Steam and Mac OSX

[champagne supernova]

So I just want to download a demo of Portal so I can see what the fuss is about. However, this is no longer allowed. Instead I have to download something called Steam. I have heard about Steam and apparently it is the evolution of gaming.

So I download it. Great. It then has to download updates before I use it. Okay, fair enough, go ahead. Except for the part where it keeps losing the connection with the server and just stops. Thanks for that. Eventually I get it up and running.

I eventually find the Portal demo and start downloading it. Finally, Portal is downloaded and I start it up. Steam then manages to crash my entire Mac (which is not an easy thing to do). Now, I try start it and every time I try play it, it tries to verify the game files and then cuts out because the servers are busy.

So, either I am doing something terribly wrong, Mac OSX + Steam just doesn't work, or the future of gaming is going to be really horrible. Please let me know which it is.

[Citizen Bleys]

You are doing something horribly wrong, though I can't imagine what. I've got no problems using Steam to feed my Civ4 addiction on Snow Leopard. Perhaps you're running something incompatible in the background?

[kotora]

Sounds like it's just the servers being under heavy load

[Citizen Bleys]

Nothing server-side would cause SL to crash. Cause Steam to crash, yes, but not the whole OS.

EDIT: Good God, man, you're not still running Tiger, are you?

[kotora]

Would Steam even work on a PPC-based version of OS X?