Last week, enterprising gamers discovered some "evidence" that Steam, Valve's popular "App Store for games," might be coming to the Mac. On Wednesday, Macworld and a number of other
If you haven't had the gaming pleasure yet, Valve Software runs Steam, a software client and online store for games on Windows. Steam is home to all the greats, including BioShock, the Call of Duty series, Assassin's Creed--just about any Windows game you've heard of for the last few years, large and small. The only problem for Mac users is that Steam and Valve have been Windows-only--until now.
A source at Valve shared the screenshot below with Macworld "in anticipation of an upcoming announcement," and it couldn't deliver this news to anxious Mac gamers in any better way.
Among other suggestive tidbits, let's not forget that a recent beta of the Steam client for Windows switched the store's rendering engine to WebKit (which Apple uses in Safari on the Mac and iPhone), and also contained some telling Mac-specific files and images. There are no further details for now, however, as to any other games that Valve or other publishers might bring along with a Mac-version of Steam.
Steam and Half Life's arrival on Apple's platform would be a significant win for Mac gaming. Valve was originally founded by ex-Microsoft employees who never strayed very far from the nest. Most Valve games have only been made for Windows, and in recent years a handful of titles were co-developed for the Xbox--another Microsoft gaming platform.
Most in the gaming industry (understandably) can't talk about the Mac without at least a snicker, but something must have changed recently. Maybe
This story, "Valve May Soon Raise the Crowbar for Mac Gaming" was originally published by Macworld.