Aurora Feint

Aurora Feint emerged in 2008 as a video game developer, founded by Jason Citron and Danielle Cassley. Citron, who had a lifelong passion for programming and game design, had previously worked at studios like Stormfront and Double Fine. He and Cassley met at the YouWeb incubator and teamed up to launch their first title, "Aurora Feint: The Beginning," as a free-to-play game in the initial wave of the Apple App Store in July 2008. The game combined match-3 puzzle mechanics with role-playing elements, where players manipulated blocks to gather resources and build up their characters.

The initial game was developed in just ten weeks. Following its release, the company launched several sequels, including "Aurora Feint II: The Beginning" and "Aurora Feint II: The Arena," which introduced multiplayer duels, chat functions, and leaderboards. However, the premium game pricing model proved unsuccessful. This financial pressure prompted a significant pivot. The company transitioned from a game studio into a Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS) provider for other mobile game developers.

This strategic shift led to the creation of OpenFeint, a social gaming platform and software development kit (SDK). Launched in early 2009, OpenFeint allowed developers to easily integrate social features like leaderboards, achievements, and social challenges into their iOS and, later, Android games. The platform was offered for free to developers and gained substantial traction, growing to serve millions of users. The company, then known as OpenFeint Inc., secured a total of $12 million in funding from investors including Intel Capital, DeNA, and The9. This pivot proved successful, and in April 2011, the Japanese mobile gaming giant GREE acquired OpenFeint for $104 million. After the acquisition, all versions of the original Aurora Feint games were removed from the App Store in July 2012, and the OpenFeint service was ultimately discontinued by GREE at the end of 2012.

Keywords: Jason Citron, Danielle Cassley, OpenFeint, GREE, mobile gaming, iOS games, Android games, social gaming platform, SDK, BaaS, game development, app store launch, match-3 RPG, multiplayer mobile games, venture capital, acquisition, The9, Intel Capital, DeNA, YouWeb incubator, OpenFeint API, mobile social network