You'd think that, but I've notice precisely 0 more non-Valve games being released for Mac since Steam came to OS X. The only releases seem to be from companies who already did Mac ports, and indies (who are generally multi-platform).
Psychonauts? Sure, it's from an indie developer, but one with no history of Mac ports (actually, a history of being very Xbox-centric). When they got the publishing rights back, they made and released a Mac/Steam port (and then a Linux port).
And Steam has been pretty good at picking up pre-existing Mac ports, notably Civilization IV, Assassin's Creed 2, and several Star Wars games. I think Steam is also largely responsible for the Mac port of Civilization V being a first-class platform instead of the port being outsourced and late (though cross-platform multiplayer support took a while, and so did some of the DLC).
Re:Steam for Linux Beta
by w1ntermute on Friday October 26, 2012 @03:45PM
(#4703905)
That might be because gamers aren't big on Macs, because they're expensive and difficult to upgrade. A lot of gamers prefer desktops, but the iMac isn't ugpradeable and the Mac Pro uses custom parts and hasn't received significant updates in recent years.
Maybe, but it's much bigger than Linux's game market.
Er, I don't think that's true at all. First of all, indies didn't used to do as many Mac ports before Steam for Mac/Humble Bundle. But aside from that, you have franchises like GTA, KotOR, Civilization, Assasin's Creed, and others. I think Steam for Mac definitely had an influence.
Good Old Games recently started selling a lot of (old) games for OS X.
They're emulated, not ported.
On the other hand, for an overwhelming majority of people "being apprehensive about the big GUI changes in Windows 8" means sticking to Windows 7 (or even Window XP), not switching to Linux...
That said Steam on Linux cannot be a bad thing, I think it helped bringing quite a lot of games to OSX as stated elsewhere in this thread. The bad news is that most of the times it means Cider (http://transgaming.com/cider), so the result pale in comparison to rebooting on Windows. I expect the same to happen on Linux: many ports using Wine...
While that's true, it'll lead to the creation of more games for Linux, particularly with a lot of people apprehensive about the big GUI changes in Windows 8.
More importantly, 90% of my "regular" gaming takes place in Source-based engines (TF2/L4D2), so I would be more than happy as long as those Source games are available on Linux (and I believe that was Valve's plan all along with Steam for Linux).