14 DAY TRIAL // Valve's development director Jason Holtman, and marketing VP Dough Lombardi have discussed the reaction of gamers and developers to the Mac version of Steam, in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz.
The gaming-focused site has posted a piece focused entirely on Valve’s Steam platform and its arrival to Mac OS X. One of the topics was the initial impact of its release to the Mac install base.
Jason Holtman was happy to share some thoughts with the interviewers, saying “Oh yeah, it's been a great reaction from the development community.”
“I think a lot of people, myself included, were Mac guys once upon a time, and we were forced over to the PC if we really wanted to be in games,” he added.
“I can actually remember the Fall of 95 or 96 when I finally gave up, when the original Windows era was just coming in to replace the old DOS days and Apple was sort of falling [a]part, the wheels were coming off,” Holtman said.
“So a lot of people are in their history somewhat fanboys or have a relationship with the Mac, so when they hear that it's coming back or there's something that can bring that back, they're sort of excited in a nostalgic way,” Holtman explained.
The development head at Valve said there was also a business point of view that set the wheels in motion to bring Steam to the Mac.
“And then there's the business side of it, hey this is another platform. And it's a viable one – there are a lot of people that are getting Macs that you hear about, whether it's a mobile Mac or a new iMac or whatever have you,” he said.
“There's a renaissance in the Mac space and games should be part of that. The reaction that we've got from the development community is that this could be a big ingredient towards that renaissance,” Holtman believes.
According to Valve’s development director, “People have both a business motivation as well as a personal motivation to see games on the Mac.” He reveals to GamesIndustry.biz that he is a Mac user, “and when we started putting the games on Steam it was a great convenience just for me personally and selfishly,” he admitted.