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No more Game Center. How to add friends?

Aside from the obvious add friends via Facebook...how are we supposed to add friends now without Game Center? iOS 10 got rid of it entirely, and you can no longer add friends. Will there be a planned update for this? Or are we out of luck?

Comments

  • SimGuruEmmaSimGuruEmma Posts: 118 SimGuru
    Hey @GeekyAngelGirl!

    iOS 10 certainly brought in some changes however Game Center as a whole has not been removed :) What iOS 10 has done is remove the dedicated Game Center application, and instead friend requests are handled slightly different through the 'Messages' App instead.

    Unfortunately, as The Sims FreePlay, we're unable to make any changes to bring back how GC used to work previously due to it being a iOS update related thing.
    Community Engagement Manager - The Sims FreePlay + The Sims Mobile - Firemonkeys and Maxis
  • ErpeErpe Posts: 5,872 Member
    Hey @GeekyAngelGirl!

    iOS 10 certainly brought in some changes however Game Center as a whole has not been removed :) What iOS 10 has done is remove the dedicated Game Center application, and instead friend requests are handled slightly different through the 'Messages' App instead.

    Unfortunately, as The Sims FreePlay, we're unable to make any changes to bring back how GC used to work previously due to it being a iOS update related thing.
    According to http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/06/20/inside-ios-10-with-game-center-app-gone-invites-are-managed-by-messages it seems that the game itself now should handle this.

    I can't test it myself because one of my other games warned us not to upgrade to iOS 10 because it will take some time for them to make their game compatible to iOS 10 and they can't say when it will be. So I have to just wait.
  • Jerseygrl1Jerseygrl1 Posts: 1 New Member
    Hello, needing neighbors on Sims FreePlay, please add me thru Facebook messenger, Kelly WorthIt Roberson
    Thanks all
  • Bruiah5Bruiah5 Posts: 4 New Member
    Looking for some new neighbors for my town. I am new to the game, Please add me.
  • ThelastnickyThelastnicky Posts: 3 New Member
    Basically @GeekyAngelGirl and @Erpe what they are saying is that they aren't going to make an update to help us. (Typical of sims since EA bought/ruined the series, but that's a whole other rant)
    If you read through the technical description below, I will offer a possible workaround for this.


    Technically this is the issue. Most games that allow social interaction through Game Center(GC) handle requesting friends in the app. This bypasses the need for users to actually use the GC app. This is why apple made the update they did.
    Sims FreePlay on the other hand handles it in a lazy way. It simply checks your existing GC friends list to see if anyone else plays Sims FreePlay and then adding those people to your party boat. You can't proactively socialize within the app.

    My suggestion is this, try finding another app (one that cares about its users) that uses Game Center, and add people using that. This will get them on your GC friends list, then perhaps they will show up on your Sims party boat.
    I will update if I have success or failure trying this. It would require an extraordinary amount of work, but if you are dedicated (like my wife) and know people IRL this might work.
  • ErpeErpe Posts: 5,872 Member
    @Thelastnicky It isn't just EA who doesn't update their games to make it possible to add Game Center friends. It seems that almost no other game company does it either. People who play Supercell games (like Hay Day) are even more desperate and many iOS gamers are so angry that they won't by any iOS device again if Apple doesn't give them the Game Center app back. I personally agree and will also consider to buy an android device instead next time. (I suspect that Apple made some agreement with Facebook about removing the Game Center app to help Facebook.)
  • ThelastnickyThelastnicky Posts: 3 New Member
    @Erpe
    I just spent a couple of hours working with two separate devices and found two things.
    1) There is at least one other game (happy street) who has used the tools that apple provides developers to help with the transition that Apple warned developers was coming. Happy Street supports long term friends through GC.
    There were several games that supported real-time multiplayer but I made sure to find one that supported a "sims-like" relationship between users.
    2) Even after becoming friends on this game, the other GC user doesn't appear in your party boat.
    I assumed this was going to be the case given the issues reported with losing existing GC friends.

