Skip to main content

Steam Launches on the Mac with 63 Games…and Portal is Free

Popular online gaming service and marketplace Steam has officially launched on the Mac, bringing a surprising large of palette of 63 games to Mac OS X. And as an incentive, Mac games can try out the popular action title Portal for free through May 24 as a way to get into the service. And those 63 title are just the beginning: Valve is promising new games will go online for Macs every week.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Besides Portal, titles initially available via Steam on the Mac are Civilization 4, Torchlight, City of Heroes, Peggle, and a broad selection of LucasArts adventure games. Games who have previously purchased games via Steam will be able to play them via their account from a Macintosh as soon as they’re released for the platform. As with other Steam purchases, customers who buy games through Steam can play them on all supported platforms—the games are also automatically kept up to date.

Valve is also making its Steamworks suite of publishing and development tools available to the Mac platform, enabling game developers to integrate Steam functionality directly into their games.

The Steam client itself requires an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.5.8 or 10.6.3 or newer; pricing on individual games seems to run from $4.99 to $39.99.

Editors' Recommendations

Geoff Duncan
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…
Why gaming on the M3 MacBook Air has left me impressed
Baldur's Gate 3 being played on the M3 MacBook Air.

Upon getting the new MacBook Air M3 in my possession, I had one major question: Can you play games on it?

That might sound like a silly first thought for a laptop of this type. After all, it's not marketed as a gaming laptop -- it's an incredibly thin, fanless laptop. Not exactly something even meant for any high-performance tasks.

Read more
I turned my Steam Deck into the ultimate cross-platform gaming machine
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth running on the Steam Deck.

I've been playing a lot of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which, as a self-proclaimed PC gaming snob, would have presented a problem for me in the past. After all, a console exclusive like Rebirth just doesn't fit into my typical pattern of gaming, which oscillates between desktop at home and Steam Deck on the go.

But I've found a solution, opening up the world of third-party apps and breaking the mold for the Steam Deck. It's allowed me to game far beyond my Steam library, revealing the immense versatility that is latent in the Steam Deck's design.
Streaming your PS5

Read more
Why this gaming laptop is the MacBook Pro’s biggest competition
An OLED HDR demo running on the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14.

There's no other laptop quite like the MacBook Pro right now.

In particular, I'm talking about the 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M3 Max under the hood. The way this laptop balances performance and portability just hasn't been seen before.

Read more