Amazon uncovers GameCircle, a dead ringer for Apple's Game Center
鈥淎mazing game you鈥檙e building there. Amazon is here to make it more amazing with our growing family of developer services.鈥�
Yup, Amazon has entered the realm of game developer services and social gaming networks in an effort to compete with Apple鈥檚 Game Center.聽
Geared toward Kindle Fire users, GameCircle features achievements, 鈥渨hich allow players to attract their collection of accomplishments and see the badges they still need to earn,鈥� according to its official launch video. There are also leaderboards, 鈥渨hich give users an easy way to compare their scores and rankings against the competition,鈥� and sync, 鈥渨hich automatically saves a player鈥檚 in-game progress to the cloud,鈥� the video says.
Apple's Game Center also showcases leaderboards and achievements, but also has auto-match, which pits iPhone, iPad, and iPod users against friends and random gamers.
As of now, GameCircle is still in its infancy. Amazon is encouraging developers to apply for invitations to access the GameCircle tools.
鈥淥ur goal is to give developers great tools to quickly and easily reach new customers and keep them engaged鈥� we also introduced In-App Purchasing API in April, allowing developers to offer a seamless 1-Click purchasing experience within their apps and games, and we鈥檙e just getting started,鈥� 聽Paul Ryder, Amazon鈥檚 Vice President of Apps, Games, and Services, in announcing the service. 鈥淕ameCircle gives developers the right tools to build an immersive, more entertaining experience on Kindle Fire, which will ultimately help developers grow their business.鈥�
In the meantime, popular games such as Temple Run and Doodle Jump will be tweaked to include the GameCircle features, PCWorld.
Some say social gaming is essential to any tablet or smartphone interface, but it鈥檚 still unclear whether Apple鈥檚 original Game Center is popular. GameCircle鈥檚 cloud-sync feature is useful for Kindle Fire users with multiple accounts and devices, but such a feature seems to make more sense for Apple, considering its lineup of products.聽Amazon has only one tablet.
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