Game Center's dead, but Apple isn't giving up on iOS gaming

Game Center is going away in iOS 10. The app will vanish from your iPhone and you can't get it back.

It's easy to read this change as Apple giving up on gaming. iOS has always had a tenuous relationship to the medium, after all - from banning games to dressing up Game Center first like a poker table, and then like a bubble bath.

Despite the fact that the App Store has millions of hugely profitable games, you always get the sense that Apple doesn't really care about gaming. It's more into U2 albums and slow-mo video and, I don't know, calligraphy?

But I don't think the death of Game Center should really be read as Apple giving even less of a crap about video games. I think it shows that Tim Cook and co are simply evolving iOS to better match the way we play games today.

Game Center launched in 2010 - before Clash of Clans and before Twitch. The way we play has changed dramatically in the last six years, and Apple has done an admirable - if imperfect - job at trying to keep up.

iOS 7 introduced turn-based game modes, to reflect the way most games moved from real time to asynchronous play.

iOS 8 let you plug your device into a Mac via a lightning cable, and then record footage in QuickTime. And iOS 9 added ReplayKit so developers could play back your last level or match. Both are about sharing video: perfect for YouTube and Twitch.

And now iOS 10 will add Sessions, where you can start up a game and then invite players from anywhere they happen to be - in your Messages list, on email, or on social media like Facebook and Twitter.

Even PS4 fans can't invite players to a game through a tweet.

Sessions, and the ability to send a standard game invitation through the Messages app, will see your Game Center friends list killed off.

But that too reflect the way that many gamers now rely on individual games to host their list of buddies. Games like Clash Royale and Game of War have their own communities, with features like clans and global chat rooms.

Instead of having a giant group of friends they game with, nowadays more players have their Clash clan, or their World of Tanks friends, or their Marvel alliance.

The removal of the Game Center app will mean that you no longer have a place to see your entire collection of achievements (apps will show your achievements and leaderboards in that game). And that's a shame: perhaps Apple could release a website, like Xbox Live has, for this functionality.

But the point is, don't read Game Center's removal as Apple giving up on gaming. The firm understands mobile gaming better than we perhaps give it credit, and features like Sessions and ReplayKit show the firm adapting to keep up with the way we play.