But what will mobile games acquisition mean for OpenFeint and Scoreloop?
Google has bought social mobile games developer SocialDeck for an undisclosed amount.
The news was revealed by SocialDeck on its website:
"We're super excited to announce that someone found our social games as fun as you have - in this case, that 'someone' is Google," explains a posting on the company's homepage.
"SocialDeck has been acquired and we've joined the Google team."
SocialDeck has four mobile games currently available for iPhone: Pet Hero MD, Shake & Spell, Shake & Spell 3D and Color Connect. Shake & Spell is also available on BlackBerry and Facebook.
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However, the significance of the acquisition may well be in another SocialDeck product called Spark.
It's a social gaming platform offering chat, game lobbies, leaderboards, Twitter and Facebook promotion, friend lists and cross-game promotion:
That's right: Google just bought an equivalent to Apple's Game Center, or independent platforms like Scoreloop and OpenFeint.
While Spark currently works across iPhone, BlackBerry and Facebook, it could well be relaunched as the basis for an Android and online-focused social gaming network.
If so, that will have potentially worrying implications for companies like Scoreloop and Aurora Feint, who have moved apace into Android following the announcement of Game Center.
Here's a demo of Spark in action:
