Valve Confirms Mac Versions of Steam, Valve Games 541
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.'"
Woohoo! (Score:3)
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 :-)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
But how many Macs have powerful graphic cards? Not everyone is going to get a Mac Pro costing $2500 at the very least with a very limited selection of graphics cards. Most of the rest of the line up have integrated Intel cards with piss poor graphic performance.
Re: (Score:2)
Not quite. Some of us have intel iMacs with ATI cards with piss-poor graphic performance.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Every mac currently sold has at least an Nvidia 9400. My macbook pro I bought in... 2006 has an nvida 8400. My mac pro has a gtx285. Which lineup are you referring to?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Woohoo! (Score:5, Informative)
This is not true. "Most of the rest" have dedicated GPUs - that has at least been the major trend with Macs. They may not be cutting edge, but they are not integrated IntelGMA - except for the Mac Mini and the Macbook which have an NVidia 9400M, but with shared memory, not an intel GMA. I believe one earlier iteration of the Mini had an intel gpu.
The MPB and iMac all have dedicated GPUs. The MBPs even have two!
It is true there needs to be more choice and some higher spec cards available (the best you can get on the iMac line is a Radeon 4850 with 512Mb, which is not bad but not cutting edge either).
Re:Woohoo! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Woohoo! (Score:5, Informative)
I suspect a fairly substantial library of games will become available, probably fairly swiftly. Someone's already compiled a list [savygamer.co.uk] of Steam games that already have Mac ports. There's ... quite a lot.
Probably a lot of people have already seen the lovely series of pictures that Valve released last week to hint at this announcement in advance, but in case you haven't, here's a compilation, in the correct sequence (and note the iPhone motif at the bottom of each image): ... sandwich")
image 1 [macrumors.com] (1980s Mac classic theme)
image 2 [macrumors.com] (Gordon Freeman with shiny Mac hazard suit)
image 3 [macrumors.com] (turrets)
image 4 [macrumors.com] (Team Fortress 2 -- "take a bite out of the
image 5 [macrumors.com] (Left 4 Dead -- "I hate different")
image 6 [macrumors.com] (HL2 + 1984 Mac commercial)
Presumably this involves some porting work (Score:3, Funny)
Re:well no (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:well no (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The way he describes it is Continuous Integration, not hybrid code generation..
Re: (Score:2)
You missed his point. It wasn't about code generation, it was about testing: You still need to test and debug on both platforms.
Re:well no (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:well no (Score:5, Interesting)
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... ;-)
Re:well no (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:well no (Score:5, Informative)
(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.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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 [popcap.com] for PvZ info}
Yup. 10.4.11 and Intel proc combo required. It could be done. No PowerPC support require
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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 M
You missed the point. (Score:3, Insightful)
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".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Their episodic content is mostly design work, little programming. I think more likely the delay is due to the piss poor tools that Source has. That's always been one of its weaknesses is that its design tools are way, way behind Unreal Engine's. That might be where there's so many more UE2 and UE3 titles out there.
Of course I suppose one could argue that the programmers were spending their time on this instead of making better tools, but it would seem that if they haven't now they aren't so interested in do
Not Cider! (Score:5, Insightful)
NICE! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's nice to see other game publishers figure out what Blizzard has known for a very long time.
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Isn't the only thing separating a Mac from the PC is the OS? People argue that the PC is better mostly from a hardware point of view. Keyboards, mice, easier to mod, extensibility, etc... I don't see why Windows or OSX would have any significant differences in these regards since they have the same hardware and peripherals, and the same access to the game's files for modding purposes.
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Fabrication != design
It's a common error, but needs to be picked up. Apple's boards are all designed by Apple, regardless of who builds them, and as such have different design tolerances.
Apple are not just another OEM.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I think you're gonna see a lot more of it for a number of reasons.
First, Microsoft fucked up the PC as a gaming platform. The lack of interest, investment, the Games for Windows fuck-up, MS execs admitting that they deliberately don't release games for the PC to prop up the Xbox. Blizzard complained publicly but others can see the writing on the wall, too.
Second, piracy is a real problem on the PC. Ubisoft did
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Re:NICE! (Score:5, Funny)
First, Microsoft fucked up the PC as a gaming platform. The lack of interest, investment, the Games for Windows fuck-up,
What is the "Games for Windows" fuck-up?
