Apple is Killing Off The Game Center App with iOS 10

BY Killian Bell

Published 14 Jun 2016

Game Center on iOS

When iOS 10 rolls out to all this fall, it’s going to kill the dedicated Game Center app. Testers have found it’s already missing from the first beta release, which was made available on Monday, but it could be available from the App Store later.

Some rumors have claimed Apple has been thinking about killing Game Center for a while — as far back as iOS 8. The same functionality is expected to move into iOS games themselves instead, leaving no need for a central hub.

Now it looks like Apple is finally making that move. Game Center is missing from the home screen in the first iOS 10 beta, and new guidelines confirm that developers must implement “the interface behavior necessary for the user to see [GameKit] features.”

There is a chance Apple could make a Game Center app available from the App Store. It is already making other stock apps available to download so that users have the ability to remove them if they’re unused, so this is a possibility.

However, it seems unlikely the company would ask developers to integrate a Game Center interface into their games if this is the case.

Game Center itself certainly isn’t dying, then, but things like leaderboards and achievements will now move into games themselves. It seems unlikely a large number of people will have used the Game Center app anyway, which is probably why it’s dying.

[Via 9to5Mac]