Gamertell

Intel based Mac users can now partake in the online tastiness that is Gametap.com. Gametap was the brilliant ploy of Turner Broadcasting System Inc. and, if you watched Saturday morning cartoons in 2005 (not me… okay me. Guilty pleasure.), you’ll remember their launch advertisements. Apparently they reached their target audience in spades because they’re now opening an office in San Francisco and planning to roll out more posh content for Apple users later this year (2007).

The idea is simple: Users can play a rotating selection of classic and contemporary arcade games for free. For a membership fee users gain access to a massive library of titles and all sorts of other neat perks like streaming video and music. Gametap is also pushing a free, original chapter of the popular puzzler Myst entitled Myst: Uru Live.

Gametap is basically troping off of Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade here but the advantage they’ve got is that they aren’t limited by a rather obvious conflict of interest in terms of licensing.

According to the press releases, the new San Francisco office is going to be spending a lot of time on getting more games. More games equals more users equals more advertisement revenue. Judging from the content already on the website, Microsoft might have trouble competing with an arcade service that doesn’t require dropping a bunch of dough on a new game console. I remember laughing at the ads two years ago, sure that no one would bother to play games on their web browser when they could just go out and buy a console. I’ll admit it, I was wrong. Congratulations Gametap. You have arrived.

Read [Inside Mac Games] Site [GameTap]