I never open Game Center either but the problem some people were having is if a game utilizes Game Center and you were affected by the "bug" you couldn't even launch the game.
I'm surprised it took Apple this many months to fix it. I first read about this on TouchArcade and the iOSgaming subreddit around Christmas time.
Game Center was supposed to be Apple's answer to Xbox Achievements. However, as with so many Apple services, they just released it with a lot of marketing hype only to let it fade into obscurity.
Game Center was supposed to be Apple's answer to Xbox Achievements. However, as with so many Apple services, they just released it with a lot of marketing hype only to let it fade into obscurity.
Obscurity? It's functionality for gamers—not a PR push. Gamers demand achievements, high score tracking, and turn notifications. GC offers developers a ready-to-go way deliver those features, among others. GC is used constantly and heavily, by numerous titles.
When it has bugs they need to be fixed, but it certainly didn't "fade into obscurity."
(Interesting that so many people are posting about the app, which this article is not about. It's about the service impacting games, which is far more important than the rarely-needed central app.)
Of all the app redesigns since iOS 7, Game Center was by far the worst. I only bring this up cause from what I can remember, that was the last time GC received any changes. Too bad, at one point it had some potential
It's why it took so long to fix. Game Center has been a disaster in iOS 9 since 9.0. We pulled it from our new game that hit the store just after 9. We spent a few days ripping it out due to all the user impact bugs it had - none of which affected iOS 8 systems which were working fine.