I think it's a great program, and games with the "Games For Windows" are (so far) universally higher-quality than those without. Quality control is one of those things the consoles have had going for them for ages, this program helps lift Windows games to the same level.
Re:NICE! (Score:4, Insightful)
Do people with Macs have more money or just more debt? Macs don't tend to come with very powerful video cards. For the same price, you can get a PC that is much more powerful. There are still more games out there for the PC. Plenty of games that are on the 360 are on Windows as well. Some of them, like Dragon Age Origins have compelling reason why the PC will be a better experience. Do you really think piracy won't be a problem on the Macs? All of a sudden these hackers who can break any DRM known to man will be helpless against the power of Mac security? You have been drinking way too much of the kool aid my friend.
I am not anti-Mac. I think it is great that Steam is doing this. But you gotta keep your fanboism under control. No one thinks you are special other than people with Macs and your Mom. And Apple is about as evil as a company can get. I still love my iPod Touch though
Native clients I hope. (Score:2)
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 dua
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Yes, it's native, and they are optimizing for OpenCL and other Mac-specific stuff. No cider or other such crap. Now, if only they can release something other than third-person shooters which I both dislike and suck at. :)
Re:Native clients I hope. (Score:5, Funny)
My PC-owning buddies hated me nailing them in Q3A, on my Mac, especially if I said "ok guys, I'll use the one button mouse, just to be fair".
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Yes, it's native, and they are optimizing for OpenCL and other Mac-specific stuff.
Since when was OpenCL Mac-specific?
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The nice thing is that the Steam distribution platform is now cross-platform, so it's easier for other developers to get Mac games out there. I suspect you'll be seeing all sorts of Mac games published on Steam relatively soon, not just Valve's FPSes.
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Hope so, more Mac games would be good. I still like to buy software the old fashioned way though, on disk.
Linux support (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux support is coming when porting it to linux becomes profitable, stop asking.
Wonder if Linux is next (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Except you can count on at least two or three fairly major distros refusing to use OpenAL, after heated flamewars their documentation will have a lengthy "how to replace the buggy version of ALSA with distro-specific patches with something that works with Steam games" article, their mailing lists and forums will be swamped by users complaining about the lack of OpenAL support and the maintainers will tell the users that they're idiots for not understanding how technically superior ALSA is/how using OpenAL i
OpenGL (Score:2)
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What, exactly, would they use Cocoa APIs for in a game?
Note that GP is talking about Source engine (and games based on it), not about Steam application.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Off the top of my head, reading/writing files including savings settings/game saves
What's wrong with fopen & friends, and POSIX memory-mapped files? What would be gained by using Cocoa APIs here?
USB device management
Why would a game need to manage USB devices? If you mean input devices, then it shouldn't care if they're USB or not at all - that's for OS to deal with
Though you do have a point that the only cross-platform input API right now is SDL, and, IIRC, it is fairly primitive with respect to functions it supports (force feedback and the likes).
thread management
POSIX.
Core Audio?
Most game engines today just license some existing
Great, maybe Linux will follow eventually (Score:2)
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!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt it. OSX is (relatively) easy to support because it has a very small subset of software to target (two/three revisions depending on if you support back to 10.4 or just 10.5/6) and a small selection of hardware. There is a massive difference between doing Q/A for a half dozen video cards on a stable platform versus trying to support the massive set of moving targets that get lumped together under Linux along with all the possible hardware that might get plugged in. Valve already has to do that with Wi
FIne, then instead of 'linux' (Score:2)
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
OpenGL (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:OpenGL (Score:4, Interesting)
I've never had any trouble getting any Source games to run under linux, usually faster than then did under native windows.
Mac Gaming: 1 (Score:3, Insightful)
Mac version + OpenGL==Better Linux compatibility? (Score:2)
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?
I'm a PC (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
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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.
That's an argument against the games industry, not against the Mac.
Re: (Score:2)
No, next step, better GPU options for Macs.
I am a huge Apple fan, but we are lacking in decent GPU options on the consumer hardware. I am looking at a new iMac, and if I want a 4850 (still not a new card in the general trend of GPUs) I need to go for the 27" iMac, and spec it up at an extra £100. The best you can do on the 21" is the 4750.
I can see a heat issue, but some future design consideration for better GPU options - perhaps removable card-based would be a good idea.
source on mac? (Score:2)
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.
