iPhone Gaming Networks Respond To Game Center

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We were pretty impressed with Apple’s upcoming iPhone OS 4. In addition to the multi-tasking and other features, it’s bringing Game Center, which brings social networking features like matchmaking and achievements to iPhone games. While Apple is coming out with their own solution, three such platforms from third-parties have already been out for a bit. How do they feel about Apple coming into their market?

The guys at IntoMobile got a statement from each of the three major iPhone gaming social networking platforms, which include Plus+ (from ngmoco), Crystal (from Chillingo) and Open Feint (from Aurura Feint). All of them are planning on iterating their products to stay relevant and current with the pending Game Center.

ngmoco says that they’ve been anticipating Apple coming out with a social gaming network for the iPhone, so they’ve been working on changing their product for a while:

[Game Center] reinforces much of what plus+ has already accomplished and proven out early in its life cycle. [...] 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. plus+ is all about empowering monetization and discoverability mechanisms for the development community, and we have clearly demonstrated with games like We Rule that these mechanisms work.

Chillingo sees their social gaming network, Crystal, integrating with Game Center. Their statement to IntoMobile:

We are very excited about the the Apple Game Center announcement [...] Chillingo’s Crystal platform will support and integrate fully with the Game Center to reinforce and augment the underlying social services that Crystal provides. The result will be better socially integrated games for all our customers.

Meanwhile, the third player, Aurora Feint, is also changing their business model. They see Apple’s Game Center as ‘validating’ their product. They’re going to move into virtual goods-based social gaming. Their statement:

OpenFeint X [the next version of their current product] 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 so developers and gamers don’t miss a step. Apple is a key partner and we are delighted that they have validated the first half of the OpenFeint vision and we can now fulfill the second half: OpenFeint X and Virtual Goods based Social Games.

So, to sum it all up, it looks like Aurora Feint is going another direction while Chillingo and ngmoco are going to try to evolve their products to work with Game Center. There has been some controversy over the multiple social gaming networks on the iPhone OS and the fragmentation they’ve caused. All of them made some positive statement that Apple is solving this problem by coming out with Game Center.

While it looks like Chillingo and ngmoco are trying to be forward thinking by working with Game Center – it’s hard to imagine there is space for Game Center and something else in this space. I think most game developers will find Game Center is enough. Of course, time will tell if there is still a place for these third-party services with big papa Apple now in the social gaming networking scene.

I’m curious – how many of you actually actively use the third-party game networking features from these developers?