UPDATED 12:36 EDT / FEBRUARY 25 2011

OpenFeint and Adknowledge Open Free Game Dev Platform

Today mobile social games platform OpenFeint and advertising network Adknowledge announced the OFX 2.0, a scalable freemium platform for iOS developers. Available starting March 7, the platform has quite a bit to offer, including pay-per-install app distribution. This memorization model enables developers to increase their app’s downloads by purchasing inventory in other freemium games, and thus increase revenues.  “Players looking to earn virtual currency in those freemium games are given the option to download the game developer’s app in exchange for more currency.”

Developers generate revenues around players’ free virtual currency, regardless of whether or not they are paying or non-paying OpenFeint members. Players can earn virtual currency by completing various actions such as downloading an app, and app publishers are paid a revenue share from OpenFeint.

In addition to giving app publishers a new memorization method, OpenFeint and Adknowledge also brings the cloud into the picture. OFX 2.0 eliminates server work using its virtual goods economy system, which provides a scalable, server infrastructure for virtual goods exchange. OFX utilizes Cloud Storage to store “arbitrary save game data” on OpenFeint servers.

OpenFeint and Adknwoledge’s partnership may gain a very strong hold of the mobile social game market, but Akamai is also is also scaling the gaming and game platforms space. Akamai’s Rich Media Accelerator services are utilized by the international social game WeeWorld to improve page load times by up to 30 percent.

OpenFeint has OFX 2 and Akamai is scaling the mobile gaming cloud, but Adknowledge is pushing the in-app monetization front. Before the latest announcement of its partnership with OpenFeint, the company launched its Super Rewards IOS SDK.

Gaming platforms are obviously getting more and more attention, but a fresh announcement from MoMinis may just provide us the next industry (cloud) game changer. The start-up announced the launch of their agnostic game development and distribution platform, free for download. This means that games can be developed only once, and “run on virtually all operating systems.”   The start-up also announced of agreements to create and publish 100localized games with the largest Japanese mobile operator, NTT DoCoMo.

“The MoMinis Studio services include:
•       Instant game compilation to numerous handsets within leading mobile platforms, such as Android, Blackberry, Symbian and J2ME, with iOS being added in Q2 2011.
•       A free, easy to use IDE.
•       Lowered barriers into the mobile market for developers of all skill levels.
•       Various screen resolution, input method and API support.
•       Tutorials, resources and onsite communities.”

Developers can earn 70-90 percent of net revenues their game generated, and via monetization channels provided the start-ups partners: namely NTT DoCoMo, Telefonica, Orange, Turkcell and even Vodafone and Verizon.

We’ven seen a great deal of activity in the gaming space lately, and TinyCo can also be added to the mix. All Things D reports that San Fran mobile social game developer  Brooklyn Packet raised $18 million in a first round of funding, and offcialy chanced its name to TinyCo. Despite the name being small in stature, the company intends to reach the $1 billion mark within a few years, an expectation which has attracted investor Andreessen Horowitz, who led the round and participated in Box.net’s very recent $48 million funding round as well.


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