Filed under: Gaming, Software, Odds and ends, Developer, iPhone, App Store, SDK
Scoreloop introduces Scoreloop Community for the iPhone
We've talked about OpenFeint quite a few times on the site before (and even interviewed the creators), but while they're definitely one of the biggest names in creating gaming communities for the iPhone, they're not alone. A company called Scoreloop has today announced a service called "Scoreloop Community," made up of two different features: a web presence, and a downloadable application for the iPhone that hooks right into other developers' games and apps and allows players to create avatars, view friends and their activities, and share challenges and high scores with others. Just like OpenFeint, Scoreloop says they're offering an easy-to-implement solution for push notifications, letting players send and receive messages (as well as promote and encourage usage of games in the service) and earn achievements and tokens.Of course, the real test for services like this will be in the implementation -- while OpenFeint claims a nice stable of developers, we still haven't seen too many apps take advantage of the latest and greatest versions (Pocket God is an extremely popular app that has implemented OpenFeint, but they use an older version of the software that doesn't have nearly as many features as the latest). Scoreloop says they've got over 50 game commitments from third-party developers already (it sounds like Zombie Pub Crawl is their biggest title yet), but even then, it remains to be seen exactly how devs will implement their functionality, and how players take to the service.
If you're a developer looking to implement push notifications and social challenges and networking in your app, it seems that there's no shortage of companies willing to step in and help you do exactly that (you can download the free SDK, if interested, on Scoreloop's site). But in terms of how consumers view and will use these networks, it's still a very wide open field.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
TC said 8:39AM on 7-10-2009
Its great having competition, but Apple should really be doing this as part of the iPhone/ipod gaming system. I dont want different sets of friends lists on different games.
I want an xbox live like system, an app on the home page where i can see all my friends and if they are playing a game, or logged into a chat network. Then invite them to a game with a push notification.
This needs to be done on the OS level
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Arbonne Mom said 8:39AM on 7-10-2009
Ok...I need some help. I've upgraded my iphone to 3g and given my mom the 2g. I removed all my stuff and reset the old phone to factory. When we try to activate her phone we get a message saying that we can't do anything. My mom went to the wireless store and they say there is some code that we need to find to allow her to use the phone on her network. Since we can't sync up and we are very limited in in what we can do with an unactivated phone, I'm not sure how to get this code for her.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. The phone will only allow us to make emergency call. Thanks!
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anonymous said 8:40AM on 7-10-2009
Looks cool, but it's not like they are OF's only competitor, take a look at AGON Online, they are not that big yet, but have much better integration/feature-set.
They are already in games like: Atoms, Sheep Stacker, iHunt 3D, Grolsch Game with many more to come.
http://developer.agon-online.com/
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TC said 9:06AM on 7-10-2009
RE: Arbonne Mom
Why are you asking for help with activation an iphone in the comments of a blog post about online gaming networks? Im sure there are better places like the Apple iPhone forums, or doing a google search?
Your description on your problem is very poor, but it sounds like you are trying to use an iPhone with an unsupported SIM. In the USA you need to only use an AT&T SIM, here in the UK it has to be O2.
There are methods to software unlock an iPhone if you want to use an unsupported carrier, but you will need to do a google search for instructions on how use use quickpwn or similar or get a friend who is good with technology to help out. Its relatively simple, but you will not have support from Apple, updates though iTunes may stop the phone working and you will need to know what you are doing.
Good luck
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Florian said 1:11PM on 7-10-2009
"while OpenFeint claims a nice stable of developers, we still haven't seen too many apps take advantage of the latest and greatest versions"
My game, Blocks2, implements OpenFeint 2, just as an example :-)
You can check it out here: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=321274083&mt=8
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Azeem Ansar said 1:39PM on 7-10-2009
It's exciting to see more gaming services coming out; OpenFeint has done a fabulous job with developers. Tapjoy also has some great solutions that they've recently introduced. Personally, I've got my eye on what happens once the in-app purchases market takes off; we've already got our efforts in order, in terms of tracking this stuff, but it'll be cool to see what kinds of 3rd party services pop up around this (beyond what already exists, like Tapjoy, etc).
Azeem
Pinch Media
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Jason Citron said 5:33PM on 7-10-2009
Hey Mike,
Jason here from Aurora Feint. Just thought I'd drop in a correction to your article -- Pocket God, Stick Wars, Sentinel 2, Epic Pet Wars, Knights on Rush and 40 other games are live in the store today with OpenFeint 2.0.
More are launching every day. Like Blocks2 which Florian (the developer) posted above!
- Jason
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