There's been a number of discussions about what was the "true" era of Mac gaming. With my opinions, I decided to put Mac gaming into four categories.

The Black and White Era
This spans from about 1984-1991. The B&W era includes ports from other computers, often with crisp, redrawn black and white graphics. It also usually has a full mouse interface. While classics, the ports tend to age poorly, and most of them are largely silent, save for a few beeps and sound effects.

The Golden Age
Spans from about 1991 to 1997. Mac OS 7 and QuickTime make the Mac a modern computer, and games of all sorts come here, including great shareware titles, and lots of ports. Even though we don't get as many DOS games, much of the time they arrive with improved graphics. We also get CD-ROM hybrid games.

The Dark Age
Lasts from about 1997 to 2006. Ports slow down dramatically, and the Mac ports are a disaster compared to their PC counterparts. Sales are down, so Mac games never "go budget" even though they may be years old, so not only are they slower games, fewer games, they're also more expensive. The Carbon transfer does little to improve game ports (games not ported are often unplayable), if nothing else, they tend to deteriorate.

The Post-Dark Age
2006 to present day. While better than Dark Age, most P-DA games are Windows games translated with CIDER or WINE, making them far slower than their PC counterparts. At least this makes them cheaper, more plentiful, and on time, but it's still far from optimum. Games that are made for Mac from the ground up work wonderfully. However, due to the way Apple has limited things, nearly every game from The Black & White Era, The Golden Age, and The Dark Age is completely unplayable without a third-party emulator (which also does not run them at optimum).

So that's the way I would categorize games. It's sad that the Post-Dark Age cuts out the previous games, even though The Golden Age and The Dark Age cut out games of their own.

Edit: Replaced 'xxx 7' with 'Mac OS 7' - IIGS User