AT&T social gaming platform coming to Android phones

Ever since Apple opened up its iPhone to Verizon customers, AT&T has been pouting over its loss of exclusivity through scathing ad campaigns. The carrier hopes to restore some of that with a new project in conjunction with mobile social games network OpenFeint. According to Social Times, this new mobile social games network will be exclusive to Android phones and appears to be a direct competitor with Apple's Game Center for iOS.

OpenFeint is available on both Android and iOS with over 65 million registered players across 4,500 games. An AT&T spokeswoman told Social Times, "The net-net here is that we want developers to build more connected games for our customers." In other words, AT&T wants to scrounge up some level of exclusivity with a platform ... any platform. Will it do any better than Game Center has for iPhones? Isn't "How will AT&T will cope with iPhone 'Big Love'?" a more pressing question?

Zynga, well, drops Drop7 Free on iOS, ad-free $2.99 version available

Since Zynga acquired NewToy in late 2010, the developer behind Words with Friends, it has been serious about mobile gaming. This is the company's next major release, and its not FrontierVille Mobile--it's Drop7. Both a color and number-matching puzzler, Drop7 lives in a strange world where Tetris and Bejeweled are just best friends. The game features three difficulty levels, public leader boards and automatically saves your state when closed through the Home button. The free version, of course, contains ads, though the company offers an ad-free version for $2.99. Does this mean a future in original, (possibly non-social) mobile games from Zynga? If that depends on this critically-acclaimed title, then yes, most likely.

[Image Credit: iTunes; Zynga]

Have you played Drop7 on your iOS device yet? What do you think about Zynga's mobile efforts thus far?