Overview of Game Center
Game Center is an Apple service that provides social gaming functionality to games. Game Center allows users to track their scores on a leaderboard, view achievement progress, invite friends to play a game, and start a multiplayer game with friends or through auto-match.
Adding support for certain Game Center features, like leaderboards and achievements, requires you to provide additional assets and metadata. Some examples include achievement images and descriptions, as well as leaderboard artwork. You can provide and manage all of these within your App Store Connect account.
After you’ve implemented Game Center features into your game, you’re ready to enter metadata in App Store Connect. When developing a game, you may wish to develop, design, configure, and test Game Center components as you develop the app, rather than implement each step completely before proceeding to the next.
Learn how to manage Game Center enabled versions with the App Store Connect API.
Required role: Account Holder, Admin, App Manager, Developer, or Marketing. View role permissions.
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Enable Game Center in Xcode.
In Xcode, create your project, enter an app name and bundle ID, then enable Game Center, which adds the GameKit framework and Game Center Entitlement to your project. View documentation.
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Configure Game Center in App Store Connect.
In App Store Connect, add an app to your account that matches the bundle ID in Xcode, enable your app version for Game Center, and configure Game Center components such as leaderboards, achievements, challenges, groups, and multiplayer compatibility.
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Incorporate Game Center into your game.
In Xcode, incorporate Game Center by adding code to your app and configuring the components used by the service. While these components are configured separately from your app bundle, they should be intimately tied to the code in your game to ensure Game Center’s specific design and development requirements are met. For development and design information, visit GameKit and Game Center.
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Test your game.
Test your Game Center components to ensure they work individually and together. Apple allows all prerelease development to occur in exactly the same server environment as released games. This brings advantages like allowing testers to play with the full player base, not just other testers.
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Distribute your game.
Add Game Center components to an app version. This step ensures that your Game Center components are included in the desired platform version of your App Store submission. Complete this step before submitting your app for review.