– SteamOS is being designed as an operating system for the living room and is underpinned by a Linux based system.

– It will be available ‘soon’ and, as with all Linus systems, will be free.

– You won’t lose your Steam friends or features “you don’t have to give up your favorite games, your online friends, and all the Steam features you love just to play on the big screen. SteamOS, running on any living room machine, will provide access to the best games and user-generated content available.”

– There are major performance boosts under the hood and developers are already targeting the SteamOS for future releases. “In SteamOS, we have achieved significant performance increases in graphics processing, and we’re now targeting audio performance and reductions in input latency at the operating system level.” There are hundreds of games already running on the SteamOS with announcements for 2014 titles coming soon. With home-streaming you can still play your current Steam catalogue.

– It will be an open, evolving and supportive system. “With SteamOS, “openness” means that the hardware industry can iterate in the living room at a much faster pace than they’ve been able to. Content creators can connect directly to their customers. Users can alter or replace any part of the software or hardware they want. Gamers are empowered to join in the creation of the games they love.”

– The Workshop and Cloud features will be present and correct.

In-home Streaming – “You can play all your Windows and Mac games on your SteamOS machine, too. Just turn on your existing computer and run Steam as you always have – then your SteamOS machine can stream those games over your home network straight to your TV!”

Music, TV and movies – “We’re working with many of the media services you know and love. Soon we will begin bringing them online, allowing you to access your favorite music and video with Steam and SteamOS.”

Family sharing – “In the past, sharing Steam games with your family members was hard. Now you can share the games you love with the people you love. Family Sharing allows you to take turns playing one another’s games while earning your own Steam achievements and saving your individual game progress to the Steam cloud.”

Family Options – “The living-room is family territory. That’s great, but you don’t want to see your parents’ games in your library. Soon, families will have more control over what titles get seen by whom, and more features to allow everyone in the house to get the most out of their Steam libraries.”

We will have thoughts and analysis of this, and the other Valve reveals later this week.

At the end of November, Valve revealed the latest batch of games and software titles that were offered distribution deals on Steam. One of the standout titles in my mind was Euro Truck Simulator 2 while PvP MMO Darkfall: Unholy Wars also got the Greenlight from Valve and the community. There were also six new software titles which passed through the Greenlight system, you can see them all here.

Moving into December and we witnessed the public release of Big Picture mode for Steam. This new UI for Steam is designed for us with TV’s and control pads and comes with a nifty way of inputting text using a pad. It is known as the Daisywheel and makes entering text much simpler than when presented with a virtual QWERTY keyboard.

The development of the Big Picture mode has been put into slightly clearer context when Gabe Newell’s comments to Kotaku are taken into account. While there aren’t any direct quotes, Kotaku’s Jason Schreier reports the following:

[Valve’s] next step is to get Steam Linux out of beta and to get Big Picture on that operating system, which would give Valve more flexibility when developing their own hardware.

He also expects companies to start selling PC packages for living rooms next year—setups that could consist of computers designed to be hooked up to your TV and run Steam right out of the gate. And yes, Newell said, they’d compete with next-gen consoles from companies like Microsoft and Sony.

In the Kotaku interview, Gabe also confirmed that Valve’s next-generation game engine was in development.

The building blocks of a possible Valve-box would be a Linux-based operating system, and the Seattle based developer have been making moves forward with their development of a Linux based version of Steam. SteamForLinux report that a Steam for Linux Beta will be opened up next week. I’m sure that it will be a very stable release, and marks the next step towards a Valve developed console.

Moving back to the desktop experience, the Community Market has entered Beta. This is where players will be able to buy and sell in-game items for Steam Wallet funds, it is currently limited to Team Fortress 2 Tools, but will undoubtedly be expanded to other titles soon.

Another new addition to Steam is Game Guides whereby community members can create guides for games within Steam. You can grab pictures from the Cloud or insert YouTube videos and you can add friends to help you make your guide.

Finally, word comes from PCGamesN that Valve are opening a studio in San Francisco after buying up Star Filled Studios, a two-man studio comprised of Tod Semple and Jeff Gates. They have worked on titles as diverse as Diablo 3, Spore and Plants vs Zombies.

