Valve is a company that knows how to market to their audience. And, to prove the point, one need look no further than the stream of images that leaked out of the company this week, apparently teasing the arrival of Steam for the Mac. After last week’s update to Steam revealed a number of OSX-specific icons and images among the patch’s files, speculation ran the gamut from changing Steam’s UI to render via WebKit (the rendering engine of Apple’s Safari web browser) to full on Mac-compatible versions of Valve’s lineup.
This week, we got something a bit more tangible in the form of six teaser images that put a decidedly Valve twist on some of Apple’s most iconic advertisements, from the infamous 1984 commercial to the current “I’m a Mac…and I’m a PC” tv spots. So what do we know? Nothing for sure. It seems a safe bet that Valve is bringing Steam to the Mac. As for whether or not their bringing their own catalog of games? They’d be stupid not to and here’s why:
For Valve’s part, its a smart move. The Mac has grown its market share enormously over the past decade and dominates the college laptop market. Gaming on Apple products is not as much of a laughing matter thanks to the success of the iPhone and the App Store. “But that’s not real gaming” you say. Well that’s kind of the point.
The Mac is an almost untapped market for gaming. There’s lots and lots of hardware floating around with a relatively small number of developers making games for it. If Valve can get a foot hold now and become the force that popularizes gaming on the Mac, they open (and most likely own) a whole new market for their products.
With GDC coming up next week, where Gabe Newell will be accepting the Game Developers Choice Awards ‘Pioneer Award,’ it seems like a good time to make a formal announcement. Our spies are already in-country, we’ll be back with more news as it breaks.
