It sounds like Google may be looking to take a play out of Apple’s playbook. Business Insider is reporting that the company is looking to release its own Game Center for the Android / Google Play marketplace. God knows why; it’s not like Game Center does anything useful or even all that revolutionary. Maybe Google should be looking at Open Feint for inspiration instead.
Business Insider reported:
Google’s software will include a social “achievement” system, which gives people awards and trophies for doing certain things in games. It will also include a leader board which will rank players against their friends, our source told us. Developers creating Android games use a variety of third-party solutions right now from other startups like OpenFeint, but Google is recognizing how important games were in making the iPhone popular, so it’s making a native client, our source said.
Good. Open Fient-like integration would be a lot more useful than Game Center-esque integration. It’s also nice to see Google understanding that gaming on the mobile device is a key element in the iPhone’s success.
Most of you are probably thinking that I’m being hard on Game Center, but ask yourself this, when was the last time you used it for anything other than a leader board? There’s so much more Game Center could be, and we’re really hoping that Apple plans on addressing that with iOS 6 and Mountain Lion. We know Game Center is coming to OS X 10.8, but what we don’t know yet is whether or not anything drastic will be done to spruce up the paint on the service. It certainly needs it at this point.
