OpenFeint Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

OpenFeint investor Peter Relan reveals plans for OpenKit, open-sourced back-end services

by Mike Schramm (Dec 12th, 2012)

Peter Relan is the founder of the social gaming incubator YouWeb, and he's probably most familiar to us here at TUAW as the main investor in OpenFeint, the huge social gaming network for iOS and other mobile platforms that was later bought by a Japanese company, and just this week is getting ...

Aurora Feint's Danielle Cassley to return with Avengees

by Mike Schramm (Dec 4th, 2012)

Danielle Cassley is a name we haven't heard in a while. She, along with Jason Citron, was one of the original founders of Aurora Feint, the game that turned into a social gaming service called OpenFeint that was eventually sold off to a Japanese social network (and will soon be closed). Citron ...

Gree closing down OpenFeint on December 14

by Mike Schramm (Nov 19th, 2012)

I believe we've now reached the end of iOS' first generation as a platform -- it's almost every week now that we're hearing about a major startup losing a founder or a big franchise shutting down. This time it's OpenFeint, the social gaming platform started up way back by Jason Citron and ...

OpenFeint hires new CEO, Jason Citron leaves

by Mike Schramm (Sep 15th, 2011)

It's the end of an era for one of iOS' biggest ventures -- OpenFeint has hired a new CEO, Naoki Aoyagi, which means company founder Jason Citron is leaving the company to head elsewhere. OpenFeint, you'll remember, has its roots in an iPhone game called Aurora Feint, which Citron developed a ...

GREE buys OpenFeint for $104 million

by Chris Rawson (Apr 21st, 2011)

Before Game Center, OpenFeint and similar third-party platforms carried the weight of the iOS platform when it came to social networking in gaming. Even after Game Center debuted with its leaderboards and achievements, OpenFeint still saw plenty of use, including 1.4 million additional users over ...

OpenFeint sees giant spike in Christmas users and downloads

by Mike Schramm (Dec 31st, 2010)

Here's some more evidence that the App Store had a really amazing holiday weekend last week. OpenFeint has announced that it saw a 184% spike in new users on Christmas Day last week, the largest single day in the service's history for new users. Over the four days around the holiday, OpenFeint ...

OpenFeint's promotional app now called Game Channel

by Mike Schramm (Dec 17th, 2010)

Social gaming network OpenFeint has had its own app for a while now, offering up news and information for players playing games with the technology built-in. But the app recently underwent a re-branding of sorts -- it's now called Game Channel (not to be, or possibly to be, confused with Game ...

OpenFeint announces in-app content service, infrastructure to support freemium games

by Mike Schramm (Dec 1st, 2010)

Social gaming network OpenFeint has finally unveiled its OpenFeint X service, which will allow developers on the App Store (and a few other mobile platforms) to add cloud-based microtransaction content to their games on top of Apple's own in-app purchase service. This is apparently a system that ...

TUAW's Daily App: Cookie Rush

by Mike Schramm (Nov 29th, 2010)

Cookie Rush is an interesting title. The goal is to keep some villagers away from a giant rolling cookie, but instead of guiding them directly, you control them by placing jump arrows in their way -- it's kind of like a group Canabalt where you're controlling the environment rather than the ...

OpenFeint has doubled community since Game Center's launch

by Mike Schramm (Nov 23rd, 2010)

When Game Center was first announced way back in April, the first question everyone had was about all of the third-party networks that had already built up in the space. OpenFeint was the biggest of these, and founder Jason Citron had no apparent worries about Apple's advance into social gaming -- ...

Deal documents show Ngmoco's 50 million downloads, $10m losses in 2009

by Mike Schramm (Oct 13th, 2010)

Stuart Dredge of MobileEntertainment did some digging into the paperwork behind the Ngmoco sale, and came back with some interesting figures about the company's financials. Turns out that rumored $403 million purchase price is true -- kind of. The deal includes a $100 million bonus, if Ngmoco keeps ...

GDC Online 2010: OpenFeint after Game Center

by Mike Schramm (Oct 7th, 2010)

The last time I spoke with the folks at OpenFeint, we were all waiting for the arrival of Apple's official Game Center app and wondering what effect it would have on third-party social networking platforms for App Store apps. Now, of course, Game Center is out. And despite the dire predictions of ...

OpenFeint announces PlayTime, real-time multiplayer with voice chat for iOS and Android

by Mike Schramm (Sep 2nd, 2010)

Game Center is almost out in consumers' hands, but that hasn't stopped the folks at OpenFeint from pushing forward on their unofficial social network for gamers. PlayTime is a newly-announced feature of the third-party social networking software that will allow players on both iOS and Android to ...

TUAW's Daily App: Monster Dash

by Mike Schramm (Aug 20th, 2010)

Halfbrick Studios really made a splash with their iPhone debut, Fruit Ninja, and now they've followed it up with a little game called Monster Dash. It's a running game in the vein of Canabalt, but rather than dodging skyscraper jumps and bombs, you're fighting through pixelated monsters while ...

TUAW's Daily App: Gravity Runner

by Mike Schramm (Aug 16th, 2010)

Gravity Runner is a little game put together by a group called We Are Colin -- it's a side-scrolling platformer with, as the name implies, a gravity defying twist. The idea is that after tapping to jump as your little character runs along, you can tap again to switch his gravity, and start running ...