Geat Convo with Gabe Newel regarding Mac

[bobbytomorow]

Its an hour long but there is a podcast and video to choose from. Some pretty interesting tidbits.

Sorry if its been posted previously

Dan Benjamin talks with Gabe Newell and Jason Mitchell of Valve and John Siracusa of Ars Technica about Steam for the Mac, embracing customers and modders, building cross-platform games, release schedules, and how Valve is approaching developing games for the Mac community.

This is an especially geeky episode.

Check it out here!

 

[0098386]

Any super interesting tidbits to report?

 

[teidon]

Any super interesting tidbits to report?

Valve is going to port all of their games to Mac, including GoldSrc games. Although he said that they may have trouble with the GoldSrc games, so I don't know if that means that may not port all of them if they are too difficult to port. But all the Source engine games are certainly coming.

 

[Cougarcat]

And they are working with Apple Engineers pretty closely. The business/marketing people at Apple are still kind of perplexed as to why Valve is doing it, though.

 

[0098386]

Valve is going to port all of their games to Mac, including GoldSrc games.

Oh very nice. I hope the troublesome ones are the non-HL1 titles.

 

[Cougarcat]

Oh very nice. I hope the troublesome ones are the non-HL1 titles.

Psh, who needs HL1 ported when you have this?

That is, if it ever gets released...

 

[0098386]

Psh, who needs HL1 ported when you have this?

That is, if it ever gets released...

It looks superb, but it also has all the hallmarks of the great mods that never get released.
Still waiting for Goldeneye Source.
There's always HL Source too incase any OSX owners are really desperate to play it!

 

[3rd Doctor]

Will Black mesa run on a mac or will it first need to be 'converted' ?

 

[iMacDragon]

I'll most probably need to be recompiled with mac SDK, once both released.

 

[Cougarcat]

There's a topic about it on their forums and apparently there's more work to it than a simple recompile, so don't get your hopes up. You'll probably have to play it in boot camp.

 

[bobbytomorow]

geez guys your supposed to watch the interview not ask for spoilers lol

 

[NGL]

There's a topic about it on their forums and apparently there's more work to it than a simple recompile, so don't get your hopes up. You'll probably have to play it in boot camp.

+1, in the FAQ they say it will only be available for Windoze.

Looks amazing though, hope they get it finished!

-Nick

 

[iPunk]

It looks superb, but it also has all the hallmarks of the great mods that never get released.
Still waiting for Goldeneye Source.
There's always HL Source too incase any OSX owners are really desperate to play it!

Black Mesa looks amazing, the video gave me chills. HL will always have a place in my heart.

Even if BM doesn't get released, I'm definately playing HL1S!

 

[Libertine Lush]

Any super interesting tidbits to report?

17 minutes into watching, and one thing stands out so far: The Valve guys point out, much to their surprise as well, that Steam crashes 5 times less on Macs than on Windows presently, even though they expected the opposite since Steam is newly released for Macs. Gabe says it's because there's so many hardware and driver permutations for PCs, unlike with the Mac lines.

 

[lannister80]

Psh, who needs HL1 ported when you have this?

That is, if it ever gets released...

Yeah, last update via Twitter was 118 days ago. /cry

 

[C. Alan]

17 minutes into watching, and one thing stands out so far: The Valve guys point out, much to their surprise as well, that Steam crashes 5 times less on Macs than on Windows presently, even though they expected the opposite since Steam is newly released for Macs. Gabe says it's because there's so many hardware and driver permutations for PCs, unlike with the Mac lines.

I always thought this would be the Mac's strong point. The hardware may not be bleeding edge, but by keeping control of both the hardware and the drivers, Apples has created a more stable platform.

 

[turbobass]

And they are working with Apple Engineers pretty closely. The business/marketing people at Apple are still kind of perplexed as to why Valve is doing it, though.

Hmm -- I don't have the numbers but from my personal experience I have shared Steam with some new and old friends when it came out on Mac and they have been all about it (most of my friends don't game, and none who use PCs would ever think of spending money on PC games). They're not into it necessarily for Valve's software, but especially for some of the legacy titles and arcade-type games.

In recent years Apple has secured and conditioned a legion of the younger demographic with disposable income to purchase and download media -- specifically games for the point of this argument -- through app-based online distribution channels. I think that if Apple can't see why Valve wants to reach these people, then silly

 

[BothBarsOn]

Are my ears playing tricks or does Gabe call it "OS EX"?

 

[0098386]

Are my ears playing tricks or does Gabe call it "OS EX"?

I call it OS EX. Quite a few tech friends do too.