Steam More Important Than Source (Score:3, Interesting)
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?
And the Last Domino falls... (Score:5, Interesting)
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)?
Re:And the Last Domino falls... (Score:5, Insightful)
"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, "
Only sort of.
There are fewer options for the Mac so there are configurations available for PC that just don't exists in the Mac worlds.
For instance a Core2Duo with a high end graphics card and no monitor.
If you already have a perfectly good monitor why get an all in one or a new monitor.
Yes if try and match the Apple configurations with a PC the price will be about the same.
But you can not get the equivalent to a an Mac Mini with a high end video card and a 3 1/2" Hard drive and no wifi or Bluetooth.
wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:wow... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My friend was telling me how steam even can do file integrity checks on any Steam game file. If it detects corruptions, it will just update those files with the non-corrupt file and you are back on your way.
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The annoying this is most of my Steam games probably will never work natively on a Mac but this is a huge step towards me moving away from Windows for everything rather than using it as my gaming box.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:wow... (Score:5, Informative)
Uhhh...
Steam is one of the biggest DRM lock-in distribution systems ever invented.
That doesn't make it good or bad, but are you sure you know what you're talking about here?
I own a number of Steam games.
I also own Overlord for the PC, and not the Steam version.
Which means I know very well what I'm talking about.
Yes, Steam is just another DRM platform... But I can download & install my Steam games on as many different computers as I want to. The only restriction is that I have to enter my username & password to play... Which means I can't be playing on two different computers simultaneously. Steam even lets me burn backup discs so I don't have to download everything again.
Overlord, on the other hand, only allowed a very small number of installations. After I had installed it three times it refused to work. I call technical support and they explained that it was a copy protection mechanism and there was absolutely no reason why I could possibly have needed to re-install the game that many times. Granted, it's a little unusual to re-install a game four total times in a matter of weeks... But that's what happens when you're building a brand new computer, messing around with an OS install, breaking drivers, and things like that.
Ultimately their suggestion was that I should go buy a new copy of the game. I'm sure I could have argued further and gotten through to some supervisor or something like that... I probably could have convinced someone to unlock my game... But I was just too angry to bother. I haven't tried to re-install the game since then.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple's DRM: My computer, containing all my downloaded iTunes TV series and movies is destroyed in a fire. I can call Apple and beg them to let me re-download them, but this is described "as more a favor then a policy." [about.com]
That's not DRM that you're describing. That's an artifact of the delivery system. Even if Apple allowed you to authorise your replacement computer and re-download all the files you purchased, each file would have DRM (or not) regardless.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You simply don't have much experience with Steam, then. Search the Steam forums if you don't believe me. Steam server outages can leave your client in a state that makes all your Steam games unplayable, even in offline mode. This just happened again last week.
Offline mode works, but only sometimes.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, I'll point you to a comment I made elsewhere in this same thread.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1575328&cid=31406066 [slashdot.org]
Steam is DRM.
I am aware that Steam contains DRM. It also contains social networking stuff and marketplace stuff and server browser stuff and whatever else.
When Steam goes down, you can't play your games... not even when you're offline. Just last week there was an outage that made all Steam games unplayable for an entire evening.
Obviously, no system is perfect. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying to you.
I have no experienced any problems with Steam. Certainly nothing like the problems I've experienced with some other forms of DRM. Specifically, I've
Mac.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
PPC's died 6 years ago, welcome to the 21st century!
Just so you know, the 21st century began more than six years ago.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Go easy on him, man. It's the 90s! Anything goes!
Minimum system requirements? (Score:2)
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!
Re:The first thing to come to my mind... (Score:5, Informative)
Part of the announcement was that, yes, you will be able to play online with PC users.
Re:The first thing to come to my mind... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
OS X is UNIX, Linux is Unix "like".
And "A Little Difference" is huge, probably as large of a difference between them and the NT kernel. Not only that, OS X doesn't even use the FreeBSD kernel, they use the Darwin one.
Re:The first thing to come to my mind... (Score:5, Insightful)
OS X is UNIX, Linux is Unix "like".
