Apple’s announcement of its Game Center social gaming network on Thursday appears to represent “game over” for existing networks on the iPhone/iPad/iPod touch platform.
Aurora Feint’s OpenFeint and ngmoco’s Plus+, two of the most popular networks, seem ready to hand over power to Apple and concentrate on other parts of their business.
“We will make an easy transition path for developers to Game Center,” Jason Citron, Aurora Feint chief executive, told me.
“Where we’re going to go as a business is move up a level in the stack,” he said, referring to development of its virtual goods offering.
“It’s actually really good for us because the leaderboard and achievements features [that Game Center is offering] are actually a huge part of my costs and don’t make any money – Apple is taking a huge burden away from us.”
Ngmoco did not respond to our requests for comment, but Simon Jeffery, chief publishing officer, told the PocketGamer website:
“Ngmoco has anticipated this move from Apple for some time, and is happy to see a cleaner developer and consumer experience on the horizon…Plus+ took a strategic shift in direction a few months ago toward being a service, and less about being a set of social gaming features.”
During a question-and-answer session at its event unveiling its 4.0 operating system and new services, Steve Jobs said that some social gaming networks had actually asked it to host a game service.
“There’s no money to be made and no advantage to us to having a social gaming network, so everyone should just say: ‘Great, less work for me,’” he said.
There would be no direct revenues from such a service initially unless Apple slapped a levy on developers or charged users a subscription – as in the Xbox Live model. Apple does not appear to want to do this.
It could make money down the line by expanding its offerings, such as providing a virtual currency.
More immediately, its current strategy with Game Center appears to be to cement the iPhone family’s position as a major gaming platform, with 85m iPhones and iPod touch models already sold.
In a note on Friday, analysts at Thomas Weisel Partners said Game Center would allow Apple to “build off its large library of titles (50.7k vs 4.3k for Nintendo and 2.5k for Sony) and increase user engagement and loyalty to the platform.”
That is a reference to competition with the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP handheld devices. Microsoft should also become a rival when Xbox Live begins appearing on Windows Phone 7 handsets.
“We will continue to change the way people have fun in the living room, and look forward to extending Xbox LIVE to Windows Phone 7 later this year,” was its only response to Apple’s announcement.
Facebook, the largest social gaming network, giving developers a shot at 400m members, said it had no comment on Apple’s move.
