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Steam - PC/Mac Distribution... What the Heck?

Fingolfin269

Fingolfin269

Lifer
Anyone know why Steam doesn't have the Mac versions of KOTOR and Monkey Island: SE? I just assumed they didn't exist or no one bothered to port them to a version Steam could distro and chalked it up as something I would only be able to play on my PC.

Just fired up the Apple app store and found KOTOR and Monkey Island: SE for sale. WTF. Now I'm trying to figure out who to be pissed at... is it Steam? Is it Bioware/Lucas Arts for trying to get me to buy it again? Anyone know?

**EDIT** BTW, thanks to those of you who took the time to seriously answer the question. It never occurred to me that a publisher different from the other Lucas games could be the reason for this.
 
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zerocool84 said:
lol no, Steam doesn't regularly let people know why something isn't on Steam.
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Steam doesn't regularly carry things for PC and not for Mac though, at least not until recently. So I'm really not sure what it is you're trying to say. Sometimes people know about distribution agreements and such, hence the question.

I really wonder if the Apple app store for laptops/desktops has put a little wrench in the Steam for Mac distribution model. It would certainly be nice to know if this is just an exclusivity type window (kind of like Red Box/Netflix) or something more.
 
Fingolfin269 said:
Steam doesn't regularly carry things for PC and not for Mac though, at least not until recently. So I'm really not sure what it is you're trying to say. Sometimes people know about distribution agreements and such, hence the question.

I really wonder if the Apple app store for laptops/desktops has put a little wrench in the Steam for Mac distribution model. It would certainly be nice to know if this is just an exclusivity type window (kind of like Red Box/Netflix) or something more.
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Well, I think that Monkey Island and KotOR have been available on OS X in one form or another (Cider/actual port/whatever) and I do not know what work goes into making a cross compatible SteamPlay title, for example, can the dev just send Steam the Mac version and they'll put it on the server, or if they have to make an actual package that has shared resources but different engines or something.

At the end of the day, I don't think that this is indicative of a larger issue.
 
I've heard that it may have to do with who does the port. For instance, Bioware made Kotor, but someone else may have done the Mac port. So if you buy the Windows version, Bioware gets the cash. If they threw the Mac port up there, does Bioware get paid when you buy it? Or does the other company get paid? Do they each get half? Do you have to purchase it twice?

But yeah, it's probably down to licensing agreements.
 
Yeah I remember noticing this when I bought the Introversion pack not long ago. All the games in it (Darwinia, Multiwinia, Defcon, and Uplink) have Mac versions, but they were published by a different company. Unless there were to be a licensing agreement between Introversion (Windows developer/publisher), Ambrosia (Mac publisher), and Valve, they won't be available as SteamPlay.
 
Who cares? No real human being uses a Mac anyway so nobody cares what games are or are not available for that abortion of a computing solution.
 
Blame George Lucas. Everything bad that's Star Wars related is his fault, including us getting a MMO instead of single-player KOTOR3.

(But seriously I'd bet on the porting company / distribution / licensing issues.)
 
Fingolfin269 said:
There are a few certainties in life: death, taxes, and being trolled for owning a mac (in addition to a pc). 😉
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God seriously right?

'There are no games!'
-Steam is available, and before there was Steam, every Blizzard game since Warcraft 2 was available on both, and plenty of other games too.

'They aren't gaming systems!'
-Neither are the majority of systems sold by Dell, HP, Lenovo, et al. The difference is that all current gen Macs have at least a 320m in them, and the generation before that the minimum card was a 9400m. Much better than the intel integrated that the majority of systems out there have.

'You can't upgrade them!'
-Very true, but honestly how many people that are buying from an OEM are actually doing any upgrading at all. Not to mention that I think that Dell at the very least (maybe all the OEMs) still sells systems that are un-upgradeable as well, at least in the GPU dept which is what you are bitching about.

Those are the main gamer complaints. I say fine, do what I do, have a nice, light, sexy Apple portable, and a beefy tower for games, best of both worlds.
 
simonizor said:
And getting tolled even harder when asking for mac gaming advice.
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It also doesn't help that the PC gaming forum can be a little hostile toward anyone doing their gaming on anything other than a true blue Winders Compooter.

