Daisy Mae downloads soar by 125,000 as IUGO partners with OpenFeint

When Apple announced Game Center, the talk was about how it would impact iPhone social gaming networks longterm.

The gap between Game Center's announcement and its launch is being filled with activity and more support for those existing companies however.

To that extent, it's proving to be a consolidating not a disruptive technology.

The latest developer to pledge its allegiance to one of current technologies is Canadian studio IUGO Entertainment, which has released its first game via OpenFeint.

As part of the deal, that game - Daisy Mae's Alien Buffet - was promoted as OpenFeint's Free Game of the Day, gaining 125,000 downloads in one day.

"As a company, IUGO has been watching the social platform space for quite some time," said IUGO's director of business development Sarah Thomson.

"We've been impressed with OpenFeint's quick rise to dominance and substantial user base. Our engineers have also found OpenFeint to be a breeze to work with.

"We believe the pairing of Open Feint with one of IUGO's quality titles such as Daisy Mae's Alien Buffet is sure to bring us both success."

OpenFeint's move into app discovery appears to have been a smart one, with developers now able to use the network as a one-stop-shop for both the online aspects of the game, and a portion of its promotion.

"We're proud to bring IUGO's first OpenFeint enabled title to our player community," added OpenFeint's VP of marketing and developer relations Eros Resmini.

"Daisy Mae is a great game with fantastic online gaming features and we're excited to be able to offer it for free as part of our free game of the day promotion."

OpenFeint featured Daisy Mae's Alien Buffet as the free spotlighted app on May 8th.

Its success follows similar deals with Capcom, with both Dark Void Zero and Hatchlings lined up for spotlight support at the start of May, while Secret Exit's Stair Dismount Lite was boosted by 450,000 downloads across a two week period.