iGame Radio

You know, this always happens. Something occurs that cuts you out of the loop, or you go on vacation, and then this happens. It’s not like there weren’t indications. And don’t forget all of the rumors that had been going on for as much as two years about Steam coming to the Mac.

But did they have to start the announcing last week while I was trying to recover from computer seppuku? Sigh.

And today Valve has confirmed the rumors swirling that not only is Steam coming to the public for the Mac in April, but also they are bringing their library of games, including Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series, to the Mac as well. And to top it all off, they announced that when Portal 2 is released (another announcement made just last week, the game will be released as a simultaneous Mac and PC release. Which means that they’ve actually been working on Portal 2 on the Mac for quite some time. And never told us. Those nasty buggers!

Valve will also release Source, Valve’s game engine, to the Mac. And in fact it’s available to third-party developers right now. Steamworks for the Mac, which will allow third party developers to publish their games through Steam for the Mac. Included in Steamworks for the Mac is Steam Play, which allows gamers who have purchased a game for one system to download it for free for another. So if you have already bought the game for the PC, you can download it for the Mac without paying an additional fee.

I know a lot of third-party game developers that will be very happy about this. Companies such as TellTale Games, Amanita Design, Ambrosia Software, and Feral Interactive release Mac versions of games that are sold on Steam. This gives them an opportunity to extend their reach to their audience. For some, especially the smaller studios, it’s an opportunity that they can’t miss out on.

A question at least one other site has asked is, “Why?” Why is Valve bringing Steam, and their library, to the Mac now? Well, this isn’t a decision that Valve made a couple of weeks ago, obviously. In fact, this is a decision that was made many, many months ago. Consider that they not only are bringing Steam and their back library of games, but also Portal 2 which one would presume they have been working on for more than six months, to the Mac. This is a decision most likely made over a year ago.

There are certainly more Macs being sold now than in just about any other time in Apple’s history, but that number is still miserably smaller than PCs, and that smaller than consoles such as PS3 or Xbox 360. At this time, the highest number I’ve seen bandied around for Macs in households is 15% penetration. And even if that high number is legitimate, it’s still way too low for your average game developer to consider it worthwhile for something this big.

I think the reason might be that a lot of Indie and casual game developers both use Steam and create Mac clients of their games, and Valve saw the writing on the wall last year. Indie and casual games, especially casual, see a much higher percentage on the Mac versus PC when compared to, say, traditional AAA titles or racing games, for example. That number can be as high as 40% or more, and with a number that high, the Mac is not a platform to dismiss.

Steam has ten different genre categories. And though some games will fall into multiple categories, one finds the casual/family gaming and Indie categories combined to be about the second largest group on Steam (depending on the overlap). Which means that for Valve’s second largest group of games, Macs represent as much as 40% or more of the sales.

Not something to sniff at. Not at all.