MacPlay is the name used by a series of three

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

publisher Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

s of

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

s. ''MacPlay'' was founded to bring more focus to Interplay’s Mac games.

History

MacPlay was founded in the early 1990s as a division of

Interplay Entertainment Interplay Entertainment Corp. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Los Angeles. The company was founded in 1983 as Interplay Productions by developers Brian Fargo, Jay Patel, Troy Worrell, and Rebecca Heineman, as well a ...

. It was led by producer Bill Dugan. During this period, MacPlay published notable games including ''

Wolfenstein 3D ''Wolfenstein 3D'' is a 1992 first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software and FormGen for DOS. It was inspired by the 1981 Muse Software video game '' Castle Wolfenstein'', and is the third installment ...

'', '' Out of this World'', the ''

Alone in the Dark ''Alone in the Dark'' is a survival horror video game series originally developed by Infogrames. In most of the games, the player controls private investigator Edward Carnby, who goes to investigate a haunted house or town that is full of undea ...

'' series, and the ''

Descent Descent may refer to: As a noun Genealogy and inheritance * Common descent, concept in evolutionary biology * Kinship, one of the major concepts of cultural anthropology **Pedigree chart or family tree **Ancestry **Lineal descendant **Heritage ** ...

'' series. Due to the mid-to-late 1990s decline in the Mac market, Interplay exited the

games market and abandoned the MacPlay division in late 1997, with ''

Fallout Nuclear fallout is residual radioactive material that is created by the reactions producing a nuclear explosion. It is initially present in the radioactive cloud created by the explosion, and "falls out" of the cloud as it is moved by the ...

'' being the final release of this incarnation. In 2000, United Developers LLC licensed the MacPlay brand name from Interplay for use as the name of a wholly owned subsidiary corporation. Ron Dimant became CEO of this new incarnation of MacPlay, which was headquartered in

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

. In the early 2000s, MacPlay published two lines of games-regular games and "value" games. Notable games published during this period included '' Baldur's Gate II'', '' Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim'', and the first two games in the ''Fallout'' series. The last game published by MacPlay was ''

Tron 2.0 ''Tron 2.0'' is a first-person shooter video game developed by Monolith Productions and published by Buena Vista Interactive. The Microsoft Windows version of the game was released in August 2003. The Mac OS X version was released by MacPlay on ...

'' in June 2004. United Developers continues to hold the rights to the MacPlay name. From November 2004-2008, the MacPlay.com domain was used as a software retail outlet. In 2008, the MacPlay.com domain was changed to redirect to

MumboJumbo MumboJumbo, LLC was an independent developer of games for personal computers, game consoles and mobile devices. MumboJumbo Mobile, LLC publishes entertainment software for Android and iOS devices. History The company was founded in January 200 ...

, itself a subsidiary of United Developers founded by MacPlay CEO Ron Dimant and located in Dallas, Texas. MacPlay re-launched as a publisher of

s on the

Mac App Store The Mac App Store (also known as the App Store) is a digital distribution platform for macOS apps, often referred to as Mac apps, created and maintained by Apple. The platform was announced on October 20, 2010, at Apple's "Back to the Mac" eve ...

. The company in April 2015 released '' Pillars of Eternity'' on the Mac App Store. The company has published a number of other games such as '' Shelter 2'', ''

Prison Architect ''Prison Architect'' is a private prison construction and management simulation video game developed and published by Introversion Software. It was made available as a crowdfunded paid alpha pre-order on September 25, 2012 with updates that were ...

'', '' Human Fall Flat'', and '' Cities in Motion''. MacPlay was purchased by former Interplay founder

Rebecca Heineman Rebecca Ann Heineman is an American video game designer and programmer. Heineman was a founding member of video game companies Interplay Productions, Logicware, Contraband Entertainment, and Olde Sküül. She has been chief executive officer f ...

in January of 2025

References

Macintosh software companies Video game companies of the United States Video game publishers {{Videogame-company-stub

History

See also

References