SteamPlay - 2K/Firaxis is on board

[HamTard]

Try it yourself.

http://store.steampowered.com/freeportal/

Until May 24th, you can download and play Portal (1st person puzzle platformer game that won over 70 Game of the Year awards) for free. This is to celebrate the launch of the launch of Steam on Mac OSX and SteamPlay, the new system that allows people who buy the PC version of a game to also have the Mac OSX version of the game and vice versa (if Mac OSX version is available, and the publisher has agreed to sign up). Eventually, SteamPlay will also include Linux, since Steam is also in the process of coming to Linux.

Valve is going to make their entire catalog of Source engine based games available on both OSX and eventually Linux through SteamPlay, beginning with Portal today and soon Team Fortress 2.

What does this have to do with Civilization?

Guess what? 2K/Firaxis has made Civilization IV Complete a SteamPlay game. That means if you own the Steam version, you now own both the PC and Mac OSX version. This strongly indicates that Civilization V will also be a SteamPlay game, if not at launch, then through an update sometime afterwards. Since Civilization V will require Steam, it means everyone who buys Civilization V, whether in a box or directly from Steam, will likely get both the PC and Mac OSX version for buying the game once.

 

[Chalks]

The plan now is to make as many threads on this subject as there are complaining about steam I see

Well, I'm on board!

 

[HamTard]

Actually, I did a poor job titling this thread. People who don't know anything about Steam won't know about SteamPlay.

Could a mod edit the thread title to somehow indicate that this is about PC and Mac versions of the same game coming together?

 

[Chalks]

Psst: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=364365

 

[HamTard]

Psst: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=364365

That only mentions Portal being free, it doesn't say anything about SteamPlay and what it means for Civilization games in particular (that owning the Steam version means having both the PC and Mac version).

 

[Mercade]

So if I get this game before 24 May for free, can I play it only until 24 May or can I also play it beyond that date?

 

[HamTard]

So if I get this game before 24 May for free, can I play it only until 24 May or can I also play it beyond that date?

I'm not sure. I own Portal so I can't check.

It's not that long a game, it's maybe 4 hours for the base game if you're good at puzzle solving and platforming (possibly a lot longer if you ever get stuck, I think it took me 6 hours my first time), so you could easily finish it before May 24th anyways. There are also challenge modes that may add a few more hours to the play total.

There are a lot of free custom levels for it designed by other players and even other game developers that you can try when you're done with the base game. Bethesda (makers of Oblivion and Fallout 3) created at least 3 custom levels for Portal that are really fun and challenging.

 

[EmpireOfCats]

It would be very, very nice if Firaxis could make up its mind about a OS X version ASAP because with Steam for Mac, Civ is the only game I have a Windows partition for any more. Common guy, it can't be that hard, and you have until September to get it to work!

(Pack to playing Portal on his MacBook Pro)

 

[HamTard]

It would be very, very nice if Firaxis could make up its mind about a OS X version ASAP because with Steam for Mac, Civ is the only game I have a Windows partition for any more. Common guy, it can't be that hard, and you have until September to get it to work!

(Pack to playing Portal on his MacBook Pro)

You can play Civ IV Complete Steam version on Mac now, but I assume you don't have the Steam version. Considering that they made Civ IV STEAMPLAY, I can't see why they wouldn't do the same with Civ V eventually.

 

[ArcadicGamer]

So if I get this game before 24 May for free, can I play it only until 24 May or can I also play it beyond that date?

After looking at the webpage, they are giving away copies of portal for free till the 24th. Usually, like with their free weekend demos, they blatantly list an expiation date. I would say that its free till forever.

 

[epicivfreak]

Hmmm...
This is making me like Steam more and more. The only thing I keep Windows around for these days is gaming. If I could play all my games using Steam on Linux...
Well that would just be heaven wouldn't it?