Are Valve heading towards world domination? I think it is becoming clear they are.

Prison Architect is a mixed up hodge-podge of such classics as Theme Hospital and Dwarf Fortress. You are the omnipresent architect (as the name implies) and manager of your very own prison, with abilities ranging from laying the pipework and powerlines to hiring and firing staff and directing the fire-crews as they put out blazes. Under your purview prisoners will eat, sleep and play. They will also, inevitably, riot. There is no fun in a task that is goes off without a hitch, right?

In order to support on-going development – Introversion has a long and publicly turbulent financial path – IV are offering up a set of purchasable reward tiers in the style of Kickstarter. Starting at $30, you get the alpha on Windows, Mac and Linux now and all future updates. Further tiers include your name and likeness on a prisoner or a warden and physical rewards including posters, T-shirts and art books.

Mark Morris and Chris Delay explain in this video:

[youtube id=”KDDzSOS0vzc” width=”600″ height=”350″]

Chris Evans – What brought the three of you together to form Tomorrow Corporation?

Kyle Gabler – The three of us met in grad school at the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon, where we built “virtual worlds” together like this one and this one and this one. Later, we all worked on the Experimental Gameplay Project together where we made a bunch of small free games. Our goal has always been the same though: Games seemed way more fun and magical when we were kids, and we want to achieve that same sense of wonder and mystery that games seemed to have 20 years ago.

Chris – The Tomorrow Corporation site was launched two years ago, have you been working on Little Inferno since then, or have you been trying out different projects?

Kyle Gabler – For a while, we were working on a game called Robot and the Cities that Built Him, a sort-of larger version of this 7-day protoype. But we eventually decided against it, for a bunch of reasons – though mostly because it was turning out to be a game with lasers and hitpoints and traditionally gamey stuff. It just wasn’t experimental enough and we felt restless. So we switched to a very different game – Little Inferno – a game that no reasonable studio would or should ever make, that (we hope!) is unexpected and beautiful and dangerous. But we’ll see!

Chris – You’ve recently revealed the teaser trailer for Little Inferno, what can you tell us about how this game will take shape? Are you just feeding stuff into the fire to see what comes out of the chimney?

Kyle Gabler – On the surface, Little Inferno is a game about setting everything on fire and playing with it as it burns. A colorful toybox for pyromaniacs! But if it were that simple, we wouldn’t be making it. Something else is burning…

We’re creating Little Inferno, in part, to say: We need more mystery in games!

Maybe it’s just old age, but lately it seems as soon as you pick up a game and start playing, you have a pretty good idea what the whole rest of the game is going to be like. “Ok, this is a platformer, and there’s this mechanic where I can walk on walls and there will be some fun but not totally different puzzles with that. Ok got it.” or “Ok, it’s a 3D shooter and someone let a bunch of killer aliens out, and now I have to shoot them, and ok I bet it was me who was the villain the whole time. Ok got it.” And so we just don’t play many games anymore.

I want to be taken on a ride, and not know where I’m going. I want game designers to respect me enough to NOT let me know exactly what’s going on. Give me hints. Let me NOT know. Let me figure it out. Totally change the game out from under me.

With Little Inferno, we’re intentionally trying to build a game that is NOT predictable. Half the fun is finding out exactly what kind of game it is, and we hope players appreciate that!

Chris – Without giving too much away about Little Inferno, can you tell us what games have had an influence on the ideas behind Little Inferno?

Kyle Gabler – Indie games tend to be outlets for their designers’ quirks and anxieties and unusual ways of experiencing the world. So, while we also look to games we love, most of Little Inferno is inspired by real life things that we find scary or confusing or totally absurd. Some things that inspired Little Inferno:

-Playing with fire is really fun, but dangerous. Like playing with kittens.
-The simplest things can often be the most terrifying. (Example: Steven Moffat written episodes of Doctor Who)
-New hobby: Ordering lots of things on Amazon and tracking shipments as they arrive!
-It’s easy to stay stuck in a job that’s kindof ok, but maybe not what your childhood self would be proud of or excited by.
-That slight but constant feeling that films and tv and advertisements and government programs treat you like a kid who’s too clueless to handle subtlety, or real explanations, or drama or comedy that’s not entirely broad and ham fisted.
-Bugs and eggs.
-That feeling of wanting to communicate with other people, but being entirely unheard or misunderstood.
-Dental work.

