Gamer Blast

Mac computers have always been shamed by their lack of support from game developers. It’s one of the key arguments against the Mac operating system in all “Mac vs. PC” debates, and there’s nothing anybody can say back. It’s the truth.
Well, it WAS the truth. It’s quickly becoming a decent competitor in the gaming world.

The most recent and amazing victory in the realm of Mac OS X gaming is the announcement that popular gaming platform Steam is coming to Mac, along with Valve’s game catalog, which will run natively using OpenGL. This is great, because it will also help advertise the fact that OpenGL is an amazing cross-platform alternative to DirectX, which is used in most modern games (and is the primary reason that the majority of large game releases are for the Windows platform, as DirectX is Microsoft’s software, and is not available for Mac OS X). For more information on why this is a great thing, see this article, as well as this comparison between DirectX and OpenGL.
This alone will blow the door wide open for the Mac gaming community. Valve’s games include the Half-Life series, Portal, Counter-Strike, Portal, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, and Portal. Did I mention Portal? Speaking of Portal, the second iteration of that fantastic game series will be the first to have a simultaneous release on Mac OS X, Windows, and Xbox 360 when it hits later this year.
As for Steam on Mac, that’s happening next month. Plus, if you’ve bought a game for Windows on Steam, you’ve bought it for Mac, too. No need for separate purchases.

That’s just one of the upcoming contenders in the very open and very welcome marketplace that is gaming on Mac OS X. Next up on the list is OnLive, which has a June 17 launch. This service will use streaming to play video games instead of installing them directly onto your machine (as I wrongly expected Steam would, when it inevitably came to Mac). This makes it so that essentially any machine with high-speed internet access can play the newest and highest-quality of games. It will be available for Mac, Windows, and as a standalone console. Looks pretty sweet, but I’m skeptical, mainly due to the possibility of major game-breaking lag with even single-player games, since the game is never actually running on your computer, but is being run on a remote server and streamed to your computer live.

Now, all of that isn’t to say that the Mac gaming community has been completely dead. It’s gotten support from lots of independent game developers, such as 2D Boy with the wonderful World of Goo, and Amanita Design’s Machanarium, as well as some of the big-wigs, although normally those are ports that come after the launch (such as Modern Warfare and Bioshock).
There is also an unofficial game porting community that primarily uses TransGaming’s Cider software to emulate a Windows operating system to allow the game to run. This is referred to as a “Cider port,” and often has issues, be it with sound, visuals, or otherwise (although there are some perfect ports).

On another spectrum, we Mac users with somewhat newer machines that have Intel processors have the ability to run a Windows operating system on a separate partition from our Mac OS, dual-booting with the help of Apple’s Boot Camp. This allows you to play any Windows game on a Mac, but you’re also running Windows, so it sorta defeats the purpose and is not nearly as awesome as developers supporting the operating system.

I’m not saying that the Mac gaming world is going to blow up overnight, but it’s definitely working toward greatness and possible equivalence to the support that Windows has. Someday. *Looks off in the distance*

Related posts:

1. Almost All Valve Games Now On Mac
2. Half-Life 2 for Mac Released
3. Steam for Mac Released – First Impressions
4. Steam May Be Headed To Linux
5. Counterstrike for the Mac has arrived