OpenFeint creator responds to Game Center threat
updated 02:15 pm EDT, Fri April 9, 2010
Services duplicate online gaming functions
Apple’s new social gaming platform, Game Center, is already drawing a reaction from game developer Aurora Feint. The company runs OpenFeint, a free online service primarily for hosting leaderboards and achievements. OpenFeint X, launched in February, is a downloadable content platform that enables virtual goods management for free-to-play games without any server operations. While Apple is not known to be interested in DLC, Game Center could in theory threaten Aurora's ability to market its technology.
"OpenFeint X is currently built on top of OpenFeint and in the future it will also sit on Apple’s Game Center social graph, achievements and leaderboards," says Aurora's CEO, Jason Citron. The executive claims that Apple has "validated the first half of the OpenFeint vision." Plans, meanwhile, have been put in place to transition OpenFeint accounts over to the OpenFeint X system. A first-party example of the latter can be found in Aurora Feint 3, the developer's first iPad app.
