You are already 66% there with Windows and Mac

Yeah, it's not quite that easy. If the software isn't made to run on those OS's then it's not made to run on those OS's. Forcing developers to spend more time and money writing for every OS out there whether they want to or not is a surefire way for Steam to lose their product and go out of business.

Steam Linux is in limited access beta at the moment - http://steamproxy-script.pipiskins.com/linux

Now it is up to the users to show games developers that there is a market out there for it.

over 60,000 people asking to participate in the beta is a good start.

But Steam just launches the game...

If the game is written to run in windows, it won't WORK on the mac.... you'd need the game makers to write code that will run on ALL the systems. Which they don't.

There's only one language that 'pretends' to be OS independent and that's Java.

And every programmer knows that a giant lie. You write once then tweak a billion things for every platform. So it's not even practical to make the client itself OS agnostic.

I have a feeling they don't do as much proper unit testing as they should. TestDrivenDevelopment is one way to check bad code as its being written. It takes discipline though(not much) but developing code for a bad design is even worse, particularly when it locks you into only one OS or if you have to "think different". Really, the algorithm is the only piece that should be directly coded and tested, and when integrated with other code tested there too, but we all know most programs aren't developed that way. Winging it also costs money.

Cool story, bro.

Fully supporting :)

How hard is it to google a topic before you make a thread about it. Honestly all you had to do is look up something like "why are games OS dependant" you would have had your answer. Instead you come here and look like a tool like most folks who don't understand anything in the technical realm or can't bother with a few seconds of research. Steam's popularity is starting to be it's downfall. Steam is a publisher they sell games on their platform through other publishers and developers, they do not make every game in the world.

Forcing developers to write their program for all platforms is not right. If they were forced to less experienced programmers would gie up or their great ideas would reside on a small website, and more experienced programmers may go off steam if they can't right in a apple/linux compliant language, therefore, Steam would lose buisness and people on apple and linux would have even less games.

@ Hashbrick, I know making games independent of OS is not going to happen, the point of this thread is get a discussion going and bring up some ideas from people.

Anyway soo far tt looks like Steam will end up streaming games like Onlive unless they develop a console with special software that can run OS's in a virtual machine or something.