
The life of a Mac gamer can be a hard one. Most Apple computers have nice displays and a graphics card capable of handling at least basic 3D titles. Unfortunately, the relative lack of visible and publicized Mac games can be a downer.
But don’t despair – there are free games available for the Mac, and some of them are extremely good. You just need to dig a little deeper in order to find them. Today we’re going to help you find those free Mac games.
Apple
Before we venture off into the wilds of the web, let’s first talk about a source that is skipped with surprising frequency – Apple itself.
Yes, Apple has a games page on its website, and it’s full of free games. It’s important to note that in this case “free” often means “demo” – but that’s not always true. Some of the games on the Apple website are truly freeware, and a handful are older PC games that were once sold for profit but are now made available for free.
While the Apple website lists a fair number of games, it’s doesn’t offer much in the way of organization. You can sort games chronologically, alphabetically and by popularity, or you can rely on the “staff picks” if you’re not sure where to start.
Of course, Apple has already announced a coming app store for the Mac, so you can expect a more complete and easily organized selection of free Mac games to be readily available in the near future.
Macgames
Although it appears as if it is an independent website in Google Search, Macgames is actually just a URL given to the CNET Downloads category focusing on Mac games.
That’s actually great news, as CNET Downloads remains one of the better repositories of applications currently on the web. Unlike the Apple website, CNET Downloads actually lets you sort Mac games by the ‘Top Freeware” tag. I noticed that a few demos are included in the results, but for the most part the freeware games listed are actually fully functional games.
Nearly every genre of game is represented on the site, and the stats associated with each game – such as the number of times it’s been downloaded and the user reviews – will help you discover games that scratch your specific gaming itch.
Free MMO Gamer
To be honest, there isn’t a lot to see here. The Free MMO Gamer site dedicated to free Mac games consists of 9 titles, each represented by a single screenshot. Clicking on a screenshot will send you to a game overview that tells you a bit about the title, but there isn’t any way to sort between games and the selection of just 9 games is obviously limited.
However, at least some of those 9 games are excellent. The Free MMO Gamer site includes titles like Quake Live, Savage 2 and Runescape. These are great free games that are sometimes missed by other free Mac game sites.
MacRumors Game Guide
If you’re looking for the latest scoop on Mac hardware and software, MacRumors is often the site to turn to. It is a Wiki-based site with a strong sense of community that, despite its unconventional format, offers some compelling content.
The games section isn’t anything special in terms of organization. Titles are simply listed in a table alphabetically with a small description attached to each game. As with the Free MMO Gamer page, however, the MacRumors games section overcomes a lack of organization with content. A number of the games listed on the site are incredible (be sure to check out Cave Story) and are not listed on many or any other sites.
Conclusion
Mac gaming may not be as easy as playing games on a Windows PC, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have some fun. The free game sites above will provide most gamers with everything they’ll need for years. If there is a particular game that you recommend, however, let us know in the comments!
Kids casual game site SecretBuilders is announcing today that it has acquired the assets of rival kids virtual world Dizzywood for an undisclosed price.
Both sites will remain operational but SecretBuilders will try to migrate as many of Dizzywood’s 1.5 million registered users as it can to SecretBuilders, which targets kids ages five to 14. It’s one more example that shows virtual worlds aren’t as hot as they used to be and there are plenty of winners and losers in this market. In the past year, virtual worlds such as Metaplace, Vivaty, Lively by Google, There.com and others have shut down. Gaia Online and Linden Lab have laid off staffers.
The kids market became particularly heated in 2007 after Disney bought Club Penguin for more than $350 million (with full earnout, the price would have been $700 million, but the site didn’t hit its targets). By January, 2009, more than 200 kids virtual worlds had been started. The most successful virtual worlds that targeted kids were Poptropica, WebKinz, Runescape, Club Penguin and Moshi Monsters.
San Mateo, Calif.-based SecretBuilders is also one of the survivors. Started in 2007, the company has more than 1 million unique monthly players and it has nearly 2 million registered users, said Umair Khan, chief executive. The user base is now growing by about 500,000 per quarter, even though the company doesn’t spend money on advertising. Part of the success is that SecretBuilders has repositioned itself, focusing more on kids casual games and less on building out a full virtual world. SecretBuilders has 12 sections where kids can learn about art and literature as they play dozens of mini games. Khan says the goal is to be “engaging and enriching.” The educational part has enabled SecretBuilders to be used in more than 1,500 schools.
But Khan said his company wants to expand to new platforms. For instance, SecretBuilders is available on the Android-based Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet computer now. And it will become available on other platforms such as Facebook in the coming months. With the addition of Dizzywood, SecretBuilders will have more kindred users.
“In the future, we want to be on all the platforms that people consider to be electronic babysitting devices,” said Khan, noting that parents often give kids their phones to distract them.
Khan said the company’s metrics are looking good. The maximum number of concurrent users — or those playing at the same time — is now three times what it was just four months ago and the number of people logging in daily is double what it used to be.
Dizzywood was started in 2008 by Scott Arpajian and it raised $1 million from Charles River Ventures and Shelby Bonnie. Although the virtual world craze isn’t as huge as it used to be, Khan is encouraged that more kids are going online at an earlier age. On Facebook, there are also a lot of young kids who play games with their parents. And the number of kids using mobile phones is starting to grow. That means that casual games aimed at kids will be a growing market, Khan said.
Khan is targeting kids with some proven features such as dress-up and personalization, home decoration, socialization, adventures and quests, and fun games. The company has 24 employees. Secret Builders has raised $4 million to date from The Entrepreneurs’ Fund, Launch Capital, Scott Hassan (co-founder eGroups, founding team member of Google), Michael Tanne (former CEO of Adforce), David Jeske (former Director of Applications, Google), Sheila Marcelo (CEO of Care.com), John Welch (CEO of MakingFun), Sohaib Abbasi (CEO of Informatica), and Ken Morse (co-founder of 3COM).
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