I'm not familiar with Steam, but I know it's popular and had teething issues in 2010 for OSX. What do you guys think of Steam on OSX?
I only downloaded it because they had that free copy of Portal at launch, I haven't purchased anything through it and most of the games attached to my steam account still don't have Mac ports.
I've had no problem playing Steam games like Left4Dead 2, Half-Life 2, Deathspank, Torchlight and Portal on my recent-vintage MacBook Pro. The issues with Steam had been more about the application itself than about the games you can play through it. At this point, though, the Mac Steam client has been updated enough that it works pretty much flawlessly (at least for me). Right now the Mac game selection on Steam is still limited. But there's still plenty of cool stuff for it. And for folks who run a separate Windows partition through Bootcamp, it's particularly great: when you buy a Steam supported PC game you get the Mac version free. I say, if you have a recent Mac with decent specs, Steam is pretty much a no brainer.
Thanks Square Zero. How does the install process work. Do you: (a) Install a Steam client on OSX and then install any steam games you've brought? OR (b) Just buy a steam game and it will automatically install steam functionality?
From what I remember, you can do either one. If you buy a Steam game from a retail store, it will install Steam automatically. Or you can install Steam yourself and purchase the game from the Steam Store.
If you already own a Mac game that Steam supports, you can simply download the Steam client, then follow the instructions to link your game to Steam. Once you do that, you have access to all Steam/Valve services associated with that game.
