OpenFeint and Apple’s Game Center, social online game services, were created after the model introduced by Microsoft’s Xbox Live. OpenFeint came on the scene and attracted an enormous number of online gamers, while Apple lacked its own social platform so that ‘users could play multiplayer games with their friends, discover and recommend new games to other players’.  Apple addressed this problem on the creation of the iPhone platform, but still has not seen an optimal return yet.  This is where OpenFeint is looking to swoop in on an opportunity for cross-platform gaming.

The development of mobile gaming platforms is also accentuated by the success of OpenFeint games run on Android platforms, figures showing 4 out of 8 games on Android Market’s top 15 selling apps.

OpenFeint has recently shored up its funding, with $3 million from Intel Capital, $5 million from China-based The9, as the total amount raised is upwards of  $12 million. Recently, OpenFeint has released a third wave of games on Android, bringing the latter a 39 percent increase in Speedx 3D sales ,and a 9 percent increase in sales for  HyperBees, as co-founder, Tom Mleko acknowledges. OpenFeint is working hard to support mobile gaming as an industry as a whole.

Apart from OpenFeint, in the last two weeks another two platforms have seen updates: Playspan and Scoreloop. PlaySpan announced a partnership with game developer Square Enix, the latter introducing UltimatePay so as to process payments from several products, thus aiming to stretch global reach and conversion. Scoreloop is also doing well with its Android games plaform, currently being accessed by 3 million new users.