Game Center finally met its demise this morning with the unveiling of iOS 10, which effectively kills Apple’s attempt at creating a gaming social network.
Starting with iOS 10, the Game Center app will no longer be found on iPhones and iPads, after having been preinstalled on devices for years. Apple isn’t just adding it to the list of stock iOS apps you can delete, though. It’s actually getting rid of the platform altogether in favor of GameKit.
Apple’s release notes for iOS 10 beta 1 reveal that developers will have to implement the required interface themselves if they use GameKit.
“The Game Center app has been removed. If your game implements GameKit features, it must also implement the interface behavior necessary for the user to see these features. For example, if your game supports leaderboards, it could present a GKGameCenterViewController object or read the data directly from Game Center to implement a custom user interface.”
Game Center made its iOS debut in 2010 after gaming became a major focus of the App Store. The app eventually got ported over to the Mac, but wasn’t widely used.