I love how people say this and presume they've just said something significant. Mac OS X's UNIX certification is not worth much more than the advertising bullet-point they us it for. Both Linux and Mac OS X are UNIX in every way that actually matters today, namely POSIX-compliance. It's not like UNIX certification grants Mac OS X special compatibility traits; it's still not binary compatible with any other UNIX, neither is it source compatible if you move beyond what's specified by POSIX and other common standards. So what do you think is the significance of your factually-based and pointless assertion?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Eh, but userland is more or less the same. There are differences for IO drivers, and you can use Quartz Compositor instead of X, but the two are very similar.
Reread what you just wrote. X is primitive whereas Quartz is a compositor. You need to add a compositor on top of X to match functionality but games generally use OpenGL which is abstracted from the underlying drawing framework.
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Not much to discuss, really. These games probably will be built on something layered over Apple's Objective-C frameworks, not on X, and so porting this stuff to other Unices would take a lot of work.
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Making the games OpenGL instead of DirectX-only certainly makes linux more plausible. I agree it's unlikely that a native X11 app will appear in the near future, but it should be much easier to build a fake-Mac/fake-Win environment under linux given an OpenGL engine.
Re:The first thing to come to my mind... (Score:4, Informative)
And what does this mean for us Linux users? OSX and Linux are both Unix variants
Mac OS X native apps use a different toolkit from the vast majority of apps for Linux and the free BSDs. This toolkit is called Cocoa (formerly OpenStep). GNUstep is a Free clone of parts of Cocoa, intended for source compatibility [gnustep.org], not binary compatibility like Wine.
Re:The first thing to come to my mind... (Score:5, Interesting)
Erm... Cocoa is for the UI layer, like toolbars, buttons etc., when did you ever see a standard toolbar in a game? Almost every game uses custom UI, so if steam games are using OpenGL(which is the only accelerated graphics API on the Mac), it should be easy to port it to Linux/BSD.
Re:The first thing to come to my mind... (Score:5, Informative)
Erm... Cocoa is for the UI layer, like toolbars, buttons etc., when did you ever see a standard toolbar in a game? Almost every game uses custom UI, so if steam games are using OpenGL(which is the only accelerated graphics API on the Mac), it should be easy to port it to Linux/BSD.
It should be easier to port to Linux (et al.) than it was before they made a Mac version, but not easy exactly.
As noted before, basically every user-facing program on OS X uses a ton of Cocoa calls. Cocoa is used for more than just the UI layer: it provides a generous standard library of data types, os calls, and other useful things. Think of cocoa as an Objective C / OS X friendly libc. Objective C itself does not easily translate from the Mac to other systems, as well. Last I checked, GNUstep didn't have a working Objective C 2.0 runtime yet.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So they are supporting Windows, XBox and MacOSX, and they'll use Mac-only libraries and languages instead of using cross-platform ones? That doesn't make any sense.
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Game publishers still think no one wants linux games, despite that fact that me and my wife spent the weekend looking for good linux games for her, mumbling the whole time about how we would be happy to pay for such a thing...
Fail. I think part of the issue is it's very hard to target "linux" with any sort of reliable, always working game. Granted, games on windows aren't always reliable and always working either, but publishers have more experience with it, and limiting to "XP, Vista,
Re:The first thing to come to my mind... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not that they think no one wants them. It's that they know that not enough people want them for it to be profitable. You and your wife and the (relative) handful of other people who consist of the audience for Linux games aren't a significant market.
Hell, the PS3 and the Wii don't even make the cut in Valve's book.
Re:The first thing to come to my mind... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually there's a much bigger jump.
Windows and OSX are fairly well-regulated monocultures: you have a consistent idea about how installation is supposed to work, you know where to put your config files, you know what permissions you need and how to get them. You rarely need to worry about broken dependencies: they happen, but the platform vendors usually provide an updater you can distribute with your application.
On the other hand, Linux is an undifferentiated mass. An application developer literally cannot make any useful predictions about the end user's configuration, which means it's almost impossible to provide support. The state of Linux is fine - it's even very strong - when you're only talking about FOSS. When you start asking for money, you need to make sure that your software is Suitable for a Particular Purpose. Installation needs to be easy and it needs to work everywhere.
I'm offering 10:1 I get modded flamebait for not drinking the Linux Kool-Aid.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why they should develop exclusively for Debian. All its children will inherit compatibility (or else), and you have a standard Linux OS to develop for.
Re:The first thing to come to my mind... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which Distro?
Ubuntu. And which version of Windows?
