News: Battle Bears integrated with GREE - goodbye to OpenFeint

After a major takeover of OpenFeint by japanese company GREE for a whopping $104 Million price, the time has finally come to implement the brand new fusionated GREE-OF system into the games making use of the previous OpenFeint-only features.

By Gnifle, October 11th, 2012 @ 5.55pm CEST

OpenFeint, the famous social gaming platform for Android and iOS devices announced themselves being sold to japanese game platform GREE.

GREE is the equivalent version of OpenFeint in Japan weilding more than 500 apps. As the fusion of GREE and OpenFeint has become a reality, the combined company will now be featured in, adding the 5.000 apps under OpenFeint, almost 6.000 mobile applications worldwide. The purchase of OpenFeint was announced in an open letter from OpenFeint CEO and founder Jason Citron:

Hey OpenFeint Developer,

On behalf of the entire OpenFeint team I’m proud to announce that, as of this morning, mobile game developers all over the world have Leveled Up. Today, OpenFeint was acquired for US $104 million by GREE, Japan’s leading mobile social gaming platform. While this is certainly a proud moment for our young startup, it is really a high five to you guys, our game developer community. As of this moment, 5,393 games, that you built, form the backbone of this network – bringing millions of gamers together every day.

For those of who don’t know, GREE operates a social gaming network much like OpenFeint in Japan. GREE has over 500 games on their network and generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue every year. With this deal, GREE is stepping out of the Asian market and accelerating their global growth. So what does this mean for OpenFeint? Simply put, we are stepping on the gas pedal. The entire OpenFeint team is staying on and will continue building the platform that we launched together two years ago.

With GREE’s expertise and financial backing, you’ll quickly see the benefits of this collaboration. Expect to see faster SDK updates, awesome new products, and network improvements. We’ll build more global distribution channels like we have done in China with The9 – opening new markets for your games. We’re passionately focused on creating a better social gaming experience for your players.

We share a common vision with GREE – to make the world a happier place through gaming experiences. It may sound idealistic, but it’s true. Your games connect families and friends and even strangers – giving millions of people reasons to smile and laugh with each other. In two short years we’ve connected 100 million people. In the next 3 years, with your help, we intend to connect 1 billion. I hope you’ll join us.

Jason Citron Founder & CEO, OpenFeint



So what consequences will this have on Battle Bears?
Well, as of update 1.3.3 the OpenFeint system will be completely replaced by the new GREE system. However, the accounts made in OpenFeint will be automatically moved to the new system, meaning you can still log in using your old OpenFeint account.

This new system will introduce a lot more features than seen in OpenFeint. The idea of OpenFeint is, as mentioned earlier, to create a worldwide social gaming netowork on mobile platforms. Roughly, this could be considered a Facebook like system with gaming in focus. This includes chatting, managing achievements and leaderboards, as well as keeping track of your friends (who are also automatically tranferred to the new system).

There will be no impact on the games themself. Only the background social system will receive an overhaul. That is, the icon has changed from the OpenFeint leaf to the GREE box on the main menu in Battle Bears Royale, but anything else remains unaltered.

How to use the new system?
Already from day one, there has been tons of buzzing about the new GREE system. Hence, the Battle Bears Wiki will be updated shortly with a complete reference guide, almost like an FAQ, on how to make things work in GREE. Once this project is finished, it'll be announced on the frontpage of the wiki. The guides will be updated regularly to make sure everything works as supposed to.

'''So, how do you like the new GREE system? '''Feel free to leave any opinions on the GREE system in the comment section below.