Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

OpenFeint Multiplayer iOS Platform Shutting Down, Could Break Older Games

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,490
30,731



OpenFeint, one of the first iOS leaderboard platforms, will be shutting down in one month according to the company that owns it. The problem, at least for gamers, is that older games may crash upon launch depending on how they are coded.

NewImage24.png
Developers have until December 14th to migrate away from OpenFeint, at which point it'll be offline forever. Even under normal circumstances this sort of deadline would be pretty crazy, but it's especially insane now given the massive influx of developers working around the clock to get their apps and games submitted before the cutoff to have them approved and on the App Store before the iTunes holiday freeze.

Basically, to make this cutoff, developers are going to need to drop everything they're doing, open up every old project that utilizes OpenFeint and re-code all of those API hooks to either use Game Center or whatever proprietary solution they come up with on their own. Assuming that doesn't take too long, compiling, uploading, and crossing their respective fingers might result in no downtime for their users.
Click to expand...
GREE purchased OpenFeint for $104 million last year, perhaps a poorly thought out purchase with the service shutting down 18 months later. For newer games, Apple's GameCenter will enable most of the features that OpenFeint supported -- multiplayer support, leader boards, achievements and more.

Article Link: OpenFeint Multiplayer iOS Platform Shutting Down, Could Break Older Games
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/11/19/openfeint-multiplayer-ios-platform-shutting-down-could-break-older-games/
bushido

bushido

Suspended
Mar 26, 2008
8,070
2,755
Germany
wtf ... i loved it. my game scores would actually stay in sync on multiple devices :mad: angry birds im lookin at u
 
M

Matrix9180

macrumors member
Oct 1, 2003
49
16
This comes less than a year after they told developers both OpenFeint and GREE Platform would coexist. The network still sees tons of traffic. This is just GREE sending a big **** you to game developers and gamers.
 
H

hirshnoc

macrumors regular
Oct 18, 2007
249
148
Brooklyn, NY
"perhaps a poorly thought out purchase with the service shutting down 18 months later."

LOL

I'm sure they knew this was gonna happen. Not...
 
D

DavidTheExpert

macrumors regular
Apr 20, 2012
199
351
YES! This is OUTSTANDING news. I can not express in words how much I hated those damn openfeint popup messages at the beginning of nearly every single game I ever played on iOS. Good ****ing riddance!
 
F

foobarbaz

macrumors 6502a
Nov 29, 2007
873
1,953
I don't expect many apps crashing. Those apps would have also crashed whenever I'm offline and thus would have been angrily deleted a long time ago. :)
 
bushido

bushido

Suspended
Mar 26, 2008
8,070
2,755
Germany
so people actually disliked it? i thought their save in the cloud feature was great. i ignored the rest however
 
S

sazivad

macrumors 6502
Jul 21, 2011
327
0
New Jersey
Too bad that OpenFeint, which existed before Game Center, is now shutting down. I mean, they were the first to implement it.

Although having to click "I don't want these awesome features," instead of something like "No thanks," to dismiss the initial popup, is sort of dumb.
 
MadeTheSwitch

MadeTheSwitch

macrumors 65816
Apr 20, 2009
1,193
15,781
extricated said:
This really cracks me up.

My apologies to those who loved it - if any of you exist.
Click to expand...

I exist! I've always liked OpenFeint, so this is really really bad news to me. It's my version of the twinkies going away. Hopefully the games I play using it will be updated.

But I have to say, it's pretty stupid to buy something for that much cash and then close it so soon afterwards. What the hell were they thinking?
 
Truffy

Truffy

macrumors 6502a
May 9, 2005
978
7
somewhere outside your window...
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom