Back when Apple first announced iOS game matchmaking service, Game Center, everyone thought it was going to be the death of the existing services like OpenFeint.
It wasn’t. With its founder openly laughing “bring it on” in the face of GameCenter, OpenFeint reassessed its strengths: the ability to offer cross platform multiplayer between iOS and Android devices, and a thriving virtual goods market.
It looks like OpenFeint’s strategy has paid off. According to a report released by OpenFeint, their community has actually doubled to an incredible fifty million users since Game Center first launched. Games on the network have also more than doubled since Game Center was first announced, and now the OpenFeint compatible games library has 119% more titles than it did mere months ago.
Pretty incredible. Apple entering a software niche with its own official product is often times seen as a death sentence, but if OpenFeint’s success proves anything, it’s that smart, on-your-feet thinking and a willingness to evolve can make a direct competition with Apple into a positive thing.
