Today, the appropriately named Mac Game Store released a Mac app that looks a lot like a simliar service you may have heard of, Valve’s Steam. While Steam began as a matchmaking and leader board service that soon morphed into the premier PC and Mac game digital distribution juggernaut it is today, the Mac Game Store will only sell downloadable Mac games, naturally.
So, I’m hanging out on Twitter, basking in the Tweet-flow (you know what I mean, right?), when I start to notice this thing happening. FTL. I see it in a tweet by a game developer I follow. Then I see it in a tweet by another smart person I follow. Then it’s almost everywhere. FTL. FTL. Starship captaining (is that a real word?). FTL.
I think, “For the Loss?” Well, maybe. Or perhaps, “Faster Than Light,” says my inner sci-fi geek. Looking it up on the interwebs, I see that it does, indeed, refer to the speed at which we cannot go, and it is for sure a sci-fi geek’s dream. I also notice that it came out today, which is why everything’s all a-twitter.
Steam, the online portal for Mac and PC games, announced a new beta feature coming tonight to PCs and soon to Macs – The Big Picture. Parent company Valve has created a new way to play games purchased through the Steam store, using the same exact Steam friends list and games you already own.
Once you’ve updated the Steam client, you’ll be able to click a button and play your games with a controller, a mouse and keyboard, or what have you. Valve has made the new interface controller-friendly, designed to kick back on a couch and play games right on the big screen TV you already have in your living space.
Looks like the rumors were true: Valve’s Steam digital delivery service is breaking out of being exclusive to games, and will soon be selling apps on the PC and Mac as well. That makes Steam a head-to-head competitor with Apple’s Mac App Store.
Valve will soon be expanding the scope of software on Steam beyond games to app types ranging from “creativity to productivity” including accounting, animation & modeling, utilities, software training, video production, web production, design & illustration and many more besides.
The Walking Dead is the definitive zombie tale of the past few years, moving quickly from indie hit black-and-white comic book to even bigger hit television series, and then as a Mac and PC game on Steam. If you haven’t played it there, you owe it to yourself to check it out on your iPhone or iPad – it’s really that good. Heck,if you have played it on Steam, you might want to check it out on iOS.
Valve co-founder Gabe Newell knows a thing about Microsoft. After all, he initially founded Valve Software — makers of such mega-hits as the Half-Life, Portal and Left 4 Dead series, as well as the popular Steam digital delivery service — using the millions he made working for Microsoft for 13 years.
So when Gabe Newell says that he thinks Windows 8 is going to be apocalyptical for PC makers and cause OEMs to start fleeing the platform in droves, it’s worth paying attention. Especially since Valve’s Steam delivery service is putting increasing emphasis on Windows alternative OSes like Linux and, yes, the Mac.
Of interest in the exhaustive list of specs is the fact that 49.46 percent of Mac gamers on Steam game on a Macbook Pro. Which makes sense, of course, as that’s a pretty powerful laptop. From there, we see the iMac coming in at 28 percent, plain-jane MacBooks garnering 9.49 percent, and the MacBook Air, my personal machine, used by 6.29 percent of Mac Steam gamers. The MacBook Pro and MacBook Air both rose in the hardware charts, with an increase of .44 and .89 percent, respectively.
If you’ve ever used Steam’s platform for purchasing and downloading games — and you probably have if you’re a Mac or PC gamer — then you’ll already be aware of just how great it is. In fact, if there’s one platform that beats the Mac App Store when it comes to buying games, it’s Steam.
And that rivalry could be about to get a whole lot greater. After a list of productivity software categories briefly appeared within Steam’s mobile app, it looks like the company could be about to take on Apple’s store by selling apps as well as games.
Steam has kicked off its summer sale, offering up to 75% off some of the hottest games for Mac and PC. The sale runs until July 22, Steam is adding new titles each and every day, with customers given the opportunity to vote for the titles they want to see reduced.
One of our favorite iOS games here at Cult of Mac is Robot Entertainment’s maniacally fun turn-based strategy game, Hero Academy. Now it’s coming to Mac, and bringing the heroes from Team Fortress 2 along with it.
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![Steam Kicks Off Summer Sale With Up To 75% Off Games Until July 22 [Deals]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Screen-Shot-2012-07-13-at-14.45.52.jpg "Steam-Summer-Sale-2012")
