pc games on mac

Hi my Daughter was given Sims 3 on pc as a gift. I am new to Macs and PC games for that matter. We play Xbox and wii but have never played on the PC. I have inserted the disc for her to play but nothing has happened. How do I get the game to work for her? Do i need to download an app for it to work?
Any help would be greatly appreciated

There's a few different ways to run Windows software on a Mac. For a one-off situation like this, I would recommend against installing Windows as the expense you'll go to will easily outweigh the cost of buying the Mac-specific version. Codeweavers offers a product called "Crossover for Mac" that supposedly can run it, but it gets a "bronze" rating on their scale, which means that there are some technical challenges with it.

Best bet would be to try to exchange it for the Mac version.

Agreed.

Usually it's best for heavy gamers to just install windows on their machine and run it via boot camp because that method will allow windows to take advantage of all the power your computer offers (games already require a lot of oomph from the computer as is) but I wouldn't go through all of that for just one game.

Exchange it for the Mac version. It'd be cheaper and MUCH easier.

It's probably too late to exchange the game for the Mac version as most retail stores will not accept a return or exchange on opened software.

Well - maybe - it may be worth trying to take it back and see if you can get the same game except for the Mac. Most stores don't want you to open a disk, copy it and return it. If you are returning it for the exact same game except for the Mac they may be more lenient.

You might try contacting the game publisher to see if they will exchange it for you. Just explain the situation, that it was a gift and you opened it only to find no Mac version on the disk and now would like to exchange it with them for a Mac version. That may be better than the store.