Mac Sees More Games on Steam; Portal Downloaded 1.5 Million Times

Welp, Valve’s Mac-based Steam client has been out for just over a week, and so far, things seem to have been going well. There have been reports of a couple issues related to SteamPlay for those who already own a particular title (Civilization IV in particular), and others seem to be experiencing UI issues, but aside from that, the first week seems to have wrapped up nicely.

This past Wednesday, Valve fulfilled its promise of delivering even more Mac games, and some titles we saw added to the pile include Madballs in Babo: Invasion, Killing Floor, Altitude, two more Sam & Max episodes, Chains, Caster and a couple of other indie titles. Unfortunately, no new Source-based games have been released.

Since the launch was just a week ago, it seems that Valve is playing it cool when it comes to releasing its own titles, and that might not be a half-bad idea. After all, Valve’s own collection of Source games isn’t exactly enormous, so it’s understandable that the company wouldn’t want to exhaust its entire catalogue in just a few weeks.

So we see no new Source games, but we do have confirmation that Portal had been downloaded 1.5 million times in the first week that it was made available for free, which is a rather impressive feat. Free is usually better than not free, but we’re talking about a game that many people had already owned! Just how large a chunk Mac users were of that 1.5 million, Valve doesn’t say.

In other Steam news, Prime strategy guides are now being sold on the service for select titles, which seems like a rather obvious direction for Steam to go. Once you purchase a guide, you will be able to access it quickly from inside of your game with the help of Steam’s overlay feature, and don’t worry… you’re able to access it outside of the game as well. Currently, all of the launch guides are 50% off (to make them $10 a piece), so if you are interested in owning a guide for Bad Company 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Left 4 Dead 2, Just Cause 2, or Dragon Age, get a move on it.

Oh, and in case you missed it, be sure to check out Brett’s in-depth look at the Steam client for Mac so you can see all of what it’s capable of, and where it currently falls flat on its face.

According to the accounts of many happy Mac gamers, last week’s launch of Steam on the Mac has been a huge success. Those of us on the Steam team were especially pleased to be able to include Portal as a free download to celebrate the launch, and it appears that many of you agree it was a good idea – there have been approximately 1.5 million downloads so far. Aperture Science, we’ve heard, is pleased. Be sure to pick it up today – the offer ends on the 24th of this month.