Game Center Overview - Apple Developer

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Game Center

Bring even more fun and connection to your games with Game Center, Apple’s social gaming network. Game Center lets players build an identity and connect with friends across Apple platforms. You can easily integrate Game Center features, including leaderboards, achievements, multiplayer matchmaking, and real-time play.

Boost discovery and engagement

Enable Game Center to help players discover your games across their Apple devices including on the Apple Games app, the App Store, Home Screen widgets, and more. New players can find your game through their friends on the Games app and App Store, while existing players can stay motivated to keep playing through notifications, leaderboards, challenges, and achievements.

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Getting started

To get started, add Game Center as a capability in your Xcode project and configure features in App Store Connect. Then use the GameKit framework to implement the Game Center features you’d like to use in your app.

• Learn how to get started
• Learn more about Apple Unity plug-ins for Game Center

Features

Player identity

You can personalize your game’s experience by using a player’s Game Center nickname as a default username to streamline your onboarding or sign-in experience, showing the player’s avatar inside your game’s multiplayer experience, and more.

Learn more

Leaderboards

Encourage friendly competition and re-engagement with your game with a simple API to submit scores from your game, a convenient leaderboard UI, and notifications automatically sent to players when their friends pass their score.

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Access point

Provide convenient access to your supported Game Center features, without players needing to leave your game.

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Achievements

Use achievements to motivate players and help them track progress in your game. Your players can collect them and unlock them for their friends to see. And with achievement rarity, players can view the number of other players who’ve unlocked a particular achievement, so they’ll stay motivated and excited about what they’ve accomplished.

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Multiplayer

Provide a familiar and consistent way for players to jump into multiplayer experiences without leaving your game. Game Center supports real-time and turn-based multiplayer functionality, so players can invite Game Center friends, contacts, iMessage groups, and nearby players, or automatch with other competitors to quickly start playing.

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Matchmaking

Game Center provides infrastructure to match players with other players for real-time or turn-based matches. Improve player matches by adding matchmaking rules that use game-specific parameters, such as skill level and party codes.

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Saved games

Game Center can save a player’s game state, allowing players to continue playing from where they last left off across their Apple devices.

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Turn-based games

Game Center can store and send match data between multiple players in a turn-based game, notifying each player when it’s their turn next.

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Discovery & Engagement

Games with Game Center enabled appear in more places across Apple devices and on the App Store in featured placements for Game Center activity. This helps new players find your game through their friends and motivates existing players to keep playing.

App Store. Players can see Game Center and Friends Are Playing sections on the App Store, helping them discover new games their friends are playing.

Widgets. Players can add the Game Center Activity and Continue Playing widgets to their Home Screen to discover Game Center-enabled games their friends are playing and quickly jump into a game.

Notifications. Game Center will send notifications to players when their friends pass their scores – for games that support Game Center leaderboards – to get them back in the action.

Documentation and resources

• Enabling and Configuring Game Center
• GameKit framework
• App Store Connect Help Guide: Game Center
• Human Interface Guidelines for Game Center
• Game Center entitlement update
• Developer Forums: GameKit