Amazon has just announced a service called GameCircle, which will allow Android developers to add unified achievements, leaderboards, and progress cloud sync to their Kindle Fire games. Doodle Jump, Temple Run, and Triple Town are already making use of the new APIs. Amazon also took the occasion to remind devs that there’s a fully-functioning in-app purchase mechanism too.
It’s too bad Google hasn’t really taken the reins and offered a similar social gaming experience baked right into Android natively, but the gap has allowed third parties like OpenFeint to step in and build a network. iOS has Game Center, and though there’s still a lot of room for improvement there, GameCircle could stand to include something similar to its friending system to promote social spread of games. For now, Amazon is limiting GameCircle to KindleFire, but who knows if they’ll open up the service to other devices, so long as they can get people to sign up for Amazon accounts.
Developers interested in getting involved can head over to the sign-up page. Kindle Fire owners, how has your gaming experience been so far? Was the device really hurting for this kind of thing? Developers, does GameCircle make a Kindle Fire port more palatable?
Source: Amazon