Chris – Will the Sign Painter make a return, or someone in his or even her, image?

Kyle Gabler – Little Inferno is a very different game from World of Goo! There is a whole new adorable cast of characters with questionable motivations, and they can’t wait to meet you. We hope the Sign Painter is proud, wherever he or she is!

Chris – The art style is very reminiscent of World of Goo, why have you carried on with this, apart from the obvious answer that it is beautiful?

Kyle Gray – The “art director” for Little Inferno actually happens to be the same “art director” as World of Goo. If you broke both of Kyle’s hands and he could draw only by tracing lines with his pupils, the art style would still look the same.

Chris – You’ve already opened the game up to pre-orders based on the method used by Spy Party, how do you think this is going to go and what made you avoid Kickstarter?

Kyle Gray – It’s amazing that people have shown this much faith in us without even knowing much about the game at this point – we definitely don’t want to let them down! Other than getting people to test our game and help with translations, we’re interested in seeing people’s reactions to Little Inferno. As a game developer, it’s one of the most exciting parts of the process.

Chris – Do you have any early plans for using Steam Greenlight?

Kyle Gray – Not as of yet – we just set Tomorrow Corporation’s Facebook page two weeks ago! We’re slowly integrating into digital society, so given our current rate you could expect us on there by 2030. Unless we’re all killed by robots.

Chris – What are your thoughts on Greenlight in general?

Kyle Gabler – Anything that helps good new experiences bubble into players’ attention is probably worthwhile, but Tomorrow Corporation executives inform me that they do not have any specific opinion on Steam’s Greenlight yet.

You can find out more about Little Inferno and even per-order it on the Tomorrow Corporation site.

A few first impressions based on that are essential, it has the same art style as the cut-scenes from World of Goo, sequences which I absolutely adored, the soundtrack is going to be epic and there seems to be a subliminal message about global warming hiding away in there.

You can find a few more details about the game here, and you can also pre-order the game right now which also nets you a preview of the soundtrack. Hopefully we will have more from Kyle, Kyle and Allan soon.

Things may be changing though, over the past couple of years more and more indie games have been released for both PC and Mac, and to a lesser extent, Linux. More significantly, in May Valve updated Steam to include support for Mac, when talking to Doug Lombardi (Valve’s VP of Marketing) he made a bold statement “Steam for the Mac is the biggest news for Steam since the platform was launched in March 2004.”

This is serious business for Valve, all future titles from the pre-eminent PC developer will be released on both Windows and Mac platforms. When I asked Doug why Valve have taken the decision to support Mac he provided an insight into the changes happening to the games industry as a whole. “As an industry we are going through a transition of entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service. This places a bunch of requirements on the platforms – specifically being an open, high-quality Internet client. The Mac is a very attractive platform for entertainment as a service.”

While a number of big games such as EVE Online and Torchlight have seen Mac versions released on Steam it is interesting to listen to what developers of original Mac titles think of the opening up of Steam. Jeff Vogel, President and founder of Spiderweb Software told me that he hopes “to release my next game on Steam. It will depend on whether they accept it.” and that “it’s fantastic” to see Steam selling Mac games.

However not everyone is so enthusiastic, Brian Greenstone, President and CEO of Pangea Software doesn’t have any plans to use Steam in the immediate future, “I haven’t even thought about it. Not likely because we still sell a fair number of games direct off of our web site, and most of our income comes from iPhone apps these days anyways.”

For Brian, the hey-day of Mac gaming has been and gone, “The whole Mac/PC game market has been struggling as consumers flock to the consoles instead, but we had a pretty good 10 year run on the Mac. People always thought I was crazy for doing games for a niche market like the Mac, but at the time it was better to be a big fish in a small pond – lots of money was to be made doing Mac games.” Jeff feels the future is possibly in the handheld market, when I asked what he thinks the prospect is for Mac gaming he told me that “since a lot of the action seems to be on the iPhone and iPad I think those markets will be huge.”

