After the end of OpenFeint last year, its successor has finally gone live. Named OpenKit, it provides a backend for social features and leaderboards for game developers on both Android and iOS, according to Develop. The good news for developers is that it also has support for the ever-popular Unity engine.
"We're breaking down the silos of vertical services that come with mobile platforms,” reads a joint statement from OpenKit co-founders Lou Zell, Todd Hamilton and Suneet Shah. “OpenKit is the only platform that supports Game Center ids, Google+ ids and Facebook ids, so players can play games with 'real friends' and challenge each other regardless of the type of device and game.”
OpenKit is now live
The OpenKit API is open-source. Game developers will only be charged if they reach a certain amount of MAUs when they are using OpenKit's servers. However, owing to its open-source roots, developers can modify the API and host it on their own backend servers without paying a dime.
OpenKit has some added features, such as push notifications when friends beat each others' scores. It also has support for asynchronous multiplayer, sharing replays through cloud storage and ghosting.
"OpenKit 1.0 is all about engagement and re-engagement in games, especially important now, since both Apple's and Google's store ranking algorithms take engagement into account," said Agawi chairman and OpenFeint co-founder Peter Relan.
OpenKit is going to directly compete with Google Play Game Services, Apple’s Game Centre and Amazon’s GameCircle. How the battle goes will depend entirely on developer support.
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