I game on Mac, I game on PC, I game on WinMoPho, I game on iPhone, I game on PS3, I game on 360. I play tabletop games and board games, card games and dice games, I play word games and puzzles. And while each one has that which it excels at, I don't necessarily think that any of them are inherently better than any of the other ones just because it is what it is.
 
TheStu said:
It also doesn't help that the PC gaming forum can be a little hostile toward anyone doing their gaming on anything other than a true blue Winders Compooter.

I game on Mac, I game on PC, I game on WinMoPho, I game on iPhone, I game on PS3, I game on 360. I play tabletop games and board games, card games and dice games, I play word games and puzzles. And while each one has that which it excels at, I don't necessarily think that any of them are inherently better than any of the other ones just because it is what it is.
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Actually, gaming on the PC is inherently better because the library of games is hugely more vast than anything available on a Mac, PCs get more demanding games that Macs couldn't even handle, and PCs have a good user base already in place so when you have troubles with one of those games, you go on the internet and ask the millions of other PC gamers how to fix the problem. With a Mac, you don't have nearly as many people even trying to play video games, so you don't have nearly the user base to support you when something goes wrong.
 
TheStu said:
I think that his point was that the game is on the Mac, and has been, but why isn't it on Steam.
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Because Steam wasn't given the rights to sell the mac version., or wasn't offered a Steam-DRM-compatible version of the game.

Steam didn't get the Dragon Age 2 "Signature Edition" either, because EA didn't let them have it.

Just because Steam is allowed to sell X from a publisher or studio doesn't mean they can sell Y, even if X and Y are variations of the same game.
 
TheStu said:
I think that his point was that the game is on the Mac, and has been, but why isn't it on Steam.
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True.

Two big reasons it might not be, publisher gave rights to pub mac version to someone else or and this is more often the case, the mac version sells for more then the windows. For some reason publishers charge more for mac version of games, or even if not more they charge the brand new MSRP when the game was brand new for windows over year or two later still when the mac version finally comes out.
 
KaOTiK said:
True.

Two big reasons it might not be, publisher gave rights to pub mac version to someone else or and this is more often the case, the mac version sells for more then the windows. For some reason publishers charge more for mac version of games, or even if not more they charge the brand new MSRP when the game was brand new for windows over year or two later still when the mac version finally comes out.
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So true. I am just hoping to see more people follow Valve's lead with what they are doing for Portal 2, where the $60 PS3 version also comes with the PC/Mac version, and you can play coop between any two of the three. This version only costs $10 more than the PC/Mac version. I would be over the moon if EA did this with BF3, I am disinclined to spend $120 on 2 copies of the game since I would play it on both PS3 and PC.
 
SaDiZTiKStyLeZ said:
They did shitty job of porting KOTOR to PC. It's unplayable for me.
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It plays perfectly fine for me. I had to get the widescreen mod and a cracked exe because the widescreen mod won't run on the steam exe to run it at 1920x1080. I also get a black screen after it loads the first time almost every time, but all I have to do is alt tab out and bring the game back up and everything's good to go after that.
 
simonizor said:
Yeah, pretty much. Did the OP honestly expect great video game support when they purchased a Mac? Everyone and their 2 week old baby knows that Windows is the leading platform for computer gaming.
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Jesus get over yourself. I really don't understand the obvious hate/derision here. I bought them originally on PC, where I can still play them, but was asking why Steam now has a Mac outlet but these games are not showing up as available yet can be purchased on the Apple App store. What part of that do you not understand?

For the record, any other Steam game I own on PC that has a counterpart available for Mac does show up in my library as downloadable. Portal, Indiana Jones Fate of Atlantis/Last Crusade, Dig, Loom (yes four other Lucas games), and Tales of Monkey Island.

Maybe I should have posted this in the Apple forum but hell, like you said, Windows is where the majority of the gaming happens and definitely where more of the Steam knowledgable people camp out.

**EDIT** BTW, thanks to those of you who took the time to seriously answer the question. It never occurred to me that a publisher different from the other Lucas games could be the reason for this.
 
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