Last year, AuroraFeint launched the private beta of OpenFeint X (OFX), which offers indie developers the ability to create Zynga-like free-to-play games including microtransactions and virtual goods. Last December OFX exited private beta and today, OpenFeint is releasing a new version of the suite, OFX 2.0.
With OFX, developers can create Farmville-like iOS games with a chat wall where players can interact with each other, a newsfeed showing recent in-game activity, and game nudges. OFX’s premium services allows developers to use a cloud-based infrastructure to build and run a full virtual goods store, access detailed analytics, and include game-specific currency wallet. OpenFeint says that future updates will allow game developers to offer virtual currency and virtual goods for sale in their games.
OpentFeint is partnering with Adknowledge for new version of OFX to bring pay-per-install distribution to developers, allowing a game developer to increase their own application’s downloads by purchasing inventory in other freemium games to generate installs. 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.
In addition, OFX’s suite also allows developers to manage a virtual good economy in the cloud, with the ability to swap out virtual items from the platform itself. Once a player completes one of these simple actions, game publishers are paid a revenue share from OpenFeint. Freemium game developers can also measure their economies with analytics and other data that tracks conversions.
OpenFeint says that social gaming platform CrowdStar is integrating OFX 2.0 into their mobile social games. Of course, this isn’t entirely surprising. Both CrowdStar and OpenFeint were incubated and funded by YouWeb. But OpenFeint now boast 66 million users of its social gaming platform, which indicates that the startup is growing in terms of usage. The company recently took an $8 million investment from Intel Capital and Chinese gaming company The9.