5 ms·
>You don't have to buy twice. How do you know ports will be free? It removes most of the incentive that developers would have to make a good port: money (unles
by devcpp 14y ago
>You don't have to buy twice.
How do you know ports will be free? It removes most of the incentive that developers would have to make a good port: money (unless Valve pays for the ports, which would be very expensive).
- katbyte 14y agoAs it stands the mac ports on steam have all been free so it stands to reason it would be the same for linux. Some developers still occasionally port to linux as is without any incentive other then a wider (albeit minor) possible audience. Although given gabes apparent hate for windows, i wouldn't put it past value to pay for ports.
- jcl 14y agoFWIW, that's not a hard rule. There is at least one recent game (Call of Duty: Black Ops) that you have to buy separately if you want to play on both Mac and PC.
- JimmehAH 14y agoI think that's because it's a different publisher (i.e. farmed out to Aspyr). It's also the same version that's up on the Mac App Store which has limited multi player functionality.
- jiggy2011 14y agoThe ports are currently free on the beta, assuming you have bought the original. Seems unlikely that they will change that as "buy once, run anywhere" seems to be a big selling point of Steam. I guess in terms of incentives to do ports, if Valve plans to launch a Linux based Steam box they can tempt developers with more prominent placing of games with Linux ports, a larger audience (assuming Steambox has good sales) or even flat out make it a requirement to get onto Steam. There are also current Linux users like myself who are just more tempted to buy a game if it has a Linux port.
- bluedanieru 14y ago>or even make it a requirement to get onto Steam Let's hope not.
- chii 14y ago> >or even make it a requirement to get onto Steam > Let's hope not. why not? i think if steam flex its muscle (of which it still doesn't have enough), it might jerk studios to put in the effort!
- bluedanieru 14y agoValve doesn't have any business muscling developers into this or that platform. It's wrong if Microsoft does it, and it's wrong if Valve does it. Let the better platform win, in an open and competitive way. (I'm confident Linux would win out in such a contest, btw.)
- jiggy2011 14y agoIIRC they currently mandate Windows compatibility to launch any game on Steam. You can't publish a Mac only game for example. If Valve are serious about launching their own platform , they're likely to apply as much muscle as they can in order to get games on there.
- interurban 14y agoCurrently on the Steam client I have installed on my laptop that runs Mint, I can install roughly 20 games from my existing Steam library. Some of these games were available the moment I installed the client, others gained working Linux ports and became available in the Linux client with no action on my part. Beside the Call of Duty port for Mac mentioned below, I know of no other game that has required multiple purchases for multiple platforms.
- dfrey 14y agoThe incentive to game developers to port to Linux is that they expand their market by allowing people who only run Linux to play and they also make their product more attractive to people like myself who dual-boot Windows and Linux, but would prefer not to have to reboot into Windows to play a game.
- chaostheory 14y agoI can confirm ports are free. I have Steam on both Mac and Windows.
- MTWomg 14y agoNot all are. If you own CoD4 for PC, you don't Aspyr's Mac port.