow Leopard is the 3rd Mac OS to run on Intel. The PowerPC train has sailed.
Also they hired a ton of Mac coders to do this. That was actually the first indication this was coming, quite a while ago. They aren't repurposing their existing coders for this.
Any Valve users who complain should remember that this is better for the whole Valve ecosystem. Even if they don't think they will ever run a Mac, in a few years they may run a Linux version that uses OpenGL and is based on work done to support the Mac. Or they may run a future version on PlayStation thanks to work done for the Mac. Windows is not going to be around forever. I give it maybe 5 more years. Maybe.
You only need to debug the libraries the game use ; presumably those are common to a lot of Valve games (Source...)
I really wonder how they addressed the mouse acceleration issue in OSX, it's impossible to disable, and is sucky for FPS games. There is a way to 'reduce' the mouse acceleration, but it's not 100% perfect - and relies on a deprecated API that could be removed in future OSX versions...
Actually, there might be other reasons.
Personally, I've got my hard drive partitioned with a non-GUID partition scheme, meaning if I want to install Snow Leopard, I have to reformat my drive.
It's a big drive, so this is a major pain to get around to, and accounts for my not having upgraded yet.
There could be plenty of other little reasons like that. Frankly, I hope I can still run Steam without having to reformat my whole machine.
Mind you, I've already got it installed on my Windows partition and it runs just fine. Really, all this mac-specific business only saves me a reboot.
That is what happens to you when you rush off to rescue your chocolate cake from burning while writing what you thought would be the first comment.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
as such platform dependent QA & Testing is only done by the source engine developers and not the game developers
It just doesn't work that way. If you want to develop for XBOX, PC, and PS2 you don't use a cross-platform library, then test it on your PC, then release it having never tested it on the XBOX or PS2. You still have to get the XBOX and PS2 dev kits, you still have to build and deploy to those platforms, you still have to test it, and you still have to submit it to Microsoft and Sony to do their testing and get their approvals.
And is the primary reason I decided to abandon non-free gaming on Windows/WINE and buy an xbox. If I have to accept odious limitations to play games, I'd rather keep that separate from my general purpose systems. Ironically the xbox 360 is much more laid back with which systems I can play my games on than most Windows DRM schemes.
...now how about some love for #2: Linux?
Furries make the internet go.