In contrast to the opinions of Brian and Jeff, Chris Park of Arcen Software sees a bright future ahead for Mac gaming. “I think that most games that would once come out on the PC only will be coming to the Mac as time goes on. Most of the major engines are adding multiplatform support, and when your engine supports it, it’s pretty easy to straddle both the PC and the Mac. For most companies, they want to explore every possible market, and the Mac is becoming increasingly easy to explore.” The latest game from Arcen, Tidalis has just been released on PC and Mac, via, among others, Steam. Chris is also planning to update Arcen’s previous title, AI War to run smoothly on Mac OSX without users having to VMWare and other software tricks.

John Graham from Wolfire Software thinks there is little reason not to explore Mac support where possible, he cites a key blog post from Wolfire founder David Rosen (link) which explains why using OpenGL rather than DirectX can make developing for Windows, Mac and Linux a much simpler task. Chris highlights the multiplatform support found in the Unity and Unreal 3 engine as being key to being able to develop cross-platform. “With something like Unity, or Torque, or the Unreal 3 engine, or various other ones, multiplatform support is easy” Chris goes on to say “For developers who are a bit further along, working on a game beyond their first, it’s pretty much a no-brainer to make extending to multiple platforms one of the major goals of the second game. If you’re on the PC, the first target would be the Mac, and vice-versa.”

John feels that providing support for Mac, and indeed Linux, is essential for indie developers and it can reap huge rewards. “We highly recommend that other indie developers support Mac and Linux. If you use OpenGL, it’s not very hard and it is likely to double your sales.”

People are definitely interested in buying Mac versions of games, for instance when 2D Boy held a special pay what you want birthday sale on World of Goo some very interesting figures emerged. Windows users only accounted for 65% of sales with the remainder equally split between Mac and Linux. Further, Mac users on average contributed $0.50 more than Windows users while average Linux contributions were even further ahead. Similar figures were evident when analysing the Humble Indie Bundle. Yet again 65% of contributions came from Windows buyers with 21% coming from Mac and 14% from Linux. Following the trend of the 2D Boy birthday sale Linux users on average paid the most followed by Mac with Windows users contributing the least on average.

It is apparent that there is a market out there for Mac games, as Chris says “the Mac market specifically is clearly underserved, and quite hungry for games. I think that’s why you’re seeing things like Steam for the Mac, and all these various indie games supporting the Mac lately. For a long time there was this idea that the only thing to play on the Mac was really old games or stuff in the browser, and I think companies are now recognizing that there is a need there.” John makes a bolder prediction, “I think it’s likely that there will be a fundamental shift in what we call a gaming platform and distinctions between Mac, Linux and Windows computers may simply become irrelevant.”

Doug was similarly positive when I asked what he saw for the future of Mac gaming. “Over time we hope the distribution and development opportunities offered for the Mac via Steam will result in more publishers and developers delivering their games to the platform, and doing so simultaneously. The demand is there — the sales of our catalog as well as third party Mac titles has been very strong and we expect that to grow over the coming months and years.”

While Mac veterans like Brian and Jeff may feel that it is time to move onto the iPhone and iPad it is clear there is still life in gaming on the Mac. All future Blizzard titles will be released on PC and Mac, Steam has embraced the Mac way with open arms and indie developers have been reaping the benefits of providing Mac and Linux support for the past couple of years. As it becomes easier to develop titles for Windows, Mac and Linux more and more developers are going to realise there is a largely untapped, and in Chris’ words, underserved market out there waiting to be explored.

Interesting figures have emerged regarding the Linux release of World of Goo. 2D Boy have revealed that more copies were sold on their website on the Linux release day than any other day. They beat the previous record by 40%

Those are some amazing figures, I think this just goes to show that the Mac and Linux platforms are being very much ignored by many games companies and the mainstream gaming press. For a small independent company like 2D Boy these figures are really going to make a big difference to their financial outlook.

As a brief aside, it was on Valentine’s Day last year the the first Chapter of World of Goo was released to pre-orders, what a year it has been for Ron and Kyle.