A lot of media attention (at least, gaming-media) has been given to Plus+ since its announcement. I began this post then to talk about the other lesser-publicized (and in several cases, better) social gaming networks, but stopped due to life getting in the way. At the time, the only game that used Plus+ was developed by the same company that created the service. Since that time, several other games have joined the network, making it something I can actually test out. Thus, I’ve finished this post.

First, let me say up front that I do have a preferred network, and it is OpenFeint. But, as you will see, all of the networks have something to offer, and developers are really the ones that need these services broken down for them so that they can choose the best network for their audience and their business model.

Now, if you’re an iPhone owner, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard of OpenFeint before. Or, at the very least, it sounds familiar. That’s because the developers of OpenFeint are the same developers behind Aurora Feint, one of the first apps available for the iPhone 2.0 software and certainly one of the best action-puzzle apps in the App Store.

OpenFeint started life as a chat subroutine in the Aurora Feint app (called at that time, appropriately enough, Feint) that allowed players to talk to each other while playing the app. As the developers added features to it, it began to take on a new life and morphed into something more. That’s when it was rebranded as OpenFeint and made available to other developers. It can now be find in several apps.

However, OpenFeint is not the only option out there, and while it’s certainly my preferred service at the moment, that doesn’t mean my feelings won’t change as other services provide new features and get into more games. So that said, I’m going to break down the various services a bit for you.

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OpenFeint

  • Games include: Pocket God, MyBrute, Knights Onrush, Minigore, Stick Wars, MUST.EAT.BIRDS, Sentinel 2
  • Uses a “scoring” method (similar to Xbox Live’s Gamerscore) called Gamerscore. Each Achievement earned is assigned a points value. Achievements can be worth as few as 1 Gamerscore, and vary based on difficulty (at developer’s discretion).
  • Use a custom avatar visible to your friends.
  • Challenge other players: While this feature has existed since the beginning of the App Store, by sending emails to other players from within the app, with OpenFeint developers can set up “challenge” options inside the game allowing players to challenge each other in a variety of ways (beat my score, beat my time, climb higher than me, finish without dying, etc.)
  • Offline support: Players can access a scaled-down version of the OpenFeint Dashboard when offline and scores and achievements will automatically be updated the next time a cell or Wi-Fi signal is reached.
  • Find friends through Facebook, Twitter, or directly through OpenFeint.
  • Compare achievements, challenges, and games with friends.
  • No login required: Your OpenFeint ID is tied to your unique device identifier (UDID) for your iPhone or iPod Touch, meaning any new apps you install with OpenFeint support automatically know who you are. Your account can be recovered to any new device using your email address and password used during registration.

My experiences: I’ve played PocketGod quite a bit since it added OpenFeint support, and I’ve found it to be a rather unobtrusive  way to track “progress” in that “game”, as achievements really let you know if you’re trying everything that’s available to you in its experimental world.

To see more of what OpenFeint has to offer, and to check out screenshots of OpenFeint in action, visit the developer site here.

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Plus+

  • Games include: Topple 2 Plus+, Star Defense, Rolando, Rolando 2, Scarecrow, LUXOR
  • Uses a “scoring” method (similar to Xbox Live’s Gamerscore) called +Score. Each Award earned is assigned a points value. Awards can be worth varying points, though all seem to be listed at multiples of 5.
  • Only supports portrait orientation at this time.
  • Allows for a custom avatar and status message that other users can see.
  • Remembers your user name across all apps on your device, but requires you to login each time you open an app for the first time.
  • Does not allow you to import friends from Twitter or Facebook. Can access your local address book to invite friends, but they must be selected individually; will not find friends already using the service automatically.
  • Compare achievements, challenges, and games with friends.
  • Challenge other players: This feature seems to either be missing from the games that I play, or is only available once a friend has added you to their friends’ list, as I was unable to issue challenges to anyone.

My experiences: Topple 2 Plus+ is an unplayable mess on my iPhone 3G. However, my son seems to have no issues with it on his iPod Touch, so perhaps it’s time for a restoration. However, I played a little bit of Star Defense and found that the network seems to work fine, though I don’t have any friends to play with. Shows promise, but needs more than just adoption by Freeverse before I’d recommend a developer use this service.

