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OpenFeint推出iphone和android跨平台游戏邀请功能

发布时间:2010-08-19 11:25:05 Tags:,,,

今天,手机游戏社交平台OpenFeint宣布了它最新的版本和一个有趣的特性:使用iPhone 和 Android phones的用户间可以进行跨平台发出游戏邀请。

OpenFeint尚未为Android发布相应的版本,所以这个新特性在最近几个月还不能使用。然而,我们可以明显地看到该公司为了实现手机好友的相互邀请做了不少的努力。最开始出现的一个大问题是在OpenFeint的数千款游戏中,同时拥有Android和 iPhone 两个版本的游戏只占少数。

openfeint_logo

openfeint_logo

所以,如果一个iPhone的用户通过OpenFeint游戏中的网络直接邀请他正在使用Android的朋友的话,那么该请求将会因为游戏没有Android的版本而不能发送。如果用户选择另一种途径发出邀请,即通过SMS来发送时,链接到达Android用户后将向开发商发出进入该游戏的请求。

对于那些可以跨平台的游戏来说,该邀请特性提供了游戏向更广范围传播最有效的方法。就像Facebook的开发商一样,游戏开发商们将可以选择通过OpenFeint弹出一个对话框来提醒用户邀请他们的朋友。

openfeint-x

openfeint-x

与此同时,Aurora Feint的总裁Jason Citron认为手机的邀请可以避免出现在Facebook上的垃圾邮件的问题。“我们提供这种对话框的方式使用户不得不进行审查并选择手机号决定该给谁发出邀请。我想这会让人们觉得这让他们比在Facebook上操作得更多……要知道,如果你给人发400条短信,那你就惨了。”

当然,它缺少一个通过图像传播的病毒式传播方式:即通过图片向你所有的朋友传达你正在在玩某个游戏的能力,就像Facebook通过公告栏起到的作用一样。Citron说他的公司正在研究某些项目,但不肯透露项目有关的任何细节。除了排行榜、邀请的设置和少数出现在OpenFeint上的特性外,大多数的手机游戏仍然缺少明显的社会功能。

尽管有诸多的不同,手机游戏和Facebook还是有一个相似的地方,那就是它们的规模。通过对数据的粗略计算,Citron估计OpenFeint在两个平台的使用用户将高达2亿。而这样的用户基数当时也带动了社交游戏的腾飞(译者:唐统权)

OpenFeint Takes the First Step Toward Facebook-Style Virality in Mobile

Today OpenFeint, the social platform for mobile games, announced its latest version and an interesting new feature: cross-platform invites between users with iPhone and Android phones.

OpenFeint hasn’t launched for Android yet, so this feature won’t be available for a few months. However, it’s clear that the company is putting effort into mobile invites. One big problem starting out will be that only a few hundred of OpenFeint’s thousands of games will have both Android and iPhone versions.

So if an iPhone user invites an Android-using friend directly through OpenFeint’s in-game network, for example, the invitation simply won’t be sent if there’s no Android version. If the invitation is sent by SMS (another choice available to users), the link reaching the Android user will send the developer a request to port over the game.

For games that are cross-platform, the invitation feature offers the first possibility of growth through virality. Like Facebook developers, the game creator will have the option of popping up an in-game box asking users to invite their friends through OpenFeint.

At the same time, Aurora Feint’s CEO, Jason Citron, thinks that mobile invitations will be able to avoid Facebook’s spam problems. “The way that we provide the box, the user actually has to go through and decide who to [invite], picking phone numbers. I think it makes people think about what they’re doing more … than on Facebook. You know if you send someone 400 text messages, that sucks.”

Of course, there’s one major viral feature missing from the picture: the ability to broadcast the fact that you’re playing a game to all your friends, as Facebook allows with wall posts.

Citron says his company is working on something, but won’t offer up any more details. Also, most mobile games still lack overt social features, beyond leaderboards, challenges and a few other features that services like OpenFeint add.

There’s another similarity to draw between mobile games and Facebook, though: scale. By back-of-the-envelope calculation, Citron estimates 200 million users between iDevices and Android by the time his company is on both platforms — about where Facebook was when social games started to take off.(source:inside social games)


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