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OpenKit aiming to fill OpenFeint-sized hole, launches in private beta tomorrow
OpenFeint seed investor Peter Relan is fed up with his former creation's lack of existence -- the open source software once powered the social integration behind many mobile games. After Japanese social gaming giant GREE bought OpenFeint in April 2011 -- primarily to stifle competition with its own, similar service -- the service continued until it was closed this past December. Relan responded in turn, announcing plans for a new, similar service, called "OpenKit," that same month. Tomorrow, that service goes into private beta, with a variety of mobile devs already signed on. The service can be employed across Android and iOS, implementing cloud data storage, leaderboards, achievements, multiplayer functionality, push notifications, and in-app purchases -- essentially exactly what OpenFeint once aimed to provide. Given the open nature of OpenKit, and Apple's already existing Game Center (which serves very similar purposes), we'd say this is gonna be a bigger hit with Android devices than iOS. Whether it gets adopted at all, however, remains to be seen. For now, it's in private beta, and "over 500 developers" have already signed on -- head to the main site if you'd like to take part. And do it quick, as only another 20 developers can get into the beta starting tomorrow. If you do miss out, there'll be more openings in the future, though Relan wouldn't tell us exactly when just yet.
OpenFeint investor Peter Relan reveals plans for OpenKit, open-sourced back-end services
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 shut down for good. Relan's seen what developers are saying and doing about the OpenFeint shutdown (a lot of major games have provided updates this week or last, mostly switching their OpenFeint leaderboards and multiplayer services over to Apple's official Game Center service), and he's convinced there's an opportunity for more solutions to online app developer services like leaderboards, achievements, and in-app purchases. He tells TUAW that he also heard from "an indie developer team" about a month ago, and they've decided to work on a new service called OpenKit. "We are going to build a platform and we're going to solve the problem once and for all." Strangely, Relan declined to let us know just who this indie developer team was or what products they've made in the past. "I'm kind of a broker between the developer community and this indie developers," he said, so he's apparently reticent to let the devs deal with each other directly. But nevertheless, he says this team of devs is hard at work on the service already, and he hopes to have it live as soon as January. Now, it should be clear, says Relan, that OpenKit is not OpenFeint 2. OpenFeint was a closed-off developer service, that provided an API for devs to plug in to, and charged based on the number of users in your game. OpenKit, on the other hand, is going to be designed as a completely open source solution -- Relan relates it to the popular source code distribution system Git. In other words, while using the servers for OpenKit won't necessarily be free (Relan says it will likely be some sort of variable pricing subscription model), the code itself will be completely free and open source, so if developers want to take their code and information and go to another server, they'll be able to do just that. What Relan and his team is planning, he says, is "an open source developer platform that runs in the cloud, and provides all the important services developers need by developers for developers." It would provide OpenFeint-style services, but with open source code that anyone could access, or even help develop. On Game Center, for example, "tomorrow, if a developer wants to contribute a really cool new feature, they can't." That won't be the case on OpenKit. "What we're proposing is an extensible architecture." Some would argue that Apple's Game Center is what killed OpenFeint -- why would developers go with a third-party service when Apple's official service does everything they need? But Relan says he believes developers are still looking for more options. "There's a number of areas where I view Game Center as very important to the iOS platform, but it's clear that even after Game Center, tons of developer came on to OpenFeint and used it. There was something there." Relan also says that OpenKit will likely be designed for both Android and iOS, so it may be a much more viable option for cross-platform apps and games. At this point, there's no code available for OpenKit yet. Relan is doing a quick developer survey on the official OpenKit website, both to collect future possible users of the system, and to gauge developer interest in the various possible features. "We know you like Leaderboards, but what else do you like?" he wants to ask developers. But aside from the survey, Relan says the code is already being built, and he and his team hope to have it ready as soon as January. "These guys are already working insane hours," he says. The original Aurora Feint game that Jason Citron and Danielle Cassley developed and later became OpenFeint was put together in 60 days, he says, and OpenFeint was built off of that in just 45 days. So Relan is hoping that "this one is going to be 45 days. At the end of January, this thing is going to be up. And I have 100% confidence, this team that we have is just as good as teams I've seen." Ambitious, to be sure. It remains to be seen just what developers want out of a platform like this, and especially after they've had to spend time and money removing OpenFeint from their apps, some devs may be even more leery of investing in another third-party social service. But Relan's obviously got experience attracting developers to his fold with OpenFeint, and he's got big ideas about just what OpenKit can be. We'll have to see, come January, just what the team decides to offer game and app developers going forward.
Agawi cloud game streaming headed to Windows 8, focused on 'mid-core and hardcore' games
Cloud streaming provider Agawi (formerly "iSwifter") is making a second major push with its cloud-based game streaming service alongside Windows 8 this October. Beyond the social content it already brings to the iPad -- "more than 12,000" Facebook games -- Agawi's second run at streaming is more focused on what it calls "mid-core" and "hardcore" games. But what does that mean? Executive chairman Peter Relan says "mid-core" means "web-based MMOs with a PC download," versus PC downloads representing the "hardcore." The example video (below the break) shows Agawi working with a variety of games, though none of the titles in the video confirm potential content partners for the service (Relan teases a fourth quarter reveal of more news). And today, Agawi announced its collaboration with Microsoft Azure, resulting in cloud game streaming across the world of Windows 8 -- tablets, PCs, and even its phones. "Popular AAA games will be made available in the coming months for instant play on Windows 8 devices with no additional work required by developers," the launch PR promises. Input methods for games vary dramatically by platform, and we've already seen what happens when you shove tablet-based touch controls onto a console/PC game (it ain't pretty). "That's a publisher decision," Relan says. "We support the idea of d-pads on the tablet itself. We support pure touch gesture on the tablet. We support point-and-click on the screen -- touch and tap. We support swipe for scrolling. We support a full controller, like an Xbox console controller," he adds.