Learn more about Plus+ and see some screenshots of it in action here.

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Scoreloop

  • Games include: Parachute Panic, Aeio, Zombie Pub Crawl, Circus Acts
  • Supports development with Unity Technologies, allowing developers to add Scoreloop support when developing games with the Unity development platform.
  • Find friends using Facebook, or invite by email.
  • Location-aware leaderboards, as well as a “24 hour leaderboard” to see how you stack up against people playing recently.
  • Virtual currency: Earn coins when you first play a game. Then spend those coins to issue and accept challenges. Currency can also be used to purchase in-game bonuses and add-ons.
  • Use the Avatar Builder to create your own custom avatar. However, options are fairly limited and you cannot upload your own preferred avatar instead.
  • Challenge other players: One big difference in Scoreloop’s implementation of challenges, is that players can actually win or lose the network’s virtual currency in challenges. Winning also earns medals for your profile.
  • Does not contain support for achievements, nor does it have a gamerscore.
  • Has a stand-alone app specifically for managing your profile, viewing your challenges, etc.

My experiences: Unfortunately, all of the free games I could find to test this out were either incredibly basic, or just not fun. All focus around the concept of high scores and challenges rather than presenting the player with a campaign to play through or multiplayer experience. Not that it’s necessarily bad, just not my cup of tea.

Learn more about Scoreloop’s features here.

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AGON Online

  • Games include: Underworlds, Eyegore’s Eye Blast, QuizQuizQuiz, Inkvaders, Samurai: Way of the Warrior, Peter und Vlad, Hot Dog Down a Hallway, Puzzle Girls
  • Supports portrait and landscape orientation, switching back and forth on the fly.
  • Find friends using Facebook and your local contacts. Searches local contacts to see if any of them are on the AGON network already.
  • Uses a “scoring” method (similar to Xbox Live’s Gamerscore) called PocketScore. Each Award earned is assigned a points value. Awards can be worth as few as 1 PocketScore, and vary based on difficulty (at developer’s discretion).
  • Leaderboards are location-aware, allowing you to see how you stack up against those around you. You can control if your “Nearby” leaderboard is based on country, region, city, or suburb.
  • Able to store profile information in the cloud (tied to your username) so that it can be restored if an app is deleted and reinstalled, or if it is played on multiple devices.
  • Supports development with Unity Technologies, allowing developers to add AGON Online integration when developing games with the Unity development platform.

My experiences: While the first time I heard about AGON, it only supported a very small few games that were not fun to play, it’s now in Underworlds, one of my favorite games on the iPhone. Having played around with it, it seems to be most similar in style and step to OpenFeint. If any social network was going to change my preference, it would be this one.

Learn more about AGON Online here.

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Crystal SDK

Not much is known about Crystal, beyond it’s announcement by Chillingo to be essentially the same thing as all the other services out there, but better for some reason. The decision of Chillingo to announce their own social gaming network was actually a bit of a shock, as Chillingo has recently added support in a number of their games for the OpenFeint and AGON Online networks. The only thing I can assume is that, since Chillingo produces games for the iPhone and Android devices, they’re hedging their bets that allowing interoperability of their service between iPhone and Android users will give them the edge in the market.

I’m sure all 30 Android users are thrilled.

The other reason that Chillingo may have support for OpenFeint currently, is that Chillingo publishes lots of games developed by individual studios, leaving the decision in their hands. At least for now. I’ll be watching this one closely, regardless. Especially if Chillingo published games switch networks over to Crystal upon release.

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Now that I’ve gotten all of that out of the way, let me finish with this. None of these services is really in a “winning” position, and is unlikely to be able to be the “de facto” standard, unless Apple picks one of them up. The reason being, they can all add features that the others do, they can all integrate with the same groups of people by adding Facebook and Twitter support, and they can all ultimately be included in whatever game the developers choose for them. The key thing I’m looking for is a stand-alone app (similar to what Scoreloop has published) that lets you receive notifications of your friends’ achievements, challenges, etc. Scoreloop is the first one to get there, but their app is useless unless you want to actually buy their virtual currency, as it merely duplicates features existent in the games themselves. I will certainly be following the future of these services as they unfold, and will give you any major news here.