Japanese Mobile Gaming Company Gree Buys OpenFeint For $104 Million In Cash

techcrunch.com

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Someone should do a write up about the history of OpenFeint. It's pretty much a SV Cinderella story now.

2008: Started out as a game developer making the game Aurora Feint

2009: Pivoted to a social game network with Open Feint

2010: Written off by many as Apple announces Game Center

2011: $104M Exit

Kudos to Jason and Danielle.

Is anyone able to explain the OpenFeint business model in a nutshell? Are games paying to have OpenFeint support? That doesn't seem likely in this environment. The OpenFeint platform, at least on android, doesn't seem to offer any cross promotion or advertising.

Is it a spyware/marketing intelligence play?

OpenFeint cross promote games through their "Free game of the day" model and charge developers for the promotion. It's a standard CPI model.

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