MacPlay
The Company
MacPlay started life as a division of Interplay. Interplay was an early video game developer founded in 1983. They released The Bard’s Tale in the late 1980s, followed by Wasteland. They are also known for the creation of Fallout and Baldur’s Gate. You can found out more about the early days of Interplay here.
In the early 1990s, Interplay created a new division, MacPlay. According to Inside Mac Gaming, “It began as a division within Interplay in the early 1990’s and released hit titles such as Out of this World, Descent, Fallout, and more. Much of MacPlay’s success and passion for delivering top-notch Macintosh games fell onto the hands of Bill Dugan, who had the distinct title of High Priest (better known as a producer) at the company.” MacPlay didn’t last and was shut down in 1997, due to a drop in Mac game sales.
However, MacPlay returned in the early 2000s. From Inside Mac Gaming, “In 2000, however, the MacPlay name was resurrected, thanks to Ron Dimant, a feisty and keen Englishman, who licensed the brand from Interplay in a blockbuster deal with the later that helped launch Dimant’s new company. The new MacPlay launched its first two titles in December of 2000 with the release of Sin and Majesty.” United Developers LLC is the parent company of MacPlay 2.0.
The new venture started with the release of two games, but other titles were slow to be released. Dimant hired Diane Zammit from Apple to build the development team. After a power struggle between the two, Zammit was replaced with Mark Cottam. Cottam worked to streamline the development process. In 2002, MacPlay announced that they would only be developing titles for Mac OS X. Cottam told reporters that his goal was to complete projects in 4 months or less. They also started licensing title from EA and Activision. This iteration of MacPlay didn’t last very long either. The last game they published was Tron 2.0 in 2004.
From 2004 to 2008, the MacPlay url was used as a storefront for Mac software. Currently, MacPlay appears to act as a distribution channel for Mac games. (Be warned that the site’s security certificates expired on December 23, 2021, so you’ll get an error that the site is unsecure.)
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> as a division Interplay
As a division *of* Interplay?
Even though I was an avid Mac gamer, when I see “Interplay” all I can think of is The Lost Vikings for SNES.