Good news, everyone! Gaming is about to make a surge back to the Mac! “How’s that?” I hear some of you asking, fearful only bad news can follow that line. Well, the answer lies in the helping hands of Valve and its online service, Steam.

The Press Release from Monday confirmed what had been rumored for the past week in gaming circles; Valve will be natively supporting Macs — not emulating! — alongside Windows with all of its own game releases from here on out. Most notable of which will be a simultaneous Mac and Windows release of Portal 2 this holiday season.

If you’re wondering why Steam should be considered a big deal, then you should know that it is the most successful digital distribution system in PC gaming — estimated to be about 70% of the digital distribution games market according to research completed by Stardock.

OK, so Macs will be getting a few more quality games, is that all? Not by a long shot. Here’s the better news, from Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development at Valve, “…we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge. For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac. We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play.”

Furthermore: “…Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients.” Article Continues…