XP? Then you don't have DirectX 10. Vista/7 Only? Then XP people hate you. And professional, business, personal, what?
What sound system?
OpenAL, which will run on anything, including Windows and OS X. That's about as retarded as asking what graphics library you should use.
Lack of easy to install 3d drivers for nVidia and ATI. Actually the drivers for nVidia and ATI are pretty easy to install but probably beyond what some people will want to do.
Same exact thing, word for word, applies to Windows. The only difference is whether or not the OS was preloaded -- so buy a Dell with Ubuntu, problem solved.
I would love to see it but Linux and OSX are not that alike.
They're both Unix. They both use OpenGL.
on OSX you just target quicktime for audio and video playback.
According to another poster, quicktime for audio is deprecated in favor of a few APIs, including OpenAL -- in other words, if they've done this right, it is exactly the same on Linux and OS X. What else you got?
No need to worry what "legal" codecs are available.
Two big duh moments here.
First, you're a game developer. You can include codecs with your game, and you can encode your audio however the fuck you want. There is nothing stopping you from using Vorbis and Theora, as other developers have in the past.
If you really need the superior quality-per-bit, and you don't want to rely on your customers having a certain codec installed -- might fly for OS X, certainly won't for Windows -- you license. And that same exact license will cover your use of that codec on any OS.
Is Valve going to start targeting OpenGL?
No, their OS X port runs on magical pixie dust. Of course they're targeting OpenGL!
So basically every technical argument of yours is pure, unadulturated FUD and BS. Why are you still at +5 insightful?
But the real issue is lack of customers. I just don't see that many Linux users that don't dual boot into Windows for gaming.
And Mac users don't? Given the demographic, I'd expect Mac users to be able to afford the extra Windows license, even Parallels so they don't have to reboot.
If you don't get new customers it doesn't pay off.
Bullshit. [wolfire.com]
OSX offers a bigger pay off
See above. Also, it seems to me that more Mac people would be willing to dual-boot and/or run Parallels, and would have the funds to do so.
and fewer development issues.
Nope, pretty much every development issue you raised is completely moot, especially if they already have an OS X port.
Re:The first thing to come to my mind... (Score:4, Insightful)
Awesome. There will be an entire new population of n00bs for me to pwn. And these aren't just any noobs--they've never even been exposed to a real FPS experience of any sort. Hell, they don't even have a secondary-fire button!
Mwuhahahaha... Dominating!
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I used to own my PC-owning friends in Q3A, even with my one button mouse, which I used at their request to make it more fair to them :D
Been awhile since I played a great FPS on my Mac - the last three were Q3A, Halo and UT2k4 in that order. Played Half-Life way back in the day on a friend's machine - looking forward to picking it up natively.
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Let's see here.. My first FPS was Wolfenstein 3D, I've never owned a computer with a one button mouse and I'm a mac user since 2006, does this mean I've never played a "real" FPS and that I don't have more than one mouse button?
Also, what about all the old-school geeks who have switched to macs after the death of every other available UNIX workstation manufacturer (or the discontinuation of their workstations)?
/Mikael
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Hell, they don't even have a secondary-fire button!
Sure we do, we just have to drop to DOS and edit config.sys to load rghtclck.tsr and off we go!
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Steam has an offline mode (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Steam has an offline mode (Score:4, Informative)
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.
If you get in a situation where there's unexpected lack of connectivity (i.e. you weren't online when you clicked on "Work Offline"), there is in fact a good chance that offline mode won't work. Also, even when it does, it only works for a certain period of time (depending on how lucky you are, anywhere from days to months), after which it will stop working and demand an Internet connection.
Just because you personally have never run into it, doesn't mean that the problem isn't there. Just google for "Steam offline mode not working" and see for yourself. I've had the unfortune to experience this myself.
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They're just too small to concentrate on two consoles, and it's a lot easier to target Win+360 than Win+PS3. They outsourced the Orange Box port to EA and it ended up sucking, big time. Rather than own up to the cheap port, Gabe Newell made some nasty comments about the how the PS3 sucks as a development platform.
Until Valve gets a lot bigger, I doubt we'll see any of their games on PS3.
The PS3 is also crap to program for (Score:3, Interesting)
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 th
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(And people say PC gaming is dying. Hahaha)
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What I don't understand is why the PS3 isn't tier 1 in the first place.
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Well, we have photoshop...
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