    In summation without a patch from EA, we are boned.

    I sure hope you aren't suggesting supercell cares about their users.
  • ErpeErpe Posts: 5,872 Member
    @Erpe
    I just spent a couple of hours working with two separate devices and found two things.
    1) There is at least one other game (happy street) who has used the tools that apple provides developers to help with the transition that Apple warned developers was coming. Happy Street supports long term friends through GC.
    There were several games that supported real-time multiplayer but I made sure to find one that supported a "sims-like" relationship between users.
    2) Even after becoming friends on this game, the other GC user doesn't appear in your party boat.
    I assumed this was going to be the case given the issues reported with losing existing GC friends.

    In summation without a patch from EA, we are boned.

    I sure hope you aren't suggesting supercell cares about their users.
    See https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7677558?start=0&tstart=0 and expand everything such that you can see all the (hidden) comments too.
    See also https://www.reddit.com/r/ClashRoyale/comments/54mt5s/ask_game_center_friends_ios_10/

    All game companies care about their users. But only if it pays for them. So unless Facebook is paying them to force their users to only add friends through Facebook I don't believe that they want to avoid purchases from users who don't have Facebook.

    The problem is that the Game Center isn't really usable anymore without the app and Apple has also removed the option to add or remove individual friends for iOS 9 users although they still have the app. The only options now seem to be to add nearby friends as a group or to remove all current Game Center friends at the same time. So it is Apple who doesn't want us to be able to add individual friends anymore or to be able to just remove inactive friends like we could earlier. Apple apparently wants to either force us to use Facebook or to only add nearby friends through iMessage. So people who don't like to give their personal information to everybody alas now have no other option than to just avoid iOS devices for their gaming.
  • ThelastnickyThelastnicky Posts: 3 New Member
    As I just explained Game Center is very much still useable through many many apps...

    As you explained if the game takes in enough money through their social features they will make the change. If not, sucks for us.

    Apple made the change after years of people telling them how much that system sucked. As much as I also don't like the change, the fact is you, I, and all the other nerds ranting in forums about this are in the minority.

    As for your little conspiracy theory.....
    As I said, Apple warned the developers of App Store products that the change was coming. They even did the coding legwork so that most games didn't even require a patch. They even created app developer tools for the future to make this transition as smoothe as possible.

    You really don't need to worry about Apple and Facebook, Google is the one who will rule the world.
  • ErpeErpe Posts: 5,872 Member
    @Thelastnicky You should read the long discussion on https://forum.supercell.com/showthread.php/1265375-Game-Center-and-iOS-10/page7 People don't like the changes at all and they even expect the Game Center soon to disappear for good because it now doesn't really have any purpose. We can keep our old Game Center friends. But we can't add new friends and we can't see what our old friends are playing anymore. So what purpose does the Game Center have now?
  • Lovees49Lovees49 Posts: 1 New Member
    Need to find some one with mirror leave name thanks alot
  • Armasimel22Armasimel22 Posts: 1 New Member
    Okay so I recently downloaded Freeplay and I don’t know how to add any friends since the game center no longer exists. Does anyone know how to do it through iMessage? I had to delete my facebook because it was hacked and I have no desire to create a new account. Any help?
  • ErpeErpe Posts: 5,872 Member
    Okay so I recently downloaded Freeplay and I don’t know how to add any friends since the game center no longer exists. Does anyone know how to do it through iMessage? I had to delete my facebook because it was hacked and I have no desire to create a new account. Any help?
    Fortunately I got my Game Center friends before Apple removed the app. So I still have them. But now we only can get new friends by connecting the game to Facebook.

    It is even worse on Android because there we lost all our Google+ friends when the game stopped supporting Google+ because Google made some changes. But on iOS we at least kept our old Game Center friends.

    As far as I know the game doesn’t support the creation of new Game Center friends by using iMessage.
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